Chris
HIPKINS
Acting Education Spokesperson

13 February 2013 MEDIA STATEMENT

Novopay Bill Down To Parata

Taxpayers have Hekia Parata to thank for today’s $5-million bill to try to fix Novopay, says Chris Hipkins, Labour’s acting Education spokesperson.

“Steven Joyce has ridden into town with the Government chequebook in a belated attempt to clean-up the Government’s Novopay nightmare. He’s chucking $5-million at Novopay bug fixes, the call centre and data processing.

“It’s a shame he couldn’t find any money for extra support for all the schools that are millions of dollars out of pocket as a result of dealing with the fallout from Novopay. But good luck to him. I genuinely hope Mr Joyce’s Remediation Plan works, for the sake of our schools, teachers, parents and pupils.

“But it should never have come to this. If Hekia Parata had done her job last year we would not be in this mess.

“Hekia Parata ignored all the alarm bells – the 142 known faults in Novopay, the user testing which warned schools were not ready for the new system, the audit of the call centre which found that half of all test calls were answered incorrectly.

“She ignored the original implementation plan, which would have initially seen Novopay run in parallel with the existing payroll system as contingency in case of problems.

“If Hekia Parata and her side-kick Craig Foss had exercised proper Ministerial oversight, Novopay would not have been introduced when it was so clearly not up to the job.

“Taxpayers have paid tens of millions of dollars for Novopay already. It is appalling that after six months of stuff-ups another $5-million is needed to try to get the system up to speed. I hope and trust that ultimately Steven Joyce will at least recover the $5-million from Talent2.

“Novopay has been an omnishambles from day one. Schools have been crying out for action for six months, and are still waiting for the Government to properly support them as they clean-up after Hekia Parata’s epic fail,” says Chris Hipkins.

labour.org.nz

ENDS

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