Errors in payroll information submitted to NHSBSA by NHS employers.

The request was partially successful.

Dear NHS Business Services Authority,

I am writing to make a Freedom of Information request under the Freedom of Information Act 2000.

Please send me:
1. The total number of NHS payroll providers who routinely provide payroll information to NHS Pensions, including any private payroll service providers who provide payroll services on behalf of NHS employers.
2. The error rate that NHS Pensions deems to be acceptable, i.e. errors in the payroll information supplied to it by the organisations included at 1.
3. The error rate that NHS Pensions deems to be unacceptable and which triggers action by NHSPA to ensure payroll providers submit correct information, i.e. errors in the payroll information supplied to it by the organisations included at 1.
4. The number of payroll providers at 1 who have a higher than expected error rate in the submission of payroll information to NHS Pensions.
5. The number of payroll providers at 1 to whom payroll information has been returned for additional checking, correcting, and confirmation.
6. The number of payroll providers at 1 against whom any form of corrective action has been taken (including education) by NHS Pensions, as per point 3.
7. The names of all organisations who fall into categories 4, 5, 6, or 7.

I request this information for each of the financial years 2013/2014 to 2014/2015, and 2015/2016.

If this request is too wide or unclear, I would be grateful if you could contact me as I understand that under the Act, you are required to advise and assist requesters. If any of this information is already in the public domain, please can you direct me to it, with page references and URLs if necessary?

If the release of any of this information is prohibited on the grounds of breach of confidence, I ask that you supply me with copies of the confidentiality agreement and remind you that information should not be treated as confidential if such an agreement has not been signed.
I understand that you are required to respond to my request within the 20 working days after you receive this letter. I would be grateful if you could confirm in writing to the email address provided above that you have received this request.

I look forward to hearing from you.

Yours faithfully,

D Spratt

FOIRequests Nhsbsa (NHS BUSINESS SERVICES AUTHORITY),

Thank you for your email

If your request relates to:

·         Your own personal information, or someone you legally
represent,then this will be processed as a Data Protection Subject Access
Request.  The request will be processed as detailed at
[1]http://www.nhsbsa.nhs.uk/DataProtection....

·         ‘Business as usual’ then this will be forwarded to the relevant
team who will contact you.  For example, you require an application form
or an NHS Pension estimate

·         You exercising a legal power relating to your organisation or
legal role then this will be responded to under the terms of that
legislation.

·         Anything else. This will be dealt with under the Freedom of
Information Act.  The request will be processed as shown at
[2]http://www.nhsbsa.nhs.uk/FreedomOfInform...

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FOIRequests Nhsbsa (NHS BUSINESS SERVICES AUTHORITY),

1 Attachment

Dear Mr Spratt

                  

I am writing regarding your request for information, which I received on
13 June 2016.  In that request, you asked us for the following:

 

‘I am writing to make a Freedom of Information request under the Freedom
of Information Act 2000.

 

Please send me:

1.         The total number of NHS payroll providers who routinely provide
payroll information to NHS Pensions, including any private payroll service
providers who provide payroll services on behalf of NHS employers.

2.         The error rate that NHS Pensions deems to be acceptable, i.e.
errors in the payroll information supplied to it by the organisations
included at 1.

3.         The error rate that NHS Pensions deems to be unacceptable and
which triggers action by NHSPA to ensure payroll providers submit correct
information, i.e. errors in the payroll information supplied to it by the
organisations included at 1.

4.         The number of payroll providers at 1 who have a higher than
expected error rate in the submission of payroll information to NHS
Pensions.

5.         The number of payroll providers at 1 to whom payroll
information has been returned for additional checking, correcting, and
confirmation.

6.         The number of payroll providers at 1 against whom any form of
corrective action has been taken (including education) by NHS Pensions, as
per point 3.

7.         The names of all organisations who fall into categories 4, 5,
6, or 7.

 

I request this information for each of the financial years 2013/2014 to
2014/2015, and 2015/2016.’

 

If this request is too wide or unclear, I would be grateful if you could
contact me as I understand that under the Act, you are required to advise
and assist requesters. If any of this information is already in the public
domain, please can you direct me to it, with page references and URLs if
necessary? If the release of any of this information is prohibited on the
grounds of breach of confidence, I ask that you supply me with copies of
the confidentiality agreement and remind you that information should not
be treated as confidential if such an agreement has not been signed. I
understand that you are required to respond to my request within the 20
working days after you receive this letter. I would be grateful if you
could confirm in writing to the email address provided above that you have
received this request. I look forward to hearing from you. Yours
faithfully,’

 

Questions 2 to 5

 

I am writing to advise you that following a search of our paper and
electronic records, I have established that the information you requested
is not held by the NHS Business Services Authority. Explanations have been
provided for each corresponding question.

