Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many requests for very senior manager salaries above £142,500 have been (a) made by NHS trusts and (b) approved in each of the last three years.

The Department works with NHS Improvement to ensure all proposals from trust remuneration committees for pay above the threshold1 are fair, proportionate and publicly justifiable. This means that any necessary bearing down on pay rates takes place early on in the process and prior to submissions being formally considered by Ministers.

Ministers can approve or reject pay proposals from National Health Service trusts. Ministers can only comment on the proposals from NHS foundation trusts if they have concerns. Ministers make no comment where they are content with the proposal.

The following table shows the number of cases received, approved, or where no comment was made, between the approvals system beginning in June 2015 to 31 March 2018 in all NHS trusts and foundation trusts;

Note:

1The threshold of £142,500 was raised to £150,000 with effect from 1 January 2018.