Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what the cost of compulsory redundancy payments for staff of all NHS employers in England was in each year from 2009-10 to 2013-14.

The costs of compulsory redundancy payments for staff of all National Health Service employers are shown in the following table. There are currently 21,000 fewer admin staff working in the NHS since 2010 and 13,500 more front line clinical staff.

The Government is proposing that highly-paid staff who receive a redundancy pay-out and then return to the same part of the public sector within a year will be required to repay part of the total amount. It is proposed that contracts will contain a standard clause that states that individuals will have to pay back a proportion of the payment to their previous employer dependent upon the length of time between jobs.

Source: Audited Summarisation Schedules

Notes:

1. Figures from the audited statutory accounts of NHS organisations are collected centrally.

2. We have interpreted “NHS employers” to comprise Strategic Health Authorities, Primary Care Trusts, NHS Trusts and Foundation Trusts in 2010-11 to 2012-13. For 2013-14 however, due to reorganisation, the figures comprise NHS Trusts, Foundation Trusts and NHS England (including the NHS England entity, Regional Teams, Area Teams, Commissioning Support Units and Clinical Commissioning Groups).

3. The NHS Manual for Accounts does not define what is included within the compulsory redundancy heading and as such it is not possible to clarify whether it includes related costs for employers of early retirement on the grounds of redundancy.

4. Information in respect of compulsory redundancies was not separately identified prior to 2010-11 and as such no comparable information can be provided.