 

2. We do not have an acceptable/unacceptable error rate.  All data is
subject to validation checks at the point of being updated to a member
record and when any pension event occurs and any inaccurate data or data
outside expected parameters is returned to the employer or queried by NHS
Pensions.

 

3. NHS Pensions continually review all data received  and contacts
employers on an individual basis where there are unexpected changes in
data quality, lack of response and failure to take preventative/corrective
action by an employer.

 

4. NHS Pensions does not have an expected error rate, meaning it is not
possible to provide an answer this question.

 

5. For the payroll providers that submit through POL, there are various
checks this submission goes through during the process, but this is before
the submission is complete so there isn’t a need to know how many times
something was mis-keyed etc before the correct submission was provided.
For the payments that are made into bank accounts and followed up with a
paper remittance advice, the only check carried out is the amount received
against amount on remittance advice.  Where there is a difference they are
dealt with and closed off in the month, and does not report stats as it is
not a requirement of the service.

 

Question 1

 

This information can be easily supplied. This will take approximately 15
minutes to locate, retrieve and extract the information.

 

Questions 6 and 7

 

Administrators on the teams follow an escalation process and work closely
with employers to correct and improve data.  We cannot provide the number,
as this is part of the administrators daily role and is only noted on the
individual member’s EDM record.  This would mean having to manually
interrogate 2,813,278 records in order to ascertain if this has been
noted.

 

It is estimated that it would take an average of 7 minutes per case for an
administrator to access a member record and read all notes from April 2013
to March 2016 to determine if data had been returned or corrective action
has been taken. This means it would take 328,215.7 hours to locate,
retrieve and extract the information.

 

Therefore, I estimate that the cost of complying with questions 1, 6 and 7
of your request would exceed the non-central Government limit of £450. The
limit has been specified in [1]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.

 

Based on the above estimate, we could review 152 cases in 17 hrs 45
minutes (the 18 hour limit, minus the 15 minutes it would take to provide
the information for question 1).

 

Please confirm that you are willing to reduce the scope of your request to
fit within the 18 hour appropriate limit as follows:

 

Question 1 (15 minutes)

Questions 6 and 7 (152 cases within 17 hours and 45 minutes)

 

If you do not require the reduced scope of questions 6 and 7 but would
still like an answer to question 1, please let me know.

 

Please note that if I do not receive appropriate clarification of your
information requirements within three months from the date of this letter,
then I will consider your request closed.

 

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 to:

 

Chris Gooday

Information Governance Manager

NHS Business Services Authority

1^st Floor

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:

 

[2]http://www.nhsbsa.nhs.uk/Documents/NHSBS...

 

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 NHS Business Services Authority’s complaints procedure.

 

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: [3][email address]

 

If you have any queries about this letter, please contact me.  Please
quote the reference number in the subject line in any future
communications.

 

 

Regards

 

Chris Dunn

Information Governance Assistant

Corporate Governance

Tel 0191 2035352

Internal tel 500 5352

Fax 0191 264 5281

[4]www.nhsbsa.nhs.uk

[5]Description: Description: Description: NHSBSA Header (356K)

Stella House, Goldcrest Way, Newburn Riverside Business Park, Newcastle
upon Tyne NE15 8NY

 

Please read our email disclaimer online at:
[6]http://www.nhsbsa.nhs.uk/email.

To reduce our environmental footprint, please only print when necessary.

 

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Dear NHS Business Services Authority (NHSBSA)

Thank you for your response to my Freedom of Information request of 13th June 2016.
I am shocked and disappointed that your response for the most part is simply a series of well rehearsed corporate excuses regarding the timescale and costs to supply the very basic information I requested, thereby in effect refusing to supply this information to me. Your response seemingly strives to find all and any possible reasons for not supplying all the information I requested.

It is incomprehensible that, as a very large public organisation working on behalf of the NHS, that you claim not to have IT systems that can undertake a few simple computer searches to extract the very basic information that I requested.

