Thank you for your request for information about the following:

Request

how many complaints have the pensions department received ?can this be broken down for each year

How many staff have had to repay overpayments, due to calculations errors?

How many staff have alerted the pension services about inaccurate payments , which have been confirmed ? Highlighted issues before this has been raised by the pensions department

How may staff have received financial compensation -due to overpayments ?

If so , what is the average payment to staff

how much the overpayments have totalled over the period?

The NHS Business Services Authority (NHSBSA) received your request on 6 June 2025.

On the 27 June 2025 you clarified your request as follows:

Can you please clarify which areas of overpayments your request is in relation to? Is this all payments made by NHS Pensions (NHSP)? Or is this in relation to a specific area such as Pensions in payment, Bereavement, Dependents allowance, Refunds, Transfers out etc?

This is regarding lump sum pension payments to NHS staff

Can you please clarify what “inaccurate payments” means?

Inaccurate payments refers to a payment which resulted in you requesting funds back from an individual- due to an overpayment by the pension department on lump sums and monthly pension payments

Is this in relation to pensions paid by NHSP post-retirement (or refunds/transfers etc as above), or other “payments” such as contributions paid by members that they may feel are incorrect?

Pensions paid refer to the lump sum payment and subsequent monthly payments

Can you please clarify what is meant by staff? Does this refer to internal NHSP staff/employers? Or Scheme members/pensioners?

In regards to staff - errors by NHSP staff errors

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

Our response

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

Please read the below notes to ensure correct understanding of the data.

Question one: how many complaints have the pensions department received? Can this be broken down for each year

A copy of the data is attached.

Question two: how many staff have had to repay overpayments, due to calculations errors?

Please be advised that overpayments can happen due to a variety of different factors as a normal part of the administration and processing of a member’s pension.  For example, any changes to pay or service after submission of the first award will result in a revised award and a subsequent over or under payment. This is not the result of a calculation error.

One of the most common causes of an overpayment is where a pensioner has died, and the pension remains in payment until we receive notification of the death.

To provide data about the number of NHS Pension Scheme members who have needed to repay an overpayment due to a calculation error, we would have to carry out a manual interrogation of each record. We therefore estimate that the cost of compliance with the request would exceed the appropriate limit under section 12 of the FOIA.

The cost of compliance for 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.

I can confirm that 18,558 Scheme members have been asked to repay an overpayment. It would take approximately 5 minutes to review each record to determine if they were calculation errors or revisions made due to changes made by the Employing Authority post-retirement. Consequently, we estimate it would take 1,546.5 hours to comply with the request.

In accordance with the duty to advise and assist under section 16 of the FOIA 2000, please be advised that it is not possible to refine your request within the appropriate limit set out above.

Question 3: how many staff have alerted the pension services about inaccurate payments, which have been confirmed? Highlighted issues before this has been raised by the pensions department

In order to ascertain the reason for this we would need to manually interrogate each case. We therefore estimate that the cost of compliance with the request would exceed the appropriate limit under section 12 of the FOIA.

24,939 members have had a revision to their payments during this period. Each record would need to be reviewed to determine if the member alerted the NHS Pension Service about inaccurate payments. It would take approximately 5 minutes to review each record to overpayment cause. Consequently, we estimate it would take 2,078.25 hours to comply with the request.

Please be advised that it is not possible to refine your request within the appropriate limit set out above.

Question four: how may staff have received financial compensation due to overpayments?

If so, what is the average payment to staff

We have paid 582 ex-gratia* payments to NHS Pension Scheme members. It is not possible to determine whether, or how many of these ex-gratia payments are related to overpayments. This is because compliance with the request would exceed the appropriate limit under section 12 of the FOIA.

It would take 3 minutes to investigate each 582 ex-gratia payment case. Consequently, taking approximately 29.1 hours to comply with the request.

Please be advised that it is not possible to refine your request within the appropriate limit set out above.

*To confirm, an ex-gratia payment could be:

financial, for example where a member has incurred costs where they wouldn’t normally have done so

non-financial, for example where we have made a mistake which has caused a member distress and inconvenience.

We can also be directed to make an award for non-financial injustice causing distress and inconvenience as a result of a Determination by The Pensions Ombudsman (TPO) where a complaint is upheld against us.

Question 5: how much the overpayments have totalled over the period?

The net overpayments total is £159,765,218.81 for the period requested. This includes all Revisions to Scheme entitlement and any monies paid after death. 

NHSBSA has a legal right to enforce recovery. We write to anyone who receives an overpayment of this type to explain the situation as sensitively as possible and provide information about how to repay. In the letter we therefore provide contact information so that anyone with concerns or questions can talk to us for further support.

We’re committed to working with anyone who receives an overpayment to agree a repayment plan based on their personal circumstances. We will try to make contact in writing on three separate occasions. In some cases, we need to carry out further investigations, for example if we are unable to make contact after three initial attempts in writing. As administrators of one of the largest public sector pension schemes, the NHSBSA has a responsibility to the taxpayer to recover overpayments where possible. We acknowledge that recovery may not always be possible in all circumstances.

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 2025”. 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.