Request

Scheme Pays Election (SPE) applications should be acknowledged by NHS pensions to the scheme holder and, if applicable, the nominated agent who submitted the application.

Under FoI I would like to know for each of the three tax years of 2018/19, 2019/20 and 2020/21:

a) how many SPEs were made ?

b) how many of those SPEs did NHS pensions fail to acknowledge (acceptance or rejection notification) within the tax year in which the SPE was submitted ?

The NHS Business Services Authority (NHSBSA) received your request on 4 November 2024.

We have handled your request under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) 2000.

Our response

2019/20 and 2020/21 Tax Years

I can confirm that the NHSBSA holds the information you have requested and a copy of the information and notes explaining it is attached.

Please read the below notes to ensure correct understanding of the data. Volumes include both accepted and rejected applications.

All applications are acknowledged upon completion. The date of application may not relate to the year in which scheme pays are being applied for, nor is it expected that all cases will be completed within the same scheme year; i.e. an application received on 31st March maybe completed on 1st April.

Members with multiple applications are counted once, for each year in which they made an application.

2018/19 Tax Year

We have considered this part of your request under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA) and are issuing a refusal notice under section 17 of the FOIA.

The NHSBSA does hold the requested information; however, we estimate that the cost of compliance with the request would exceed the appropriate limit under section 12 of the FOIA. Due to a change in our case management system, information prior to 2019 is not held in a format which allows a quick automated report to be generated. The requested information is not needed to manage pensions or process the scheme pays application; to locate the information you have requested would require a manual interrogation of pension records.

We estimate that the cost of complying with your request would exceed the non-central Government limit of £450. The limit has been specified in The Freedom of Information and Data Protection (Appropriate Limit and Fees) Regulations 2004 and represents the estimated cost of one person spending 18 hours in determining whether the NHSBSA holds the information, and locating, retrieving, extracting and checking the information.

Please see the following calculations which sets out the estimated cost for compliance with this request:

Up to 4.6 million pension records could potentially have submitted a scheme pays application in the 2018/19 tax year; even by limiting this to members most likely to have submitted an application gives over 20,000 records to search.

Each record would take approximately 5 to 10 minutes to complete – this would equate to (5 x 20,000) / 60 = 1,667 hours’ worth of searching at a minimum.

Please be advised that due to the way that the information is held by the NHSBSA, it is not possible to submit a refined request under the appropriate limit.

Please see the following link to view the section 12 in full - https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2000/36/section/12

Data Queries

Please contact foirequests@nhsbsa.nhs.uk ensuring you quote the above reference if you have any specific questions regarding this response; or, if you feel you may be misunderstanding or misinterpreting the information; or, if you plan on publishing the data.

Reusing the data and copyright

If you plan on producing a press or broadcast story based upon the data please contact communicationsteam@nhsbsa.nhs.uk. This is important to ensure that the figures are not misunderstood or misrepresented.

The information supplied to you continues to be protected by the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 and is subject to NHSBSA copyright. This information is licenced under the terms of the Open Government Licence detailed at:

http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence/version/3/

Should you wish to re-use the information you must include the following statement: “NHSBSA Copyright 2024” Failure to do so is a breach of the terms of the licence.

Information you receive which is not subject to NHSBSA Copyright continues to be protected by the copyright of the person, or organisation, from which the information originated. Please obtain their permission before reproducing any third party (non NHSBSA Copyright) information.