It appears from your response that the NHSBSA does not have any operational information standards or Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) for the quality of information received and held by the NHSBSA from all payroll providers who have submitted NHS payroll data to it. If I am wrong, please advise what operational information standards/KPIs the NHSBSA has for payroll information received from all payroll providers submitting NHS payroll data to the NHSBSA. The NHSBSA has a legal duty under the Data Protection Act (DPA) to ensure that all information that they hold on individual NHS pensioners/NHS pension members is correct, i.e. the information it receives and holds from all payroll providers. That the NHSBSA does not seem to have any information governance or KPIs in place to ensure that this key principle of the DPA is upheld is a potential breach of the DPA.

You appear to claim that the NHSBSA cannot easily identify each payroll provider along with their reported error rates against agreed standards re the pay roll data they supply to NHSBSA. This is a serious cause for concern and evidences a gross failure in NHSBSA information governance.

You state in your reply that the NHSBSA does not have a “acceptable/unacceptable error rate” ² and that NHSBSA “does not have an exceeded error rate”⁴. This totally contradicts what I have been previously advised in a recent letter from the NHS Pensions Agency, which advised me - “Where a payroll provider has a higher than expected error rate then NHS Pensions does take action to educate that provider to ensure that they send the correct information”. If NHSBSA does not actually have an “acceptable/unacceptable error rate” above which any corrective action is taken, then it would appear that I have previously been misled by the NHS Pension Agency.

You do however state at point 3 of your reply that “NHS Pensions continually reviews all data received and contacts employers on an individual basis where there are unexpected changes in data quality, lack of response, and failure to take protective/corrective action by an employer”. Would you please send me a list of names of any organisations contacted in this way for the reasons you have stated during the years 2013/2014, 2014/2015, and 2015.2016?

I am prepared to significantly reduce the scope of my initial request to the following information:-
Question 1 of my original request with the names of all organisations supplying payroll information to the NHSBSA along with the information that I have requested in the above paragraph. I trust that you will now respond positively to this revised information request which has a much reduced scope when compared with my original FOI request of 13th June 2016.

Yours sincerely,

D Spratt

FOIRequests Nhsbsa (NHS BUSINESS SERVICES AUTHORITY),

Thank you for your email

If your request relates to:

·         Your own personal information, or someone you legally
represent,then this will be processed as a Data Protection Subject Access
Request.  The request will be processed as detailed at
[1]http://www.nhsbsa.nhs.uk/DataProtection....

·         ‘Business as usual’ then this will be forwarded to the relevant
team who will contact you.  For example, you require an application form
or an NHS Pension estimate

·         You exercising a legal power relating to your organisation or
legal role then this will be responded to under the terms of that
legislation.

·         Anything else. This will be dealt with under the Freedom of
Information Act.  The request will be processed as shown at
[2]http://www.nhsbsa.nhs.uk/FreedomOfInform...

show quoted sections

References

Visible links
1. http://www.nhsbsa.nhs.uk/DataProtection....
2. http://www.nhsbsa.nhs.uk/FreedomOfInform...

FOIRequests Nhsbsa (NHS BUSINESS SERVICES AUTHORITY),

1 Attachment

Dear Mr Spratt

 

Thank you for your request for information about the following:

 

‘I am writing to make a Freedom of Information request under the Freedom
of Information Act 2000.

 

Please send me:

1.         The total number of NHS payroll providers who routinely provide
payroll information to NHS Pensions, including any private payroll service
providers who provide payroll services on behalf of NHS employers.

2.         The error rate that NHS Pensions deems to be acceptable, i.e.
errors in the payroll information supplied to it by the organisations
included at 1.

3.         The error rate that NHS Pensions deems to be unacceptable and
which triggers action by NHSPA to ensure payroll providers submit correct
information, i.e. errors in the payroll information supplied to it by the
organisations included at 1.

4.         The number of payroll providers at 1 who have a higher than
expected error rate in the submission of payroll information to NHS
Pensions.

5.         The number of payroll providers at 1 to whom payroll
information has been returned for additional checking, correcting, and
confirmation.

6.         The number of payroll providers at 1 against whom any form of
corrective action has been taken (including education) by NHS Pensions, as
per point 3.

7.         The names of all organisations who fall into categories 4, 5,
6, or 7.

 

I request this information for each of the financial years 2013/2014 to
2014/2015, and 2015/2016.

