FOI-03826

##Request ‘I wish to obtain the following: 1. The number of people you sent sent notices to in the last 3 years, claiming they had been overpaid on their NHS pension? 2. The average time it took from staff receiving their pension, to them being informed they had been overpaid? 3. The number of those who appealed against the decision? 4. The number of those appeals that were successful? 5. The number of people who had their overpayment quashed / cleared / removed (or were told they did not have to repay it)? 6. The number of those notices of pension overpayment you sent that were mistakes, and they did not owe money. 7. The number of those notices of overpayment where in fact they were underpaid? 8. The number of people NHSBSA had to compensate for NHS pension mistakes / miscalculations / for whatever reason connected to the above questions?’ __[On 20 June 2026 you clarified your request as follows]__ ‘As per your reply, which I feel is an excuse to delay providing the information, EITHER RESPONSE WILL SUFFICE, whichever YOU FEEL YOU ARE ABLE TO SUPPLY? This is so you cannot decide to reject the FOI.’ The NHS Business Services Authority (NHSBSA) received your request on 15 May 2026, with clarification received on 20 June 2026. We have handled your request under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA). ##Our response __Question 1 - The number of people you sent notices to in the last 3 years, claiming they had been overpaid on their NHS pension?__ There were 11,108 overpayments over financial years 2023/24, 2024/25 and 2025/26. __Question 2 - The average time it took from staff receiving their pension, to them being informed they had been overpaid?__ __Question 5 - The number of people who had their overpayment quashed / cleared / removed (or were told they did not have to repay it)?__ __Question 6 - The number of those notices of pension overpayment you sent that were mistakes, and they did not owe money.__ __Question 7 - The number of those notices of overpayment where in fact they were underpaid?__ 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. We do not capture overpayment information as standard. We would therefore need to manually interrogate all overpayments. There are 11,108 overpayments and we estimate it would take 5 minutes per record. Please see the following calculations which sets out the estimated cost for compliance with this request: 11,108 x 5 minutes = 55,540 minutes (925.66 hours) Please see the following link to view the section 12 in full - https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2000/36/section/12 __Question 3 - The number of those who appealed against the decision?__ __Question 4 - The number of those appeals that were successful?__ 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. We do not capture overpayment complaints information as standard. We would therefore need to manually interrogate all pay, pen admin and awards complaints to see if the case relates to an overpayment. There are 7,263 records in these categories and we estimate it would take 5 minutes per record. Please see the following calculations which sets out the estimated cost for compliance with this request: 7,263 x 5 minutes = 36,315 minutes (605.25 hours) Please see the following link to view the section 12 in full - https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2000/36/section/12 __Question 8 - The number of people NHSBSA had to compensate for NHS pension mistakes / miscalculations / for whatever reason connected to the above questions?__ 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. NHS Pensions have made 644 payments to members over this period. They are not compensation payments but may be awarded to recognise distress, inconvenience or exceptional circumstances and to support fair outcomes. As these payments aren’t categorised, they would need to be manually interrogated to determine if they were connected to the reasons highlighted. We estimate it would take 3 minutes per record. Please see the following calculations which sets out the estimated cost for compliance with this request: 644 x 3 minutes = 1,932 minutes (32.2 hours) Please see the following link to view the section 12 in full - https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2000/36/section/12 __Data Queries__ Please contact [email protected] 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 [email protected] . 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.