New Zealand Principals’ Federation Flyer

NZPF No: 2802 - Radio

Tēnā koe

Novopay drags on and I am puzzled. Two weeks ago sector groups met with the Ministry to “agree a package” designed to affirm to schools that progress was being made, and to meet some of the costs associated with one of the worst implementations that any of us can remember. There was a sense of urgency from all parties, and an acknowledgement that compensation was now urgent. We knew that any solution would be months away, and our advice to the Ministry was that schools would need encouragement to work through the Novopay nightmare.

A five point package was drafted, including a delay to charter deadlines, a financial package, improved communications, dedicated regional support, and a public acknowledgement of schools’ commitment to making Novopay work.

After that first meeting, there was a series of follow-up meetings which added nothing, agreed to nothing, and offered nothing. The technical review has been delayed to consider other issues. Effectively, things have been stalled, but that begs the question – why?

Listening to Minister Joyce’s latest announcement this week, I suspect he is hoping that the error statistics will improve sufficiently in the next two weeks that these can be trumpeted as a fix. The PWC analysis of PP25 stated that error rates were as low as 2%, while in contrast our survey suggested that 26,000 staff were incorrectly paid! It is likely that many of the errors are historic, but they still stare out at you from their SUE report, undeniably wrong, and urgently needing to be corrected. These errors don’t disappear, but get pushed forward into the next pay period, and the one after that, snarling up the system and requiring close attention from you, every fortnight.

Novopay’s current focus is simply on paying people. This ignores the complete failure of Banked Staffing reports, the outstanding under-and over-payments, the bizarre SUE reports, the calculation errors, the horrible user unfriendliness, and worst of all, the third party transactions.

Third party transactions are the deductions from staff pay that are meant to go to the IRD, super schemes, KiwiSaver, student loan repayments, unions, child support, and so forth. When someone’s pay is wrong, so are the downstream third party deductions. I fear that it will be a long time before you will be willing to sign off your annual SUE summary as accurate.

Our advice:
1 Write to your local MOE office and inform them of the date when you can realistically forward your charter, citing Novopay as the reason for the delay
2 Record the number of additional hours that you have spent on Novopay, and keep a diary of the issues for the auditor
3 Download and set up the Banked Staffing spread-sheet from the Ministry’s website, and monitor BS each fortnight
4 Write to the Minister and detail the issues that are currently taking your time and the impact of Novopay on your school Copy this to your local MP, and other Ministers (email rule = firstname.secondname@parliament.govt.nz)
5 Do not sign your annual report and SUE summary unless your Board is completely happy that it accurately reflects correct usage in 2012

I am overseas next week, as I head to Amsterdam to the 3rd International OECD Summit for The Teaching Profession, along with the Minister of Education, and other sector leaders. Iain Taylor from Manurewa Intermediate will also attend. Make sure you behave yourself.

Nō reira, noho ora mai ra

Philip Harding
philha@nzpf.ac.nz

UPCOMING DATES
March 22
March 21-23 NZPF Moot
Executive Meeting, Wellington
NZPF Media releases
NZPF has issued several media releases on Novopay amongst other issues this year, and as recently as this week. Click here to access the latest media releases.

New Zealand sign language (nZsl) interpreters for deaf parents with children at school
From February 2013 the MOE will fund interpreters for deaf parents so that they can more fully participate in their children’s school activities. The MOE has contracted iSign, through Deaf Aotearoa New Zealand, to provide this service nationally for 2013. The service will be free to parents and schools and available to primary and secondary schools. Interpreters will be available for formal parent-teacher meetings, IEP planning meetings, prize-giving ceremonies, additional meetings with school staff where any aspect of a child’s education is being discussed, school enrolment meetings. More information is available from the MOE website or iSign website. Contact Carolyn Grace on 04 463 8953 or email for specific inquiries.

reading recovery funding
Late last year a number of you reported your concerns that the funding for reading recovery had been reduced. NZPF President at the time, Paul Drummond wrote to the MOE seeking more information and a response has now been received.

The letter from Rowena Phair says ‘There has been no reduction in the national resource available to support schools implement reading recovery. Rather there has been an increase...’ The resource is distributed regionally. The number of hours distributed is calculated according to the number of English-medium state and state-integrated schools with six year olds enrolled, and the number of six year old learners. It is noted however that if more schools implement reading recovery the resource will be spread more thinly.

The expectation that schools will, where possible, at least match the Ministry staffing with a similar amount from their own resources remains unchanged. A formula was derived in 2009 to support national consistency in targeting priority learners including Māori and Pasifika and those in lower socio-economic areas.
Banking Staffing Update 7 March 2013
Entering “Additional Hours” for part-time teachers in Novopay Online
I suggest you substitute “additional hours” in place of “day relief hours” as you read the Novopay “Entering actual day relief hours . . .” article dated 1 March 2013. To read click here

Schools and part-time staff are better off when using “additional hours” for part-time staff in their own school rather than entering “day relief hours”. Hopefully the fix described in the Novopay article will work, but if not, spread some of the additional hours over a prior day to stay within the 5 hour maximum.

Gavin Price, NZPF Life Member gavin.price@xtra.co.nz www.bankingstaffing.co.nz

closures and mergers
NZPF recognises that from time to time school network reviews are necessary. Reasons for this might include shifting demographics, natural disaster and other legitimate purposes. What the Christchurch experience has taught us is that there is an urgent need for an inclusive and well managed consultation process in the event of a network review.

The Executive has drafted a position statement. You can access that by clicking here. Points made in the paper were shared at the meeting this week with acting Secretary for Education, Peter Hughes and were well received. We would welcome your feedback on this paper before we finalise it as our position.
Te Ariki
The Ariki school leadership & school development programme using inquiry and appraisal is offered to all school leaders throughout Aotearoa/New Zealand. Currently 59 schools and 675 teachers are involved and numbers are growing. The programme is uniquely NZ and connects school leaders’ intents for learning with how teachers implement those intentions in the classroom leading to enhanced student achievement and progress. Ariki uses established protocols and e-technology to explore evidence of practice which is then further enhanced by collaborative reflective questioning in a face to face group setting within and across schools.

The programme is further supported by online resources and direct group facilitation of the principals groups. Ariki is a joint collaboration between schools, NZPF and NZEI. Click here to read more

EQUICO LIMITED
We warmly welcome Equico Limited to our team of business partners, as a bronze level partner. Equico is New Zealand’s specialist education lease provider. All public and state integrated schools in New Zealand can use Equico to lease or finance any equipment they require. Whether it is technology for the school or students, a new minivan for the sports teams or an upgrade of the new music suite. Equicorp works with all suppliers. Talk to a school specialist now and watch your money go further whilst you get everything you need.
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