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Minister angry about teacher pay problems

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Minister angry about teacher pay problems

3News NZ

Craig Foss

Craig Foss

The Government has lost patience with the company running the chaotic teachers' pay system.

The error-ridden payrolls were supposed to be fixed by Wednesday but there are reports of ongoing problems.

"This is totally unsatisfactory," Associate Education Minister Craig Foss told reporters. "What has made me pretty angry is the lack of delivery on commitments and assurances that I had been given."

Mr Foss says the company running the Novopay system, Talent2, has "dropped the ball in a big way and the ministry is discussing some pretty serious issues with it".

Labour is blaming Mr Foss for the problems that have plagued the system since it was launched two months ago, but Prime Minister John Key says they aren't the minister's fault.

"Craig is doing a good job, the buck stops with Talent2," he said.

"They need to throw resources at this and fix the problems."

Mr Key says penalty clauses in Novopay's contract are being considered and "the capability is there" for them to be invoked.

Auckland Primary Principals' Association president Jill Corkin says her school's pay report shows new errors this week, and not much progress has been made on issues with payments over the past two months.

Jacque Ruston, a secretary at Dunedin's Purakaunui school, says she hasn't been paid since starting work in August, and had to take out loans to cover costs.

The ministry has put in place a procedure for schools to use their operating budget to pay any staff who missed out on their salary so they "shouldn't suffer economically", and Mr Foss has received assurances that holiday pay will go through on time.

NZN

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Comments

18/02/2013 10:42:29 p.m.

riri wrote:

someone needs to be held accountable for this muck up

9/02/2013 10:27:32 a.m.

David wrote:

Swap all government services to Novopay including the Politian’s and the problems would be solved under urgent action. Since Novopay is not affecting the people who installed it they are only paying lip service to the problem. Pushing blame back and forth, looking for escape goats instead of scrapping Novopay and reinstating the old system that worked with very minimal problems. National and Labour both seem to be able to waste large amounts of tax money on poorly researched ventures without any accountability while the country has to shoulder ever increasing debt created out of sheer incompetence from poor management.

15/11/2012 2:34:19 p.m.

Kathy wrote:

I know that the truth hurts you Mike B but I can actually make a comparison from running companies in Japan and the U.K in comparison to running a company here in New Zealand. The management style here is slack and lazy and managers such as yourself barely take reponsibility and spend all day online posting in favour of your government of choice yet seem to do little to no work. When hubby and I returned to New Zealand we noticed that the culture of blame amoungst top level managers was worse than we had experienced elsewhere.

15/11/2012 9:56:24 a.m.

Jason wrote:

I find it very unusual that the systems "apparantly" weren't run in parallel to pick up these faults. It's fairly standard practice. If they were then the test results must have shown errors. Is there any potential to roll back to the old systems I wonder?

15/11/2012 8:09:45 a.m.

Mike B wrote:

@Kathy. I am so glad I am not living in your head. You have another two years to live with "lazy and bad management". You should run for the leadership of Labour, because you criticize National if they spend money and you criticize them if they save. You will attack any person who dares to have a good word about the government, yet you have no alternative. Before you say I am a senior manager posting the whole day, let me tell you I have my own business that is run by a very capable manager allowing me heaps of free time. So this month your benefit cheque is on me. Enjoy!

15/11/2012 7:19:38 a.m.

alison wrote:

I would like to see the total cost of novopay plus the costs of its blunders. Can anyone get the true cost of it?

14/11/2012 10:01:34 p.m.

Kathy wrote:

This is Nationals fault for changing pay systems and not properly providing oversight Katrina. Top level managers in this country which includes politicians are some of the laziest and worst in the world.

14/11/2012 8:59:31 p.m.

Michael wrote:

Why are they waiting to invoke the penalty clauses? What stuff up does Novopay have to do before this government punishes them? I mean, honestly - Novopay have already shown they're incompetent.

14/11/2012 8:18:05 p.m.

LBV wrote:

Not only are these teachers not being paid but they are going into debt over this. Loans mean interest. Why should people have to pay extra to cover these blunders. Talent2 stuffed up and should be paying these extra charges.

14/11/2012 8:06:00 p.m.

Robert wrote:

The ministry should never have picked Talent 2. The cheapest tender turned out to be at least 2 to 3 times what it would have cost to implement a payroll that would have done the job. NZ Post have similar issues and there payroll implementation was a disaster and Transpower were due to go live in March but they still can't run a pay there either. How do Talent 2 sell there product?