Thank you for your request for information about the following:

‘Please provide me with the numbers of NHS Pensioners where NHS Pensions has used a Reckonable Pay to calculate a members Pension that is less than either or all of the actual salary used in the calculation and or less than the three consecutive years in the last 10 years of employment and or the Reckonable Pay derived from this NHS Pensions statement the average of the best three consecutive years pensionable pay in the last ten

[On 15 March 2023 you clarified your request as follows]

I have requested the number of people, in the 2008 scheme, where the Reckonable Pay used to calculate their Pension is less than:

The Pension Benefit Statement(s) issued to them on one or more occasions

The actual salary paid for the year that the Reckonable Salary is based on

The actual salary paid for each or at least one of the three years that are the best three consecutive years in the last 10 years from which the Reckonable pay should be based

The average, therefore Reckonable Pay, from the three years that are the best three consecutive years in the last 10 years

[On 12 April 2023 you clarified your request as follows]

The requirement is to include all NHS Pensioners in the 2008 scheme hence the time frame is all the years of the 2008 scheme

Affected is a request for the number of NHS Pensioners where their Reckonable pay is less than

A number of Pension Benefit Statements that they have received

Their salary for the year on on which their Pension (Reckonable Pay) has been based

One or more of their best three consecutive years in the last 10

Their Reckonable Pay based on the best three consecutive years in the last 10 years’

Your request was received on 19 February 2023, with clarification received on 15 March 2023 and 12 April 2023, and I am dealing with it under the terms of the Freedom of Information Act 2000.

Response

There are 62,117 pensioners within the 2008 section of the Scheme. In order to provide the information requested we would need to manually interrogate each one of these cases to check the relevant documentation and then produce manual comparison calculations against the data on the member record. We estimate that this would take approximately 30 minutes per case.

62,117 x 30 minutes = 31,059 hours

Therefore, I 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 and extracting the information. Under Section 12 of the Freedom of Information Act, the NHSBSA is not obliged to comply with your request and I will not be processing your request further as it currently stands.

Data Queries

If you have any queries regarding the data provided, or if you plan on publishing the data please contact nhsbsa.foirequests@nhs.net ensuring you quote the above reference. This is important to ensure that the figures are not misunderstood or misrepresented.

If you plan on producing a press or broadcast story based upon the data please contact nhsbsa.communicationsteam@nhs.net. 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 2022” This information is licenced under the terms of the Open Government Licence:

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

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.