Govt: School payroll improving again

The government minister Responsible for Novopay, Steven Joyce, has released the report on complaints and notifications received in regards to Pay Period 26 of the schools’ payroll.

Pay Period 26, which was paid on the morning of 19 March, paid 88,185 people a total of $178.79 million with the report showing complaints and notifications were received regarding 0.19 per cent of staff across the country, 50 staff were notified as not paid, 46 were overpaid, and 75 underpaid.

Affected staff were from 138 schools or 5.70 per cent of schools in the payroll system.

“Pay Period 26 was back below the 0.5 per cent acceptable steady state error rate as defined by the Novopay technical review," Joyce says.

"Transactions volumes also dropped from around 30,000 in the previous pay period to 23,000.

"It shows the system is settling down again after the high volumes and high error rate of the last three pay periods connected to the Start of Year process."

The 0.19 per cent headline error figure compares favourably with the 0.43 per cent error rate experienced in the equivalent pay period last year.

“The Start of the Year, while significantly better than last year, has always been problematic with a higher error rate – even under the previous payroll provider – due to the high number of data entry changes required that affect 60-65 per cent of all staff on the payroll,” Joyce says.

“Compared to last year’s Start of Year process there have been very few issues with the Novopay software.”

Joyce says work continues to ensure the next pay period – the first of the new financial year – runs smoothly.

“Work is also continuing on remediating and improving the school payroll system, including revising the service centre model and addressing outstanding overpayments and leave balances,” he adds.

Other planned changes in the next six months include improvements to the readability of payslips and regular administrative reports, and a project to reduce the complexity of the payroll system that has built up over the last 25 years.