 

If this request is too wide or unclear, I would be grateful if you could
contact me as I understand that under the Act, you are required to advise
and assist requesters. If any of this information is already in the public
domain, please can you direct me to it, with page references and URLs if
necessary? If the release of any of this information is prohibited on the
grounds of breach of confidence, I ask that you supply me with copies of
the confidentiality agreement and remind you that information should not
be treated as confidential if such an agreement has not been signed. I
understand that you are required to respond to my request within the 20
working days after you receive this letter. I would be grateful if you
could confirm in writing to the email address provided above that you have
received this request. I look forward to hearing from you. Yours
faithfully’

 

On 24 July 2016 you clarified your request, and agreed to reduce the
scope, as follows:

 

‘You do however state at point 3 of your reply that “NHS Pensions
continually reviews all data received and contacts employers on an
individual basis where there are unexpected changes in data quality, lack
of response, and failure to take protective/corrective action by an
employer”. Would you please send me a list of names of any organisations
contacted in this way for the reasons you have stated during the years
2013/2014, 2014/2015, and 2015.2016?

 

I am prepared to significantly reduce the scope of my initial request to
the following information:- Question 1 of my original request with the
names of all organisations supplying payroll information to the NHSBSA
along with the information that I have requested in the above paragraph. I
trust that you will now respond positively to this revised information
request which has a much reduced scope when compared with my original FOI
request of 13th June 2016.’

 

Your clarified request was received on 25 July 2016 and I am dealing with
it under the terms of the Freedom of Information Act 2000.

 

 

Summary of Response

 

Payroll Providers

 

A copy of the information is enclosed.

 

Connecting for Health

RV Payroll Services

Dental Services

Sodexo

Ministry of Defence

APS Global

Compupaye

Electronic Staff Records

Fairway

GMS

GP Payroll

Home Office

Iris

March House

 

KPIs

 

I am writing to advise you that following a search of our paper and
electronic records, I have established that the information you requested
is not held by the NHS Business Services Authority. We don’t have KPIs
around the error rate of data received from employers.

 

At year end we track the success rate of ESR data processing and let
employers know how they have compared against other ESR employers
nationally, but this is not measured against an agreed KPI.  We also track
the “updatedness” of each employers member data and escalate where there
are any non-updated records.

 

It is also worth noting that although we call them data errors, this is
simply the term for any data that doesn’t process but this is not
necessarily because the employer has sent incorrect data, it could be due
to multiple employments, scheme eligibility etc.

 

The Employers Charter tells employers what data they have to provide and
the timescales for this but does not give a KPI on the success rate of the
processing.  Employing organisations are also required to complete a
Contribution Assurance Statement annually where a senior manager (ie
Finance or HR director, Chief Executive) are required to sign a Statement
of Compliance that includes assurance that records are updated.

 

Data needs to be 100% accurate and up to date and this is why action has
to be taken by us or the employer in each instance of inaccurate or
incomplete data.

 

Please note that this response will be published on our Freedom of
Information disclosure log at:

 

[1]https://apps.nhsbsa.nhs.uk/FOI/foiReques...

 

Your personal details will be removed from the published response.

 

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:

[2]http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/o...

 

Should you wish to re-use the information you must include the following
statement:

“NHS Pensions, NHSBSA Copyright 2016” This information is licenced under
the terms of the Open Government Licence:

 

[3]http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/o...

 

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.

 

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 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:

 

[4]http://www.nhsbsa.nhs.uk/Documents/NHSBS...

 

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 NHS Business Services Authority’s complaints procedure.

 

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: [5][email address]

 

We would also value your feedback regarding the way in which your request
was handled. You can provide us with direct feedback on our website at the
following address:

 

[6]https://www.ppa.org.uk/FOI_survey_form/d...

 

Any feedback you provide will be strictly anonymous and much appreciated.

 

 

Regards

 

Chris Dunn

Information Governance Assistant

Corporate Governance

Tel 0191 2035352

Internal tel 500 5352

Fax 0191 264 5281

[7]www.nhsbsa.nhs.uk

[8]Description: Description: Description: Description: NHSBSA Header
(356K)

Stella House, Goldcrest Way, Newburn Riverside Business Park, Newcastle
upon Tyne NE15 8NY

 

Please read our email disclaimer online at:
[9]http://www.nhsbsa.nhs.uk/email.

To reduce our environmental footprint, please only print when necessary.

 

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Dear FOI Requests NHSBSA (NHS BUSINESS SERVICES AUTHORITY),

Thank you for your further reply of the 22nd August 2016.

