D Spratt
Information Governance
Stella House, Goldcrest Way
Newburn Riverside
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx.xxx
Newcastle Upon Tyne
NE15 8NY
Our ref:
6621
Tel: 0191 2035352
Fax: 0191 2645281
Email: xxxxxx.xxxxxxxxxxx@xxx.xxx
Website: www.nhsbsa.nhs.uk
Date: 17 January 2017
Dear D Spratt,
Freedom of information request
I am writing regarding your request for information, which I received on 16 December
2016. In that request, you asked us for the following:
‘Please provide copies of all correspondence, communications, emails, telephone notes,
documents, and on-line data, between the NHSBSA and the North Middlesex University
Hospital NHS Trust (NMUH) between April 2013 and March 2016, in respect of payroll
errors and corrections, problems with data quality, incomplete/inaccurate information or
late submission of data, and any other payroll matters which NHSBSA had to take
corrective action or educate NMUH over.
Please provide the same categories of information as detailed above that were shared
between NHSBA and NMUH’s payroll provider, Equiniti.
This is not a request for any confidential information on individual employees. I simply
require non confidential (if necessary, anonymised) information regarding:-
• Payroll
errors
• Payroll
corrections
•
Problems with data quality
•
Incomplete information
• Inaccurate
information
•
Late submission of data
•
Other payroll matters which NHSBSA had to take corrective action on or educate
NMUH over.’
I can confirm that the NHS Business Services Authority (NHSBSA) holds information
meeting the description specified in your request.
Number of Late/Non-Payments
The NHSBSA’s finance team has confirmed that for the time period quoted in your
request, the particular trust in question did not have any late or non-payments.
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Correspondence
Enquiries could be sent to North Middlesex University Hospital NHS Trust (NMUH) from
any team within NHS Pensions if information was required for any transaction.
E-mails or communications are not held centrally or by employer. Any communication with
NMUH to query inaccurate or incomplete data (or other relevant information) would be
held on the individual member EDM record.
This would mean that to respond to this FOI we would need to visit the individual record for
all members with a period of employment with NMUH between April 2013 and March 2016
and review all communication to assess if this was with NMUH and if the reason for the
query was within the remit requested above. We would then have to collate and
anonymise the data.
We have run a query and identified 4384 members with an employment between 1 April
2013 & 31 March 2016. I estimate the time that this would take as follows;
Average time per
Hours required
member
10 minutes
730
15 minutes
1096
20 minutes
1461
As you can see, even with a conservative estimate of 10 minutes per member, it would
greatly exceed 18 hours to determine if we hold the information, then locate, retrieve and
extract the information if it is held.
Data errors and non-updated records are reported to employers through employer error
handling in Pensions Online and employers are expected to monitor and resolve the data
errors allocated to them. The Management Information available on data is limited and we
only have the volume of errors on hand at any given point in time, by employer (i.e. errors
on hand at 07/04/13 = 181, at 06/04/14 = 212 ) but we do not know how many have been
cleared and how many are new errors created in the period. We can also give the split
between employer allocated and NHS allocated however, not all data errors reported are
due to incorrect data, they may just require a check on member status, eligibility etc or be
something the employer could not have avoided such as an overlap with another
employer.
Again, the only way to identify communication with NMUH over data errors is through the
individual EDM records.
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.
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You may wish to request this information directly from NMUH, who will only hold pension
information about its own staff. They can be contacted at the following e-mail address:
xxxxxx.xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx@xxx.xxx
Please note that your request and our decision will be published on our Freedom of
Information disclosure log at:
https://apps.nhsbsa.nhs.uk/FOI/foiRequestDetail.do?bo_id=6621
Your personal details will be removed from the published response.
If you are unhappy with the service you have received in relation to your request and wish
to make a complaint or request a review of my decision, please write within 6 months of
the date of this letter to:
Chris Gooday
Information Governance Manager
NHS Business Services Authority
Stella House
Goldcrest Way
Newburn Riverside Business Park
Newcastle upon Tyne
NE15 8NY
Details of how we will handle your review request are available on our website at:
http://www.nhsbsa.nhs.uk/Documents/NHSBSACorporatePoliciesandProcedures/DPRe-
usePSIEIRandFOIInternalReview.pdf
If you are not content with the outcome of your complaint, you may apply directly to the
Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) for a decision. Please note that generally, the
ICO cannot make a decision unless you have exhausted the NHSBSA’s complaints.
The Information Commissioner can be contacted at:
Information Commissioner’s Office
Wycliffe House
Water Lane
Wilmslow
Cheshire
SK9 5AF
Tel: 01625 545 745
Fax: 01625 524 510
Email: xxxxxxxxx@xxx.xxx.xxx.xx
If you have any queries about this letter, please contact me. Please quote the reference
number above in any future communications.
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Yours sincerely
Chris Dunn
Information Governance Assistant
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