School Principals Declare Pay System a Shambles

Media Release October 19 2012 – for immediate release
Attention: Education and Political Reporters

School Principals Declare Pay System a Shambles

‘A survey conducted by the New Zealand Principals’ Federation (NZPF) shows that 90% of schools are still struggling to get the Ministry to resolve problems created by the new Novopay system,’ says Paul Drummond, NZPF President.

‘Principals are becoming increasingly frustrated trying to implement a payroll system that is repeatedly failing them, not resolving old issues and throwing up new ones,’ he said.

In answer to the question ‘Do you have on-going problems yet to be resolved from previous pay round(s)?’ a whopping 90.2% answered ‘yes’ and 86% said they had no confidence that problems will be resolved by the end of the year.

Over a thousand principals from across the country and across all sizes and types of schools responded to the survey, distributed to 2,400 schools last week.

‘What the Ministry is saying just doesn’t reconcile with what principals are telling us,’ said Drummond. ‘50.9% of principals reported that the figures in the latest Ministry’s wage and salary pay report are not accurate,’ he said.

‘One in five schools have not had all their staff paid correctly in this latest pay round. That is a disgraceful statistic,’ says Drummond. ‘We should have five out of five by now,’ he said.

Further, a quarter of surveyed schools will be using their own money to pay staff who have not been paid correctly this pay round.

The new payroll system has cost nearly $30million, is more than a year late and it is questionable whether it can deliver at all.

‘This is the fourth pay roll since Novopay was introduced. What we have now are not teething problems,’ said Drummond, ‘They are clearly systemic,’ he said.

‘There is no going back,’ said Drummond. ‘The Ministry has to front up, acknowledge the inherent problems and reimburse schools for all the extraordinary financial costs. In many schools Novopay has created an extra job for which they are not being funded. It is also distracting from all the other work our payroll staff usually do.

ENDS

© Scoop Media