I am shocked that according to your response, the NHSBSA, as a Government body managing all NHS payroll data does not have any established Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) regarding the accuracy of information supplied to it by NHS payroll providers. This totally contradicts what I have previously been advised by a senior member of staff at NHSPA, i.e. “Where a payroll provider has a higher than expected error rate then NHS Pensions does take action to educate that payroll provider to ensure that they send the correct information”. If NHSBA/NHSPA does not have any KPIs for error rates then how can NHSBA/NHSPA actually know when a payroll provider has a higher than expected error rate? Please explain this discrepancy between what was previously advised to me by a senior member of NHSPA (as stated above) and your explanation that no KPIs exist.

You state that “Employing organisations are also required to complete a Contribution Assurance Statement ….. where a senior manager (i.e. Finance or HR Director) are required to sign a Statement of Compliance that includes assurances that records are updated”. Such self policing fails to provide governance, gives no robust assurance of accuracy, and provides no confidence in a financial system that is processing public money. In response to your explanation regarding the role of Finance/HR Directors - Finance/HR Directors are unable to undertake the task you have described when their organisation’s payroll management is contracted out to commercial payroll providers. It is of immense concern that the “Employers Charter” you refer to in respect of data and timescales is purely advisory and that payroll providers (whether commercial providers or NHS) can therefore simply ignore this Charter if they so wish. Please advise whether or not this Charter has any legal standing, i.e. can it be enforced? If so, how?

It is apparent that NHSBSA has no rigorous means of ensuring that the payroll data it receives from all NHS employers (including commercial providers of NHS payroll management) and held on NHSPA databases is 100% accurate. If NHSPA/NHSBSA genuinely wished to ensure that the payroll information it holds on individuals is 100% accurate – when NHSPA members (i.e. NHS staff and pensioners) advise NHSPA/NHSBSA of errors on their NHSPA records – then NHSPA/NHSBSA would investigate and act upon these concerns. Instead, the modus operandi of NHSPA is to insist on using the data supplied to it by NHS payroll providers, even when employees or pensioners have irrefutable evidence such as pay slips and P60s that contain different information to that supplied by their NHS employer to NHSPA/NHSBSA. It is totally unacceptable that NHSBSA/NHSPA insists that these are issues that need to be resolved between employees and their employers, when it is actually NHSPA who is the Data Holder holding incorrect personal information for NHS staff and pensioners on its databases. This breaches the “principles of the Data Protection Act” in respect of NHSPA’s legal responsibilities as an organisation holding personal information on individuals on its databases. Employees will have undoubtedly already tried to resolve and correct any payroll data discrepancies with their employers, but where this has failed NHSBSA/NHSPA should investigate and ensure that all information they hold on an individual is 100% accurate and complete. Please advise whether NHSPA/NHSBSA has a formal policy on investigating data discrepancies between payroll data information supplied by employees and employers. Please provide a copy of any policy that NHSPA/NHSBSA has in regards to this via this forum.

The failure of NHSBSA/NHSPA to ensure all records it holds on NHS staff and pensioners are 100% accurate, particularly when employees have repeatedly advised them of errors regarding their personal information is a potential breach of the Data Protection Act. Please advise what actions NHSBSA/NHSPA has in the pipeline to address these gross failures of information and financial governance and non-compliance with the Data Protection Act.

The list of payroll providers that you provided is woefully incomplete. To clarify – I require a complete list of the names of all NHS Payroll Providers (including commercial providers of NHS payroll data) who provide payroll data to NHS PA/NHSBSA. Will you therefore please now provide me with a complete list of all NHS payroll providers (including commercial providers of NHS payroll data) who submit payroll data to NHSPA, along with the names of those payroll providers who have been contacted by NHSPA in the last 3 years re unexpected changes in data quality, lack of response, and failure to take corrective action, all as described in part 3 of your reply of 5th July 2016.

Your last response stated “A copy of the information is enclosed”, but as far as I can see there was no attachement or enclosure. I would be grateful if you would therefore attach this missing document when responding to me.

Yours sincerely,

D Spratt

FOIRequests Nhsbsa (NHS BUSINESS SERVICES AUTHORITY),

4 Attachments

Dear D Spratt

 

Please find attached a final letter regarding your recent Freedom of
Information request.

 

We would also value your feedback regarding the way in which your request
was handled. You can provide us with direct feedback on our website at the
following address:

 

[1]https://www.ppa.org.uk/FOI_survey_form/d...

 

Any feedback you provide will be strictly anonymous and much appreciated.

