FOI-01376

Thank you for your request for information about the following:

1) The average pension award for GPs and consultants in
(i) Each of the last 10 tax year years

(b) Awards made in the part tax year since April 2023

(c) What proportion of these of these awards were subject to the LTA

(d) What the average LTA reduction was in each year

(e) For each of the above please include the data by sex (male and female)

(f) Please include the average 1995 service (in years) also broken down by sex

Your response was clarified as follows:

1) In regards to hospital consultants and GPs is it possible to break them down as the following groups. My understanding is that the "specialist" is what is used for the data regarding "consultants" on retirements in the DDRB reports.

    03 - Medical doctor 2 - Non-specialist
    03 - Medical doctor 3 - Specialist
    03 - Medical doctor 5 - Principal Practitioner
    03 - Medical doctor 6 - Assistant Practitioner
    03 - Medical doctor 9 - GP Locum

Group 3 should correctly denote "consultants" and group 2 "non-specialist" should denote other grades of hospital doctors.

2+3) In regards to the LTA if you can give the capital value for the total award (pension and TFLS)s and the value of the pension awards in each tax year for those which were affected by the LTA, then I can derive what the reduction was.

4) It was the service in years that I am interested in so if you are able to give years for those with 1995 awards, and reckonable service in years for 2008 that would be great so there are not zeroes which skew the average unfairly.

Then this was clarified with:

1)            The average pension award for GPs and consultants in (a) Each of the last 10 financial years, (b) Awards made in the part financial year since April 2023. Use capacity code and employment type groupings. [You subsequently clarified that you did not need the average as this can be calculated from the raw data]

2)            The capital value of the awards that were subject to the LTA

3)            What the average pension L/S amounts in each year

4)            For each of the above please include the data by sex (male and female) 

5)            Please include the average 1995 service (calendar service in years) also broken down by sex....It was the service in years that I am interested in so if you are able to give years for those with 1995 awards, and reckonable service in years for 2008 that would be great so there are not zeroes which skew the average unfairly.

6)            Age at payable date of pension

Age is obviously central to the data and analysis - can I suggest at the extremes of age where the numbers are low per age group (maybe less than 3 per age year) these can be grouped and a mean given

So for example it might be for example in the commoner ages ie 54 to 65 ages are given as there are >3 per group so these are fine, but the extremes can be grouped and a mean value given for the extremes group so still allowing analysis.

Your clarified request was received on 4 September 2023 and I am dealing with it under the terms of the Freedom of Information Act 2000.

##Response

We do not hold figures for Lifetime Allowance reductions. You have confirmed that with the raw data we are providing, you can perform a calculation yourself however NHSBSA have not verified the results of this and therefore cannot take responsibility for it. 

A copy of the data is attached. Please note, where members have membership in multiple sections or schemes, the earliest claim for each section or scheme made by the member has been assessed. Members may be listed up to 3 times if claiming from multiple schemes. When calculating averages at a member level, the amounts will need to be grouped by unique identifiers in column A.

Please read the notes below to ensure correct understanding of the data.

* The FinancialYearEnd in column G is based on the payable date of the award; this isn’t necessarily the date the claim was made or put into payment
* The earliest LTA information we hold for each scheme has been identified and provided where possible; this is to prevent double counting of records where multiple sets of revised LTA information is present.
* Calendar service has been calculated by scheme based on the employment dates we hold; it does not factor in any disallowed days or transferred in service, which may not be held in the service tables. 
* Pension and Lump Sum amounts are the initial payments put into payment, without Pension Increase added in after the payable date. It does not reflect what the pensioner is in receipt of today, or even if they are in receipt of it today. Not every pensioner receives an annual pension and/or a lump sum. For example, some members may have commuted their pension benefits into one payment.
* Tax Year runs from 6 April to 5 April the following year – this is different to how we operate in scheme years (1 April to 31 March following year). The data is provided in scheme years.
* From 06 April 2023 lifetime allowance tax charges are not being applied in lieu of the legislative changes due to take place in 2024.

###Explanation of columns:

A - UniqueID – A random unique ID assigned to each member

B - Gender – Gender of pension member

C - AgeAtPayable – Age at retirement Payable date of benefits (may not be retirement date)

D - CapacityCode- Historic grouping code to identify types of member. 3 relates to medical staff (Doctors and Practitioners)

E - EmploymentType -

    Medical doctor 2 - Non-specialist
    Medical doctor 3 - Specialist
    Medical doctor 5 - Principal Practitioner
    Medical doctor 6 - Assistant Practitioner
    Medical doctor 9 - GP Locum      

F - Scheme – The scheme the member is in has claimed benefits from (members can claim multiple benefits from multiple schemes)

G - FinancialYearEnd - Financial year that they retired in the benefits were payable from

H - PensionCapital – Annual Pension Capital Value

I - LumpSumCapital - Lump Sum Capital Value 

J - PensionInitial - Value of initial annual pension

K - LumpSumInitial - Value of initial lump sum 

L - CalServiceForScheme (years) – The number of calendar years the member has in the respective scheme

###Fewer Than 3 Pension Members

Volumes of members who fall into the same category have been grouped as ‘< 3’

Please be aware that I have decided not to release the data where the total volume of Pension members falls below 3, including when grouped. This is based on combining Gender; Age at Payable Date; Capacity Code; Employment Type; Scheme; and Financial Year End. This is because individual members could be identified, when combined with other information that may be in the public domain or reasonably available.

This information falls under the exemption in section 40 subsections 2 and 3A (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 Pension members’ personal details to the world and is likely to cause damage or distress.

b) these details are not of sufficient interest to the public to warrant an intrusion into their privacy.

Please click the below web link to see the exemption in full.

https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2000/36/section/40

###Breach of staff confidentiality

Please note that the identification of Pension members is also a breach of the common law duty of confidence.  A member who has been identified could make a claim against the NHSBSA or yourself for the disclosure of the confidential information.

The information requested is therefore being withheld as it falls under the exemption in section 41(1) ‘Information provided in confidence’ of the Freedom of Information Act. 

Please click the below web link to see the exemption in full.

https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2000/36/section/41 

##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, NHS Pensions
Organization: Freedom of Information Disclosure Log