Legal action against Novopay developers

Email
Print

Legal action against Novopay developers

3News NZ

Ministry of Education chief executive Lesley Longstone (file)

Ministry of Education chief executive Lesley Longstone (file)

By 3 News online staff

The Ministry of Education says it's taking legal action against the developers of the Novopay payroll system for teachers.

The $30 million system was introduced three months ago and has since led to thousands of payroll errors.

A month ago there were nearly 7500 errors. Two weeks later this was down to 4300, and yesterday the backlog was about 400.

The ministry's chief executive Lesley Longstone says it's imposing legal penalties on Talent2 and money gained will be used to help schools with the new system.

Consultancy Talent2 was contracted by the Ministry of Education to run the $30 million system.

"Talent2 have dropped the ball in a big way in the first rounds which is compounding itself," says Associate Minister of Education Craig Foss.

But for now there are still thousands of payroll errors to iron out.

3 News

Post a Comment

Before commenting, please take the time to read our moderation guide


(Won't be published)



Comments

16/11/2012 10:54:15 a.m.

Kim wrote:

@ MARGARETHA The 400 errors are from the first 2 pay cycles and they have not included the other 4 pay cycles. This shows that they are screwing around with stats to make the situation look better than it actually is.

15/11/2012 10:03:32 p.m.

Michael wrote:

@ Cameron: it's actually been live for 3 months (6 pay cycles of 2 weeks), and it's a pay system serving about 60,000 employees. And Geoff Orchard is quite right - having any errors at all in a pay system is unacceptable.

15/11/2012 7:16:09 p.m.

the DR wrote:

maybe a breach. there is no maybe about it. and this government just dose not care lets stop paying them. then we will cover the legal costs of the teachers. or do they wont teachers to stop working so there is an excuse to close more schools?

15/11/2012 6:35:00 p.m.

Geoff Orchard wrote:

They could have had my Payroll system with source code for nothing (no licence fees or purchase price) with, perhaps, a few thousand dollars to customise it to the education environment. Why on earth do they insist on paying millions for software that is so prescribed by statute ?
I would be horrified if somebody using my payroll was prepared to accept any error rate at all. Let alone <1%.

15/11/2012 4:15:12 p.m.

cameron wrote:


'A month ago there were nearly 7500 errors. Two weeks later this was down to 4300, and yesterday the backlog was about 400.' this is amazing for a system payring almost 100,000 employees and only went live 1 month ago. That is a 0.4% error rate. People are crazy if they think this is bad. Most payroll systems look to have a <1% error rate each pay.

15/11/2012 3:02:00 p.m.

Margaretha wrote:

There will be many more than 400 errors. I haven't had the same pay now since the start of the Novopay debacle. My tax is differently calculated every time. I am already owed over $1000. Yesterday, 14 November, I was paid as a beginner teacher with no training, while I am an experienced teacher with a Master's degree. I know I am not the only one. Every teacher I know has had exactly the same issues. These are not even taken into account. To Brian: sorry you and some others do not have a high opinion of teachers. Fortunately we love our jobs and we are not dependent on the opinion of people like you.

15/11/2012 1:45:19 p.m.

Murray wrote:

There was nothing wrong with the previous system for paying teachers. It worked very well for many years. The saying " If it ain't broke don't fix it" springs to mind or did some bored civil servant have a sudden rush of blood during a slow day?

15/11/2012 12:59:38 p.m.

Lynley Murphy wrote:

I thoroughly agree Jim Seaview - they should have run it alongside the existing payroll programme but I seem to remember when John Campbell put that to the Chief Ex she said that it couldnt be done. Well as an employer with over 25 staff (yes I know - nowhere near MOE) who changed from one payroll system to another I can say that it can be done - very easily - and when the two match up then and only then did I discard the old system - and that is what should have happened.

15/11/2012 12:48:39 p.m.

Michael wrote:

@ Bryan: I would've thought that having been (it's been, not bean) the chair of a school board you'd have a clear picture of what teachers do and how hard they work. I'm surprised that as a former board chair you held your employees in such contempt. Sad, really.

15/11/2012 12:28:49 p.m.

Linda wrote:

Down to around 400 from the first 2 pay periods. What about all the errors/unresolved issues from the following 4 pay periods? Can someone get those figures released so the full picture is reported.