Asked by: Liam Fox (Conservative - North Somerset)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many NHS mangers are paid over (a) £80,000, (b) £130,000, (c) £200,000 and (d) £250,000 a year as of 1 September 2023.
Answered by Will Quince
The following table shows the headcount number of managers in the National Health Service with total earnings of over the requested amounts in the 12 months to the end of March 2023, the latest period available. These are total earnings, which include non-basic-pay elements such as overtime, geographic allowances, or on-call payments, though these will not make a significant part of managers earnings.
Range | Headcount |
£80,000 - £129,999 | 8678 |
£130,000 - £199,999 | 1248 |
£200,000 - £249,999 | 149 |
£250,000 and over | 58 |
Source: NHS England Digital Earnings Statistics
Notes:
Asked by: John Redwood (Conservative - Wokingham)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many senior managers in the NHS, including NHS Trusts and administrative bodies, earn over £100,000 a year.
Answered by Will Quince
At NHS Trusts and other core organisations, between October 2021 and September 2022, 3,010 staff earnt over £100,000. Furthermore, in the same time period, at NHS Support Organisations and Central Bodies, 500 staff earnt over that amount. All remuneration, including non-basic pay elements such as band supplements, medical awards, geographic allowances, local payments, on call payments, overtime, recommended retail prices, shift work payments and other payments, are included in this total.
Asked by: Fleur Anderson (Labour - Putney)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent steps his Department has taken to help improve (a) manageable caseloads, (b) number of working hours, (c) flexibility in working hours, (d) overtime arrangements and (e) other working conditions for NHS staff.
Answered by Will Quince
Through the NHS People Plan and People Promise, we are improving the National Health Service as a place to work, reinforcing support for staff wellbeing, improving leadership and organisational culture and strengthening opportunities for flexible working, such as e-rostering systems.
The Department has commissioned NHS England to develop a long-term workforce plan. The plan will consider the number of staff and the roles required and will set out the actions and reforms needed to improve workforce supply and retention. We are committed to delivering an additional 50,000 nurses to ensure a sustainable, long-term workforce supply.
Additionally, the Department is represented on the NHS Staff Council for Agenda for Change and at the Joint Negotiating Committees for medical staff, which are responsible for negotiating any changes to core terms and conditions of employment. The employment offer is continuously under development to ensure that staff are rewarded fairly and the NHS can attract and retain the staff it needs.
Asked by: Wes Streeting (Labour - Ilford North)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many hours of unpaid overtime have NHS (a) nurses, (b) doctors, (c) midwives, (d) paramedics and (e) staff overall, worked in each of the last three years.
Answered by Will Quince
The information requested is not collected centrally. However, the NHS Staff Survey asks respondents whether they routinely complete unpaid work and the average number of hours completed. The following table shows the proportion of staff who reported doing unpaid work in the 2021 NHS staff survey by occupation group and the average amount of unpaid work per week.
Occupation group | No unpaid work | Up to five hours | Six to 10 hours | Over 11 hours |
All respondents | 43% | 43% | 10% | 4% |
Nurses and midwives | 33% | 50% | 12% | 5% |
Medical and dental | 22% | 52% | 19% | 7% |
Paramedics | 56% | 35% | 6% | 3% |
Source: 2021 NHS Staff Survey
Asked by: Drew Hendry (Scottish National Party - Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether her Department has made an assessment of the potential merits of making the NHS Pension Scheme tax unregistered for the purposes of helping to provide predictability for NHS workers undertaking overtime.
Answered by Robert Jenrick
The Government is reviewing the interaction between taxation and pensions in the National Health Service. Making the NHS Pension Scheme into a tax-unregistered scheme would not benefit the vast majority of NHS staff, who would lose income tax relief on contributions and the option of a tax-free lump sum on retirement.
Asked by: Paulette Hamilton (Labour - Birmingham, Erdington)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what assessment he has made of the causes for the backlog in issuing medical paper driving licences at the DVLA; and what steps he is taking to resolve that backlog.
Answered by Karl McCartney
The length of time taken to deal with an application for a driving licence where a medical condition must be investigated depends on the condition(s) involved and whether further information or clinical tests are required from medical professionals. The receipt of information from NHS professionals has been impacted by pressures on the NHS. Delays in this area were also exacerbated by six months of industrial action by the Public and Commercial Services union, which was targeted at the areas that would have the most impact on the motoring public.
To reduce waiting times for customers, the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA) has recruited more staff and opened new customer service centres in Swansea and Birmingham which are focused on medical applications. DVLA staff also continue to work overtime at evenings and weekends. These measures are having a positive impact and the DVLA expects to return to pre-pandemic levels for medical applications in September.
It is important to note that most applicants will be able to continue driving while their application is being processed, providing they meet specific criteria. More information can be found online here.
Asked by: Drew Hendry (Scottish National Party - Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what steps his Department is taking to ensure that NHS staff who undertake overtime can avoid cliff edge tax arrangements for the taxation on their pensions as a result of the annual allowance taper.
