Thank you for your request for information about the following:

Request

‘Please provide the following statistics regarding the number of complaints logged against the NHS pension scheme. For each statistics, please provide a breakdown per calendar year for each of the past 4 years:

1) the total number of formal complaints received

2) the number of these complaints successfully addressed or resolved at stage 1 of your complaints process

3) the number of complaints escalated to stage 2

4) the number of these complaints successfully resolved at stage 2

5) the number of complaints still outstanding or open

6) the number of ombudsman cases opened and resolved

7) the total number of cases upheld ombudsman cases which found in favour of the scheme members.

Furthermore, please provide a monthly breakdown for the last year of the number of times the telephone satisfaction survey has been completed by members, average scores on the 0-9 Satisfaction questions and the number of 1-2 scores for the yes/no questions.’

[On 27 August we sent you the following clarification request]

Question 1

Can you please confirm if you require the number of Stage 1 complaints only for this question, or should this include Stage 1 and Stage 2 complaints combined? Please note, as Stage 2 complaints are previously Stage 1 complaints, a member may be counted multiple times.

Question 2 and Question 4

Can you please confirm what is meant by addressed or resolved? A complaint is closed when a response to the relevant stage is issued, if a member remains unsatisfied, the Stage 1 response will advise them how to escalate their complaint. We could provide the number of Stage 1 complaints closed where there has not been a Stage 2 complaint raised.

Question 5

Can you please confirm if this is in relation to formal complaints as above (Stage 1 and Stage 2 complaints), or should this include early resolution (informal) complaints?

Question 6

Can you please confirm what is meant by opened and resolved? For example, opened cases could be accepted for investigation, or just a request for information. Resolved could mean we’ve issued a formal response or there has been a decision (not proceeding/withdrawn, upheld, not upheld, upheld in part).

[On 27 August 2025 you clarified your request as follows]

‘Question 1 - please include stage 1 and stage 2 complaints. I'm ideally looking to track the number of complaints that were received, resolved, escalated, and ultimately were potentially unresolved.

Question 2 & 4 - the number of complaints closed at stage 1 where no stage 2 complaint is received will suffice, along side the number of stage 2 complaints received.

Question 5 - this only refers to formal complaints and not issues which were resolved informally without a formal complaint being raised.

For question 6, can I please request statistics on number of cases accepted, upheld, partially upheld and not upheld.’

The NHS Business Services Authority (NHSBSA) received your request on 12 August 2025, with clarification received on 27 August 2025.

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, and a copy of the information is attached.

Please read the below notes to ensure correct understanding of the data.

The volumes provided in answer to the requested FOI questions are not subsets of each other, and so correlation cannot be drawn between volumes of the same respective year. This is largely because cases received in one year may not be resolved and/or escalated until a later year.

Each stage of a complaint is treated independently of another when logged as casework; this means it is almost impossible to identify if a Stage One and Stage Two case are regarding the same complaint without manual interrogation of every complaint. The data provided for questions 2 and 3, flags a Stage One as ‘Escalated to Stage Two’, if it is followed by a Stage Two at any point in the future. The subsequent Stage Two may not relate to the same issue as the Stage One complaint.

Numbers of completed cases are lower for 2022 due to increased volumes versus capacity, impacting the clearance of work. Increased capacity is also the reason for the high clearance in 2024. 

Stage One Complaints in 2022

Due to changes in the way data has been historically recorded, it is not possible to determine without manual interrogation if the majority of Stage One complaints completed in 2022 were fully resolved at Stage One or were escalated to Stage Two. Because of this, a portion of the 816 (Q2 for 2022), may well have been escalated and should be reported under (Q3 for 2022). Please see below, why manual interrogation is not possible.

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 estimate it would take 5 minutes to manually interrogate each case.

Please see the following calculations which sets out the estimated cost for compliance with this request:

816 x 5 minutes = 4,080 minutes (68 hours)

Please be advised that due to the way that the information is held by the NHSBSA, it is not possible to submit a refined request under the appropriate limit.

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 foirequests@nhsbsa.nhs.uk 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 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 2025”. 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.