Minister twiddles thumbs while teachers miss out

"The Government should apologise to teachers for the on-going problems and stress caused by the bungled introduction of the Novopay system," says Labour’s Education spokesperson Nanaia Mahuta.

"Approximately 1500 teachers have not been paid in the last pay-round and there are many others waiting for previous errors to be rectified.

"It's taken the Government four years of work to get the system ready to go live.  It has cost taxpayers $26-million to shift to Novopay - and still the system has serious flaws.  The whole process has been botched.

“The Associate Education Minister Craig Foss must take responsibility for the mess.  Even better, he could pull his finger out and get Novopay fixed.

"Some principals are working up to five hours a day sorting out pay problems.  It is a waste of their time and skills.  They shouldn’t have to clean-up pay problems when they should be focused on ensuring their schools are delivering the best education they can.

"To make matters worse, pay clerks and finance administrators have waited on hold for an hour or more to phone in adjustments to the 0800 helpline.  And even then the problems aren’t always resolved.

"Schools are frustrated to the point of distraction.  Our teachers deserve better than this.  They work hard and do an incredibly important job.  Getting paid on time and in full is not too much to ask.

“This debacle cannot be allowed to drag on any longer.  In the end it will be the education of our children that will suffer if our teachers are stressed and distracted,” says Nanaia Mahuta.