Media Release 19 August 2013
Novopay Still Well Below the Standard
The New Zealand Principals' Federation (NZPF) President Philip Harding says that with the anniversary of the
introduction of Novopay looming this week, there remains a lot of work to do.
“Despite the efforts of the Ministry over the last few months, principals remain unconvinced that Novopay will ever be
“fit to purpose”, with 67% of respondents still lacking confidence in the software. While there is clearly some
improvement evident, many school payroll staff continue to struggle, and concern is building already about the End of
Year and Start of Year processes that were such a nightmare last year.”
58% of responding schools state that annual leave balances and sick leave are the most troublesome single issue at
present, closely followed by difficulties getting answers from Novopay staff, and the general usability of the software
itself.
Schools are once again crying out for financial assistance to cover the new work that Novopay has brought to the school
office, with 67% of principals expecting extra resourcing in the operations grant for 2014. This is assistance which the
Ministry has so far ruled out.
“August and September are relatively calm pay cycles in schools,” said Harding, “but the periods between now and
Christmas will start to get busy, and the Ministry needs to be ready for that increasing complexity, to avoid a repeat
of last year’s chaos. It should also reconsider the impact of this new workload on all schools, and fund schools
sufficiently to cover it.”
ENDS