Education Sec reports good Novopay progress to sector

Media release

21 November 2012

Secretary for Education reports good Novopay progress to sector

The Education Secretary, Lesley Longstone, has assured key sector leaders in Wellington that progress is being made with the new payroll system and has thanked them for their efforts and hard work since Novopay’s implementation.

Ms Longstone met with leaders of several sector groups this morning to update them on Novopay’s progress and told them both the Ministry and Talent2 are fully committed to getting the system right.

The Chief Executive of Talent2, John Rawlinson attended the meeting and said he was sorry for the extra stress and workload the new system had caused, but that he was confident of delivering a system that will make a positive difference for schools.

Ms Longstone says she was pleased it was such a productive meeting.

“We were able to agree to continue working together to achieve a payroll system for schools that delivers everything they need.

“I reassured the meeting the Ministry is working very hard with Talent2 to get this right and that we recognise school administrators have also been working incredibly hard to make this work.

“We are very sorry that schools and their staff have had a number of issues since Novopay came on line, but a number of those have been resolved and a great deal of resources from the Ministry and Talent2 are dedicated to tackling outstanding issues.”

Ms Longstone told the sector leaders that the Ministry and Talent2 are committed to doing everything possible to ensure Christmas payments will go through as expected.

“I also reminded them that where a school has been unable to make a payment to a staff member who may not have been paid or been underpaid that the Ministry will always make funds available.”

Groups represented at the meeting were:
NZ School Trustees’ Association
NZ Educational Institute
NZ Principals’ Federation
Post Primary Teachers’ Association
School Executive Officers’ Association
NZ Area Schools’ Association
The Association of Intermediate and Middle Schools
The Service and Food Workers Union

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