Forfeiture of pensions since 2005: FOI release

FOI reference: FOI/17/02750
Date received: 8 November 2017
Date responded: 15 December 2017

Information requested

Your request:

1. How many notices of possible forfeiture have been sent out each year since 2005?
2. How many of these have resulted in forfeiture?
3. A breakdown of these by gender of offender, to ensure there is no sex discrimination in the way those notices are applied and implemented.
4. A breakdown of questions one and two by date of latest offence.
5. A breakdown of questions one and two by length of service of offender.

Response

We are unable to give a detailed breakdown of the information you have requested as it may identify individuals concerned due to the small number of forfeitures.

Under section 40(2) of the Act, we are not obliged to provide information that is the personal information of another person if releasing would contravene any of the provisions in the Data Protection Act 1998 (DPA). In this instance we believe that the release of this information would contravene the first data protection principle and therefore section 40 (2) is engaged.

The terms of this exemption in the Freedom of Information Act mean that we do not have to consider whether or not it would be in the public interest for you to have the information.

However, though we cannot provide a breakdown of the information you requested by scheme, latest offence or the length of service of the offender, I can confirm that five notices of possible forfeiture have been served, all resulted in forfeiture of pension, and all offenders were male. I can also confirm that that dates of the latest offences were between 1990 and the present day, and the length of service in the pension schemes for the offenders was between 10 and 30 years.

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