Chris
HIPKINS
Acting Education Spokesperson
20 December 2012 MEDIA STATEMENT

$1m On Consultants And Novopay Still Doesn’t Work

The Government spent more than $1,000,000 on consultants as part of the switch over to Novopay including $650,000 on testing of the payroll system, which was completely ignored, says Chris Hipkins.

Teachers have now put up with four months of botched pay days thanks to Novopay, and tomorrow’s big year-end pay is expected to throw up even more anomalies, errors and failures.

“Novopay has been an unmitigated disaster - but it didn’t have to be this way. The Government spent $650,000 on “User Acceptance Testing,” which showed that less than half of the 731 trial-users felt they were ready for the system to go live.

“But the Education Minister Hekia Parata, and her associate minister Craig Foss, didn’t even ask to see those test results. They ploughed ahead regardless.

“Why spend $650,000 on testing if you’re not interested in the results? It’s crazy.

“The Government has poured $30-million into Novopay so far. That’s a hell of a lot of taxpayer’s money. You would have thought that the Ministers in charge might have taken their responsibilities more seriously, and at least looked at the testing they shelled out more than half-a-million dollars on.

“Novopay has been an embarrassing and expensive failure. And it is teachers, support staff, principals and students that are suffering, while taxpayers pick-up the tab for the National Government’s incompetence,” says Chris Hipkins

NOTE: Attached to this email is the relevant pages of the Education Select Committee’s Financial Review of the Ministry of Education covering the Ministry’s responses to the Committee’s questions.

Click here to read [pdf]

ENDS

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Scoop Business: Bathurst Gets Nod For DoC Access To Denniston Mine

Conservation Minister Nick Smith has approved access over conservation estate land for Bathurst Resources to develop an open cast coal mine on the Denniston Plateau, above Westport, to the dismay of environmental opponents.

The timing for Smith’s move avoids Bathurst having to resubmit applications for access agreements under the revised Crown Minerals Act, which comes into force tomorrow and would have required public consultation.

The announcement lands in the middle of delicate negotiations between the company, environmental groups and other interested parties that could pave the way to a broader agreement on the Escarpment proposal, whose resource consents are still subject to court appeals. More>>