We suspended several steps in the data escalation process whilst we dealt with COVID-19 as we felt from an employer's and a Pension Team perspective, we all made significant adjustment to ways of working. The timeframes were lapsed and we stopped telephoning employers and e-mailing the Finance Directors.
We are at a point now where an escalation process needs to be introduced to ensure members can access up to date Total Reward Statements, Annual Allowance Statements, or any other information about their pension.
We have reviewed our working practice to ensure that if we continue to work from home, all aspects of the work is successfully achieved. This has included providing internet-based software to the team to enable them to call employers.
We felt that the process needed refreshing to align to future ways of working and we have amended our current escalation to the process below. Thank you to those employers from the SID Board that provided us with some feedback. We have reviewed those recommendations as part of the final process.
Please note this process will not be used for payment pending / service statement cases.
The key changes are:
- The process is now 60 days instead of 35 days giving employers an additional 25 days in which to respond to our query.
- We have removed the phone call stage and replaced it with a follow up e-mail request so that you are not having to take a call when it might not be convenient.
- We have added in the option of a pre-arranged call where a time can be booked in with a member of the team should any support be required.
New process effective from 1 January 2022
The revised process is as follows:
- All first requests will be sent via e-mail and the case will be placed in a ‘pending’ queue for 30 working days.
- If you would prefer a call regarding the case please provide your contact details via return email, including your availability, and add ‘telephone call’ to the email subject so that a call back can be arranged.
- If a response has not been received after 30 working days, a second request will be sent.
- If a response has not been received after a further 10 working days, we will send a third request and the Finance Director will be copied in.
- The case will be pended for a further 20 days.
- If no response has been received after the 60 working days in total, a letter/email to the member will be sent regarding their record, to state we have been unable to update their record.
- NHS Pensions will copy the error form into the EDM and delete the error.
We will continue to monitor the outcome of these changes and will review the process in the future. If you have any questions relating to this change, please contact Stakeholder Engagement Team via e-mail nhsbsa.stakeholderengagement@nhs.net
To enable us to ensure we are contacting the correct person can you please ensure that your Pension Contact and Finance Director Contact details are up to date. If this needs to be amended, please complete the Changes to Employers Organisations details form which is located on our website - NHS Pensions - Changes to employer organisation contact details (nhsbsa.nhs.uk) and return to nhsbsa.schemeaccess@nhs.net