Local Bodies: Novopay Exemplifies National’s Governance

26 comments on “Local Bodies: Novopay Exemplifies National’s Governance ”

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1. Lan 1

   31 July 2014 at 11:56 am

   It is ridiculous to try and “fix” the software..payroll should be handled by each school, or maybe region ..why they ever hired an Australian company is a mystery ..madness .. plenty of skills for such a routine matter here ..and plenty of business software. Whole thing is nuts!
   • Sam 1.1

     31 July 2014 at 1:36 pm

     The timeline of Novapay is of no importance, any color of Government makes decisions that come back to haunt them. The contract was let in 2005 and signed off in 2008. The only consolation is that the hard lessons suffered by Education staff and Post Office employees may allow the Billion dollar IRD system be robust and roll out with few problems.
     • Ennui 1.1.1

       31 July 2014 at 1:50 pm

       Whats the bet that the same idiots will be “consulting” and advising on contracts and deliverables. In a nutshell that is where most IT contracts go off the rails, and the delivering company surrounds itself with bullet proof legal nonsense.
2. Richard 2

   31 July 2014 at 12:18 pm

   And it is soooo not fixed. My partner hasn’t received a payslip for 6 months. Wouldn’t have a clue if the pay amounts are correct.
3. kenny 3

   31 July 2014 at 12:20 pm

   Captain Fail strikes again!

   Blame everyone but those responsible – gutless!
4. vto 4

   31 July 2014 at 12:30 pm

   The novopay bailout by taxpayers is another example of the failure of the policies and philosophies of the current right, as exhibited by the likes of gosman, srylands (same person), farrar, key, joyce, whyte. It now sits on the mantelpiece beside….

   deregulation – 29 dead men at Pike River
   the driver of self-interest – 29 dead men at Pike River
   contracting out to private firms – novopay
   private firms run things better – Air NZ, NZ Rail, Novopay, electricity companies
   deregulation – finance companies, banks and the GFC

   the list is endless and I imagine a BLiP list of such would run mr prents server dry

   the neoliberal dogma that has been foisted on us has failed.

   I once supported it myself but the evidence is now abundantly clear that those principles have very limited use and application.

   You watch the National Party post-Key begin to dump these and manoeuvre back to the middle ways and policies of the past.
   • Chooky 4.1

     31 July 2014 at 2:10 pm

     +100
5. Tiger Mountain 5

   31 July 2014 at 12:49 pm

   In a better world the “NeverPay” debacle would become a standard text on why Freidmanite economics should not be applied to public service delivery.

   Governments should stay out of business the ACToids say (until they crap out) then the long suffering tax payer gets to bail out failed capitalist enterprise again.

   How about; corporates keep out of citizens affairs such as education, health, science, utilities and transport and stick to gadgets, leisure and junk food.
   • Chooky 5.1

     31 July 2014 at 2:07 pm

     Agreed Tiger Mountain ..this NACT government is a failure and it is exemplified by the shocking mismanagement of professional teachers’ pay…..it is a disgrace!

     Hopefully all teachers will collectively and individually speak out on this before the Election
     • tinfoilhat 5.1.1

       31 July 2014 at 2:31 pm

       hmmmm unfortunately National and Labour are peas in a pod on much of education…. absolutely hopeless.

       My advice would be to vote Green.
6. SpaceMonkey 6

   31 July 2014 at 1:23 pm

   Seems to me the decision for the Government to take over Novopay is a tacit acknowledgement by National that the market doesn’t always get it right…
7. Stuart Munro 7

   31 July 2014 at 1:27 pm

   If the government had any integrity they’d sic Paula Bennet and her faceless legions on Talent2. Their fraud has cost NZ four times as much as all benefit fraud put together, so they should face a practical infinity of harassment.
   • ropata 7.1

     31 July 2014 at 10:14 pm

     but still nowhere near as much as the billions in tax fraud regularly committed by Aussie banks … no penalty as long as we have a bankster PM
8. Tracey 8

   31 July 2014 at 1:41 pm

   Does this mean that PPP now stands for piss poor performance?
9. Macro 9

   31 July 2014 at 1:55 pm

   Furthermore….
   This “deal” with Talentless2 ends up costing NZ taxpayers $9m a year for a system that is clearly under performing and not up to specification!

