End-of-Year process positive for Novopay

Minister Responsible for Novopay Steven Joyce says a 100 per cent completion rate for schools involved in the End-of-Year process and an accompanying low error rate are tributes to the hard work done by school administrators and Novopay staff and contractors.

Mr Joyce today released the reports on complaints and notifications received in regards to Pay Period 20 and 21 of the schools’ payroll - which are the End-of-Year pay periods.

Pay Period 20, which was paid on the morning of 21 December because of Christmas, paid 76,626 people a total of $175.26 million. The report for that pay shows complaints and notifications were received regarding 0.34 per cent of staff across the country, 25 staff were notified as not paid, 99 were overpaid, and 138 underpaid. Affected staff were from 166 schools or 6.77 per cent of schools in the payroll system.

Pay Period 21 paid 60,056 people a total of $139.21 million on the morning of 8 January. The complaints report for that payday shows that complaints and notifications were received regarding 0.25 per cent of staff across the country, 32 staff were notified as not paid, 54 were overpaid, and 61 underpaid. Affected staff were from 92 schools or 3.71 per cent of schools in the payroll system.

“It’s encouraging that both pay days had similarly low levels of errors to that of other pay periods in the second half of last year", Mr Joyce says.

"Pay Periods 20 and 21 were the 20th and 21st of the last 22 pay rounds to perform below the 0.5 per cent steady state error level identified as appropriate by the Technical Review team.

"End-of-Year is a very busy time with considerable administrative changes needing to be made. The education payroll is like no other in the country in terms of the complexity of this work and the 2012/13 End-of-Year process was when many errors occurred and problems with the new system were highlighted."

Mr Joyce says schools and the Novopay team are also making good progress with the Start-of-Year process. “Two-thirds of schools had completed their start of year process before Christmas, and that number is now up to 95 per cent.

"While Novopay has passed one of its biggest tests, more work needs to be done and is being done. This includes completing the Start-of-Year process, upgrading parts of the system that records length of service and completing outstanding work on leave balances. Meanwhile, work to collect past overpayments continues.

"Work is also being planned to look at simplifying the End-of-Year and Start-of-Year processes to ensure that they run as smoothly as possible in future.”

*This was higher due to the one-off Voluntary Bonding error