It is not a problem just limited to government...

We just care about it more because it uses taxpayer money...

Oversimplifying a lot, tenders are usually awarded to the lowest bid, so it is not uncommon for an underdog to beat the big guy. Small vendors might have their best intentions ("how hard can it be to develop a payroll system? We'll put Wordpress and a few plugins"), they usually don't have the technical skills and experience to deliver the project at that time of writing the proposal (it costs money to keep good people in the payroll, and you don't get money unless you win the contract). When it comes the time for delivering reality gets in the way: the project is technically far more complex than anticipated, you can't find/retain good engineers in NZ small talent pool,...The only special think about Novopay it's that the story hit the frontpage.

Not always cost. Some RFPs require the bidders to put previous experience and points are awarded for different items. 

freitasm:

 

Not always cost. Some RFPs require the bidders to put previous experience and points are awarded for different items. 

 

Yes, sometimes having built a garden shed works as a proof that you can build a cathedral. Even if Bob and Alice who did a great job with that shed left the company years ago. When a proven track record of delivering similar kind of projects consistently is valued over price it always comes to the household names, which people don't like either.

Varkk:

 

From memory Datacom provided the old system and were approached to tender for the new one but declined.

 

Yes, Datacom definitely provided the old system - was it called "Edupay"?
I can't remember if they declined to tender or lost the tender to Talent2

If an incumbent provider who is still in the same line of business (Datacom in this case) declines to tender for an upgrade / replacement for their existing product, what does that say about the tender document and/or the state of their relationship with the client?
Was it that the tender was so obviously disconnected with reality as Datacom saw it, that thy decided it was never going to work? If so, they were right 😞
Was it just that Datacom had completely had it with the Ministry of Education?
?

Is the new EdPay an inhouse bespoke development by MoE / Education Payroll? It certainly sounds like it 😲

In Japan, some Minister will come out, say sorry and resign. Oh, they will bow as well. 

ranjayryan:

 

In Japan, some Minister will come out, say sorry and resign. Oh, they will bow as well. 

 

Doesn't really achieve much though, does it. The money has been spent, people have been inconvenienced for years. And the minister who resigns has been getting that nice government salary that whole time and receives the perks afterwards of being an ex-MP.

I hope the new system doesn't have the issues Novopay/Datacom has had. I've read in a govt report into Novopay that even Datacom had some teething issues as well when it was adopted for the education payroll in the 90's. Apparently Datacom failed to pay all teachers who were paid via direct credit in their very first pay run—a pretty major stuff up I would have thought but has escaped the memories of people nowdays.

I'm a Teacher (though only started long after Novopay took over) and I've been luckily that all my pay have been fine. I've only had two major pay issues and neither was due to Novopay's software.

One was Novopay constantly changing my tax code to S (for my main income). I eventually found out IRD kept instructing Novopay to change the tax code. Once I got hold of someone at IRD they admitted they stuffed up and gave Novopay instruction as per my correct tax code.

Another was Novopay underpaying me because their salary assessment unit was so understaffed they were taking up to 6 months to determine the correct salary step for me. As MOE is now managing Novopay in house I suspect this is a MOE staffing issue which would happen regardless of what system is in place. I find most Novopay issues seem to be people issues—and not neccessairly with the system itself.

PolicyGuy:

 

Was it that the tender was so obviously disconnected with reality as Datacom saw it, that thy decided it was never going to work?

 

That is what I was told at the time.

Replacing Novopay is likely to be throwing the baby out with the bath water -it's finally working for the most part and they are going to scrap it.

The outrage over taking months to load the new pay changes is obviously coming from those with no experience with teaching, payroll, or both.

Teachers each will have different scale progressions, management units, some will be part time, some will be relief teachers, some paid by the MoE, some paid by the school. Even normal payroll is a black art, let alone at the scale and complexity of the teaching workforce.