   And Furthermore….
   Captain “fix it” has been crowing all year that it was “Improving” – Well we know he is nothing but a bullshit artist – and this is his masterpiece.
   See NRT for more on this sorry tale:
   http://norightturn.blogspot.co.nz/2014/07/improving.html
10. disturbed 10

    31 July 2014 at 3:20 pm

    NOVA stands for:
    not obviously very affordable
    Captain fix it said our Gisborne rail wouldn’t pay, and it rings a bell now his NOVAPAY management stinks.
    Roll on election so they can get tossed out and find some other county to mess up not ours.
11. Tc 11

    31 July 2014 at 3:25 pm

    The zealots of privatisation get taken for a ride, joyce has failed to deliver which is no surprise.

    Bullying doesnt fix code or process and all labour asked for was an improved system with a web based entry leaving national to make a pigs ear of a payroll system yup payroll nothing new or difficult.

    There are a few enterprise strength systems could have been stood up and running in the time its taken Joyce to fix nothing. But then I think pissing teachers off is a fav nact pastime.
12. ropata 12

    31 July 2014 at 7:25 pm

    It was necessary to replace the outdated manual system maintained by Datacom with something. I would be interested to see the criteria for accepting the Novopay tender.

    After INCIS and many many many IT failures around the world surely departments with multi million dollar budgets should have some robust governance. Who the f*ck is responsible for governance of projects if not ultimately the Government.

    Who ignored the warning signs?
    Who forced the system to go live knowing there were 8000 defects, including dozens that were marked as CRITICAL?
    • Draco T Bastard 12.1

      1 August 2014 at 9:16 am

      After INCIS and many many many IT failures around the world surely departments with multi million dollar budgets should have some robust governance.

      Something the size of government can support an IT department to maintain and advise on all hardware and software across all of government. IMO, We’re having these failures because the government doesn’t have such a department and we don’t have that department because of the failed ideology that the private sector does it better. The failures that we’ve gotten from INCIS onwards is proof that the private sector sux as far as government is concerned.
13. Draco T Bastard 13

    31 July 2014 at 7:58 pm

    Identified the Ministry of Education as poorly performing but did little to address this.

    This is incorrect. They did quite a bit to address it. They:

    1. Cut funding
    2. Lost experienced people
    3. Employed inexperienced people

    and everything else you list. Basically, they did their utmost to utterly destroy the ministry.
    • ropata 13.1

      1 August 2014 at 8:34 am

      National hates teachers, and will do anything to destroy their union.
14. tricledrown 14

    1 August 2014 at 12:49 am

    Nova Pay has become a whip to beat the teachers with.
    Insider Knowledge has it that it will take at least another 2 years to fix and that anyone caught leaking this information will be instantly dismissed!
15. dave 15

    1 August 2014 at 7:57 pm

    well we can all help long suffering teachers by sacking this government on sept 20th
16. burt 16

    2 August 2014 at 9:55 am

    Nova pay sure does exemplify the National Government. Put in place by Labour and inherited by National when it was in a mess – just like the recession handed to National by Labour.
    • dave kennedy (bsprout) 16.1

      2 August 2014 at 6:04 pm

      Burt, you have an interesting take on responsibility. If we used the analogy of Novopay as a school bus, then we could say that Labour bought the shell of a bus that needed to be constructed for future use. It doesn’t really matter if that shell had some unidentified defects it is the responsibility of the next owner to oversee the construction and not put it on the road until it is properly road worthy.
    • tricledrown 16.2

      2 August 2014 at 6:20 pm

      burt you are lying it was not put in place by Labour they were only going to trial it for 6 months only in Canterbury to see if the software had any problems and to sse if they could be worked out.
      Hekia Parata rolled it out Nation wide without any trial.
      She is the most incompetent education minister ever.
      This was rolled out with out the trial deliberately to screw teachers over !
      After nationals debacle with INSIS National must have known that one of software like this is prone to failure.

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