Answered by John Glen - Paymaster General and Minister for the Cabinet Office
The Government is committed to ensuring that hard-working NHS staff do not find themselves reducing their work commitments due to the interaction between their pay, their pension, and the relevant tax regime.
In April 2020, the Government raised the thresholds above which the tapered annual allowance applies by £90,000. As a result, no one with a net income before tax below £200,000 is now affected by the tapered annual allowance. In addition, the annual allowance only begins to taper down for individuals who also have total income (including pension accrual) above £240,000. It is estimated that these changes have taken up to 96% of GPs and up to 98% of NHS consultants outside the scope of the tapered annual allowance.
These changes allow pension savers to build significant retirement savings tax free, while also ensuring that the highest earning pension savers do not receive a disproportionate benefit from pension tax relief.
Asked by: Geoffrey Cox (Conservative - Torridge and West Devon)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, if he will take steps to ensure that the DVLA (a) clears the backlog of driving licence applications and (b) expedites the time taken for applicants to receive their renewed licences.
Answered by Trudy Harrison
The quickest and easiest way to apply for a driving licence is by using the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA)’s online service. There are no delays in successful online applications and customers should receive their licence within a few days.
However, many people still choose or have to make a paper application and the DVLA receives around 60,000 items of mail every day. The Government understands the impact that delays in processing paper applications can have on the daily lives of individuals and the DVLA is working hard to reduce waiting times. The DVLA has introduced additional online services, recruited more staff, increased overtime working and has opened new customer service centres in Swansea and Birmingham to reduce backlogs and provide future resilience. These measures are having a positive impact.
The backlog of vehicle paper applications has already been eliminated. Straightforward vocational driving licence applications and renewals are being processed within five working days with no backlog. The DVLA is on track to return to normal turnaround times on all paper driving licence applications by the end of May. Most straightforward paper driving licence applications are now being processed in around five weeks. Information on processing times for key DVLA workstreams is published online here.
The more complex driving licence applications where the customer has a medical condition(s) that must be investigated will take longer to recover. This area was targeted for industrial action by the Public and Commercial Services union last year and also DVLA cases were deprioritised by the NHS at a number of points during the pandemic. The large majority of applicants renewing an existing licence will be able to continue driving while their application is being processed, providing the driver can meet specific criteria. More information can be found online here.
Asked by: Justin Madders (Labour - Ellesmere Port and Neston)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what recent assessment he has made of the performance of the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency.
Answered by Trudy Harrison
The quickest and easiest way to transact with the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA) is by using its extensive suite of online services. There are no delays in successful online applications and customers should receive their documents within a few days.
However, many people still choose or have to make a paper application and the DVLA receives around 60,000 items of mail every day. The Government understands the impact that delays in processing paper applications can have on the daily lives of individuals and the DVLA is working hard to reduce waiting times. The DVLA has introduced additional online services, recruited more staff, increased overtime working and has opened new customer service centres in Swansea and Birmingham to reduce backlogs and provide future resilience. These measures are having a positive impact.
The backlog of vehicles paper applications has already been eliminated. Straightforward vocational driving licence applications and renewals are being processed within five working days with no backlog. The DVLA is on track to return to normal turnaround times on all paper driving licence applications by the end of May. Most straightforward paper driving licence applications are now being processed in around five weeks. Information on processing times for key DVLA workstreams is published online here.
The more complex driving licence applications where the customer has a medical condition(s) that must be investigated will take longer to recover. This area was targeted for industrial action by the Public and Commercial Services union last year and also DVLA cases were deprioritised by the NHS at a number of points during the pandemic. The large majority of applicants renewing an existing licence will be able to continue driving while their application is being processed, providing the driver can meet specific criteria. More information can be found online here.
Asked by: Mark Menzies (Conservative - Fylde)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what estimate he has made of the number of people currently waiting more than the estimated 10 week turnaround for the renewal of their driving licence.
Answered by Trudy Harrison
The quickest and easiest way to apply for a driving licence is by using the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA)’s online service. There are no delays in successful online applications and customers should receive their licence within a few days.
However, many people still choose or have to make a paper application and the DVLA receives around 60,000 items of mail every day. To help reduce waiting times for paper applications, the DVLA has introduced additional online services, recruited more staff, increased overtime working and has secured extra office space in Swansea and Birmingham. The latest information on turnaround times for paper driving licence applications can be found here.
On 4 February, there were 178,926 driving licence renewal applications that had taken ten weeks or more. The vast majority of these are applications where a medical condition must be investigated before a licence can be issued to ensure the required medical standards are met. In December, the Department for Health and Social Care asked the DVLA to stop sending medical questionnaires (excluding vocational applications) to NHS doctors in December and January to allow the NHS to focus all efforts on the vaccination booster programme. While referrals to doctors have now resumed, this has had an impact on turnaround times. It is important to note that the large majority of these drivers will be able to continue driving under Section 88 of the Road Traffic Act while they are waiting for their application to be processed.