FOI-01749

Thank you for your request for information about the following:

Question 1

Let me know who is your pension scheme administrator – is it outsourced? If so to whom? 

Question 2

Please tell me what data you use to monitor the performance of your retirement processing. In particular I expect to see end-to-end process lead times, error rates, staffing levels and rates for both incoming complaints and complaint resolution. If you set targets for these items, please send those too. 

Question 3

Please send me the results of these data items over the last 2 years in a format that allows trend analysis (i.e. to assess I there are trend improvements or deteriorations).

Question 4

Your board minutes of August 23 mention a “Quality Assurance KPI” which was surprisingly exceeded through out the quarter. Please send me the last 2 yrs results for this KPI and the target against which it is assessed. It is also surprising that the KPI is referred to in the singular. Please send me the same data on any other KPIs which you use to assess process performance, either generally or in the retirement process in particular.

Question 5

I suspect that the overall performance of your management is poor, and would like to see any data you have on process performance over the last 2 years (so I can see trends over time). This should include elapse times for the retirement process, error rates, staffing levels and numbers or rates of complaints. This is an official request under the Freedom of information act 2000.  

Question 6

I would like a copy of your management structure chart so I know who is responsible for what. In particular who do the Trustees hold accountable for the performance of your Retirement processes at a senior level. This is also an official request under the Freedom of information act 2000. 

Your request was received on 19 April 2023, and I am dealing with it under the terms of the Freedom of Information Act 2000.

Questions 5 and 6 were from FOI-01728 which was merged with FOI-01749 on 22 February 2024.

Clarification relating to questions 2 to 5 was received on 6 March, and I have summarised this below:

Question 2

Both please [formal and informal complaints], shown separately. Also data on how many complaints end up with the Ombudsman would be useful. Again all results should be shown categorised by time (whether weekly or monthly) so I can see trends over time. This should not be too onerous as your management should be interested in this and monitoring it routinely.

Question 3

As a minimum you can send me quarterly data.

I'm just interested in the processing of initial retirement claims (i.e. following the submission of an AW8) not routine monthly payments.

Question 4

I'm just interested in the processing of initial retirement claims (i.e. following the submission of an AW8) not routine monthly payments.

Question 5

Specifically what I want to see (and what your management should monitor) is:

a)	Average elapse time from the receipt of a first AW8 to the successful closure of a retirement claim (i.e. after all errors have been reworked). The average could be collated daily, weekly or monthly but should be frequent enough to show time trends so your management can identify if things are getting better or worse. This is called an end-to-end process metric and will best reflect your customers' experience. I am not generally interested in things like initial response times to communications (e.g. holding letters) or compliance against service standards unless they reflect customer experience.

b)	Average rates of error in processing could be measured in a variety of ways depending on your MI systems. So for example you may measure time spent by staff on activities and categorise it into say "basic work" and "rework". Or you may have error rates, say on calculations i.e. "how often did we need to calculate retirement benefits until we got it right?" I'm conscious a lot of rework is also inflicted on you by errors in the contribution record from employers, so I'd be interested in any metrics you have on the errors you find in the contribution record and what the impact is on your workloads; again time trend data would be best to demonstrate if it's getting better or worse.

c)	Metrics on staffing levels should be easy - something to show if you have enough staff (e.g. unfulfilled vacancies over time) and if they are overworked (e.g. overtime records, staff sickness, staff satisfaction surveys)

d)	On complaints again this should be easy. You should have standard Management Information (MI) on what proportion of retirements give rise to complaints, and how long it takes to resolve them. Again time trend data is important.

I am referring to the end-to-end processing of a new retirement claim i.e. receipt of first AW8 to the successful closure of a retirement claim.

##Response

A copy of the requested information is attached. 

Question 1

The NHSBSA administers the NHS Pension Scheme on behalf of the Department of Health and Social Care.

Questions 2, 3, 4, and 5

I’ve attached the data that is used to monitor the performance of retirement processing. This covers March 2022 to February 2024 and includes:

•	1st Awards – Volume Completed – the number of 1st Awards completed in the month

•	1st Awards – Average E2E (Calendar Days) – the average calendar days elapsed between Received Date and Completed Date for 1st Awards completed in the month

•	Complaints and IDRs for Awards Volume Completed – the number of (informal) Complaints and IDRs completed in the month that have been labelled as regarding a 1st Award

•	Average E2E (Calendar Days) of Above – the average calendar days elapsed between Received Date and Completed Date for (informal) Complaints and IDRs completed in the month which have been labelled as regarding a 1st Award

•	% of Complaints of Awards – the Complaints and IDRs for Awards Volume Completed divided by the 1st Awards – Volume Completed, expressed as a percentage

•	Pensions Ombudsman – total volume of determinations and opinions received in the month, whether upheld, not upheld, or upheld in part

•	Awards Quality – Fail – volume of Awards cases which were checked and passed

•	Awards Quality – Pass % - Awards Quality – Pass divided by (Awards Quality – Pass + Awards Quality – Fail), expressed as a percentage.

Please see the below notes to help explain the data:

•	E2E means end to end

•	IDR means internal dispute resolution

•	The Quality Assurance Key Performance Indicator (KPI) referenced in Board Minutes from August 2023 relates to all areas of pension administration. The data provided as part of this FOI response relates to awards only.

The target for providing a complaint response is 10 days, while the target for providing an IDR response is 40 working days.

The staffing level for pension administration is 490.72 whole time equivalent (WTE = 37.5 hours per week). Not all staff work in retirement processing and I’m not able to break this down into business areas

Question 6

As advised on 1 March 2024, the NHS Pension Scheme therefore does not have trustees, meaning we do not hold information relating to this.

I’ve attached a copy of our management structure.

I have decided not to release full details of all staff as this information falls under the exemption in Section 40 subsections 2 and 3(A)(a) of the Freedom of Information Act. 

This is because it would breach the first data protection principle as: 

a)  It is not fair to disclose these people’s personal details publicly and is likely to cause damage or distress to staff.
b) These details are not of sufficient interest to the public to warrant an intrusion into the privacy of those staff. 

Please click the below web link to see the exemption in full. 

https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2000/36/section/40  

Please note that this request and our response is published on our Freedom of Information disclosure log at:

https://opendata.nhsbsa.net/dataset/foi-01749 

Data Queries

If you have any queries regarding the data provided, or if you plan on publishing the data, please contact foirequests@nhsbsa.nhs.uk 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 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 2023” 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.

Tags: NHS Pension Scheme
Organization: Freedom of Information Disclosure Log