HC Deb 19 July 1994 vol 247 cc217-8W
Mr. Raymond S. Robertson

To ask the Secretary of State for Health what plans she has for reviewing the NHS Pensions Agency.

Mr. Sackville

The NHS Pensions Agency is responsible for the administration of the national health service pensions scheme. As part of its already announced programme of market testing, the agency was intending this year to carry out a scoping study to identify which of the agency's core functions might be suitable for market testing in some form. This study would, by its nature, have looked at most of the questions which would be addressed in the prior options exercise which forms part of the normal three-year agency review process.

In the case of the NHS Pensions Agency, the three-year review is due to be completed by the end of 1995. I have therefore decided to formalise the agency's market-testing scoping study and subsume it within the first, prior options, stage of the agency's review, which will be publicised in the usual way. This part of the review will take place in the autumn of 1994. The other elements of the full review of the agency—evaluation of its performance and revision of the framework document—will then be carried out in late–1995 to the usual timetable. This two-stage process will avoid what would otherwise have been an unnecessary duplication of effort next year.

I would welcome contributions to the prior options review from those with an interest in the work of the agency. The review will have the usual terms of reference —viz, to look again at the prior options questions for the NHS Pensions Agency by re-examining the feasibility of abolition, privatisation, sub-contracting, or market-testing, of any of the agency's functions. Comments should be sent by 30 September 1994 to:

  • Ms Ann Gross
  • NHS Pensions Review Team
  • Room 259C
  • Skipton House
  • 80 London Road
  • Elephant and Castle
  • London SE1 6LW.