Hon Steven Joyce
Minister Responsible for Novopay
13 March 2014
Start of year process affects pay periods
Minister Responsible for Novopay Steven Joyce today released the reports on complaints and notifications received in
regards to Pay Period 24 and 25 of the schools’ payroll.
Pay Period 24, which was paid on the morning of 19 February, paid 80,746 people a total of $163.79 million. The report
for that pay shows complaints and notifications were received regarding 1.06 per cent of staff across the country, 274
staff were notified as not paid, 89 were overpaid, and 492 underpaid. Affected staff were from 615 schools or 25.41 per
cent of schools in the payroll system.
Pay Period 25 paid 85,799 people a total of $174.31 million on the morning of 5 March. The complaints report for that
payday shows that complaints and notifications were received regarding 0.78 per cent of staff across the country, 390
staff were notified as not paid, 42 were overpaid, and 234 underpaid. Affected staff were from 432 schools or 17.85 per
cent of schools in the payroll system.
“The error rate for Pay Periods 24 and 25 is disappointing, although not unexpected given the Start of Year process,” Mr
Joyce says. “At the start of each year a large number of data entry changes have to be made that affect 60-65 per cent
of all staff on the payroll,” Mr Joyce says.
“I have previously stated that this process would likely lift the error rate for three or four pay periods, as it does
every year. It is more challenging with Novopay as remediation work on the system continues. However, the error rate
across the Start of Year process is significantly better than last year and the system will settle down again as the
year proceeds.
“Pay Periods 23, 24 and 25 are the first pay periods above the 0.5 per cent acceptable steady state error level as
defined by the Novopay technical review since April last year.
“The good news is that there have been very few software issues following the very significant work done on the
programme in the last few months. The main problems have been traced to data entry errors, and the way the service
centre model works, which continues to be very frustrating for school administrators.”
The service centre model is currently being revised with the sector in a process that started in September. The plan is
to start introducing changes in the first half of this year.
“While significant work still needs to be done on the school payroll and it remains frustrating for school
administrators, the Novopay system and software is running a lot better than this time last year with good progress made
in stabilising and remediating it,” Mr Joyce says.
Percentage of staff about which complaints and notifications receivedNumber of Schools affectedPay Period 250.78%*432Pay Period 241.06%*#615Pay Period 230.69%*268Pay Period 220.18%68Pay Period 210.25%92Pay Period 200.34%166Pay Period 190.19%111Pay Period 180.079%62Pay Period 170.093%68Pay Period 160.084%58Pay Period 150.21%118Pay Period 140.18%133Pay Period 130.15%108Pay Period 120.12%109Pay Period 110.21%151Pay Period 100.27%173Pay Period 90.12%76Pay Period 80.22%156Pay Period 70.26%177Pay Period 60.30%197Pay Period 50.39%234Pay Period 40.42%247Pay Period 30.26%166Pay Period 20.44%264Pay Period 12.14%^386Pay Period 260.43%**232Pay Period 251%**406Pay Period 241.90%**447Pay Period 232.20%**628
^ This was higher due to the one-off voluntary bonding error
* Start of school year pay 2014
** Start of school year pay 2013
# This was higher due to one-off Principal Career Structure payment error
ENDS