 

 

Summary of Response

 

Payroll Providers

 

I refer to your previous request, and this request, in which you refer to
Payroll Providers. The information which was supplied was the full list of
payroll providers. The information provided in response to this request is
the list of Employing Authorities which supply information on their
employees regarding their NHS Pension.

 

A copy of a comprehensive list of Employing Authorities is attached.
Please note that it is not possible to establish whether each EA was
contacted within the last 3 years, without manually interrogating members’
files.

 

Information Enclosed in my Previous Response

 

A list of the payroll providers was included in that response. There was
no additional information which should have been attached.

 

Legal Standing of Employers Charter

 

The Employers’ Charter takes much of its direction from The Pensions
Regulator Code of Practice. Codes of practice are not statements of the
law and there is no penalty for failing to comply with them. It is not
necessary for all the provisions of a code of practice to be followed in
every circumstance. The full code of practice can be found at the below
web link.

 

[2]http://www.thepensionsregulator.gov.uk/d...

 

The code of practice allows pensions administrators to delegate
responsibilities to local administrators.

 

Policy on Investigating Data Discrepancies

 

I am writing to advise you that following a search of our paper and
electronic records, I have established that the information you requested
is not held by the NHS Business Services Authority. There is no ‘policy’
as such. Employers provide us with relevant information on members’ pay,
contributions, hours etc but we do not have access to employer payroll
information.  We do not accept financial information from employees, other
than for historic service and only when we have exhausted all other
avenues of investigation and this is an exceptionally small number of
members per year. All data received is processed through a series of
checks and validations and anything that is not within the expected
parameters is investigated by NHSP or returned to employers.

 

We do have an ESR Reconciliation report that matches employment
information held by NHS Pensions (Compendia) against Scheme members held
by ESR employers but this is for member detail (name, dob etc)  &
employment detail (start date, capacity code etc) only.

 

Please find attached a flow chart which staff use when chasing employers
regarding information discrepancies.

 

The following explains abbreviations used in the flow chart.

 

DIP – Document Image Processing – This is essentially where members’
individual records are stored.

EA – Employing Authority

DMT – Data Management Team

TN – Technical Newsletter – This is a monthly newsletter which is sent to
employers to alert them to any updates.

 

“Breaching the Data Protection Act”

 

Please see the below link to the Information Commissioner’s Office website
regarding the accuracy of personal data a data controller received from
third parties (e.g. payroll providers/employing authorities).

 

[3]https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/gui...

 

The NHSBSA employs all practical measures to ensure the accuracy of the
information it receives from third parties about members’ pension
contributions.

Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)

 

KPIs are a method of monitoring the performance of key business services
provided by the NHSBSA, and are not used to monitor the performance of
external third parties, such as payroll providers and employing
authorities (EAs). That is why the NHSBSA does not hold KPIs on error
rates of EA pension submissions. Following year-end processing we send
heat maps to ESR employers to advise on the % of their year-end
submissions that have processed successfully but this is not benchmarked
against published KPI’s, it gives an indication of their processing
results compared to other NHS ESR organisations.

 

Some KPIs are published as part of our Annual Annual Report and Accounts.
The 2015/16 report can be found at the following web link. NHS Pensions
KPIs are found on page 59.

 

[4]http://www.nhsbsa.nhs.uk/Documents/NHSBS...

 

Please note that this information will be published on our Freedom of
Information disclosure log at:

 

[5]https://apps.nhsbsa.nhs.uk/FOI/foiReques...

 

Your personal details will be removed from the published response..

 

Regards

 

 

Chris Dunn

Information Governance Assistant

Corporate Governance

Tel 0191 2035352

Internal tel 500 5352

Fax 0191 264 5281

[6]www.nhsbsa.nhs.uk

[7]Description: Description: Description: NHSBSA Header (356K)

Stella House, Goldcrest Way, Newburn Riverside Business Park, Newcastle
upon Tyne NE15 8NY

 

Please read our email disclaimer online at:
[8]http://www.nhsbsa.nhs.uk/email.

To reduce our environmental footprint, please only print when necessary.

 

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References

Visible links
1. https://www.ppa.org.uk/FOI_survey_form/d...
2. http://www.thepensionsregulator.gov.uk/d...
3. https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/gui...
4. http://www.nhsbsa.nhs.uk/Documents/NHSBS...
5. https://apps.nhsbsa.nhs.uk/FOI/foiReques...
6. http://www.nhsbsa.nhs.uk/
8. http://www.nhsbsa.nhs.uk/email