FOI-03806

Thank you for your request for information about the following: 

##Request 

<p><i>‘I understand that once member has applied for their pension the award is calculated and NHS BSA write to the member to confirm the award.</i></p>

<p><i>Please would you let me have:</i></p>

<p><i>- the average time from pension application to the award confirmation letter being sent.</i></p>

<p><i>- the longest time from pension application to the award confirmation letter being sent.</i></p>

<p><i>- any targets, standards or guidance on what this timescale should be.’</i></p>

The NHS Business Services Authority (NHSBSA) received your request on 9 May 2026.  

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. 

__Question 1 - the average time from pension application to the award confirmation letter being sent__

__Question 2 - the longest time from pension application to the award confirmation letter being sent__

We have considered this 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.  

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. 

To ensure the highest level of data quality, NHS Pensions would need to manually interrogate each record.  

There are 81,692 awards in scope for this FOI for the time period requested and we estimate it would take 5 minutes to review each case.   

81,692 x 5 minutes = 408,460 minutes (6,807 hours). 

Please see the following link to view the section 12 in full - https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2000/36/section/12.   

The vast majority of cases are completed within one month of the AW8P being received or within 30 days of all information being received. 

__Question 3 - any targets, standards or guidance on what this timescale should be__

We have 30 days to process a case upon receipt of all full and final pieces of information that we need to process a member's application. 

We recently created a YouTube walk through guide to ensure more applications reach us in good order: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qlBWU3dpmRk 

You can also view the current processing times on our website: 

https://www.nhsbsa.nhs.uk/current-processing-times-nhs-pensions 

__Data Queries__

Please contact <a href=mailto:foirequests@nhsbsa.nhs.uk>foirequests@nhsbsa.nhs.uk</a> 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 <a href=mailto:communicationsteam@nhsbsa.nhs.uk>communicationsteam@nhsbsa.nhs.uk</a>. 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 2026”. 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: Awards, NHS Pensions
Organization: Freedom of Information Disclosure Log