Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what steps he is taking in response to the Oxleas Plus supplement option for pensions offered by Oxleas NHS Foundation Trust.

National Health Service organisations have the freedom to make changes to the reward offer they make to staff; having regard to the legal framework. The NHS Pension Board has referred Oxleas NHS Foundation Trust to the Pensions Regulator (TPR) even though TPR has already found the option for pensions offered by the Trust was not an inducement and therefore not a breach of law.

However, the NHS Pension Board concluded that there was additional information, which may not have been considered in relation to the earlier referral, and that given the potential wider implications of this issue, a further in-depth investigation by TPR was merited.

The NHS Pension Board is awaiting TPR’s decision. The Secretary of State for Health will consider any subsequent advice from the NHS Pension Board.