Massive problems in Ministry led to Novopay debacle

4 June 2013

Immediate Release

Inquiry reveals massive problems in Ministry led to Novopay debacle

NZEI Te Riu Roa says Government Ministers need to take responsibility for a Ministry that was sick, over-confident and had poor systems of governance and accountability.

The Ministerial inquiry into Novopay has now revealed the extent of the problems within the Ministry of Education that led to such an enormous debacle.

NZEI President Judith Nowotarski says it was clear that the problems within the Ministry went very deep and that it was ill-equipped to oversee the implementation of Novopay.

“There were huge weaknesses in the Ministry’s systems that were not acknowledged, such as high staff turnover, undue optimism and a lack of appropriate oversight.

“Quite clearly we are looking at a sick organisation and Government Ministers are responsible for that.”

As a result more than $10-million has been lost to New Zealand education mainly because key advice that the Novopay system was flawed and not ready for implementation, was simply not heeded or listened to.

“It was clearly a dogged determination to stick to a system and timetable that was never going to work.”

She says another key problem was that this was a business model that was imposed on schools without adequately preparing or resourcing them.

Mrs Nowotarski says that NZEI has very little faith that the Government will be able to sort the problems by the end of June as promised.

“Looking at the backlog of complaints there certainly doesn’t seem to be evidence that the issues will be resolved in that time frame.

“NZEI is still getting a lot of calls from fed-up members, particularly around issues like third party deductions, and incorrect taxation and holiday pay and more work needs to be done on this urgently.

“This has been an expensive lesson for the Government and consequently the New Zealand taxpayer. Once again, we hope that the Government has learned a lesson that it must start listening to the education sector.”

ENDS

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