Novopay inquiry to cost $500K

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Ministerial inquiry will be headed by former CEO of DPMC, Maarten Wevers and chairman of Deloitte NZ, Murray Jack.

By Computerworld staff | Auckland | Monday, 4 February, 2013 | 12 Comments

A ministerial inquiry – one of five measures taken by the government to fix the troubled teachers payroll system – will cost $500,000.

Minister with responsibility for Novopay Steven Joyce says the cost will be met from Ministry of Education’s baselines. The draft terms of reference for the review will be consulted with the sector in the coming days and is expected to be completed by the end of May.

The inquiry will be undertaken by the former chief executive of the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet, Sir Maarten Wevers and chairman of Deloitte New Zealand, Murray Jack.

“Sir Maarten is a highly experienced and well respected former member of the public service. He has wide public recognition with a strong reputation for independence, trust and integrity, which make him an ideal person to be involved in this ministerial inquiry,” says Joyce.

“Murray Jack has extensive experience in reviewing and advising on issues relating to major information technology systems, including the review of security breaches in the Ministry of Social Development’s self-service kiosks. He is also leading the technical review of the stability of the Novopay system and the data contained in it. It makes practical sense for him to be involved in both the technical review and the ministerial inquiry.”

Joyce says following the inquiry he will ask the Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment to work with Treasury, the State Services Commission and the government chief information officer to provide Cabinet with advice about contracting arrangements in the wider state sector.

Comments

Accounting firms and their offshoots and Prince 2 Talking about the high priced incompetence of accounting firms. I dealt with this first hand with Accenture RIP. Then of course BearingPoint and their legendary stuff up at Education RIP.
And Prince 2. Gotto have or you can't be a Project Manager now. That's ok though we can still stuff projects up big time because we have to go live. We don't care if it doesn't work. We don't want to hear excuses. Just do. Make it happen. It will sort itself out. Ha! Is that Karma or something?

Posted by Anonymous at 9:06:27 on February 7, 2013

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Database and Payclerks 1980s database IT would do better.1950s payclerks would do better.
What a pathetic farrago.
Posted by Anonymous at 21:58:10 on February 4, 2013

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Ghaaah More good money after bad. 500k would probably produce a world class payroll system with the right project team and leader and a bunch of $20ph Asian programmers.
Posted by Justin at 21:10:09 on February 4, 2013

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Ministers knew of 147 defects with Novopay What a waste of 500k! We already know what went wrong - 3 Ministers signed off a system with 147 known defects; a payroll system with payment calculation bugs. Sack the muppets who effectively gave a WOF to a car with 3 flat tyres and loan the 500k to Novopay, at above market rates, to get the appropriate resources to fix it.
Posted by Anonymous at 21:00:39 on February 4, 2013

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$500,000 Shouldn't Talent2 be contributing the $500,000 for the ministerial inquiry to figure out where they went wrong? Or at the very least giving the taxpayers some of this as a discount off their professional fees?
Posted by Anonymous at 20:02:47 on February 4, 2013

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Accountancy firms with no IT knowledge "Murray Jack has extensive experience in reviewing and advising on issues relating to major information technology systems, including the review of security breaches in the Ministry of Social Development's self-service kiosks. He is also leading the technical review of the stability of the Novopay system and the data contained in it. It makes practical sense for him to be involved in both the technical review and the ministerial inquiry."

Translation: Murray Jack will bill 50 grads with no industry knowledge to analyse the problem, write a report, and massage it to fit the conclusions we want.
Posted by Anonymous at 18:41:50 on February 4, 2013

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Accountancy firms with no IT knowledge Bang on. Perhaps we could get a list of gift registers and conflicts of interests in relation to govt boards, execs, and the accountancy firms. Govt hires them only because they have a perception of credibility.
Posted by Anonymous at 13:44:36 on February 5, 2013

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Accountancy firms with no IT knowledge Yeah what is it with hiring Accounting firms who have people who have spent no time in the IT trenches doing the work? Given the BS that the MSD report had why bother? That didn't highlight anything any IT person in Wellington (if not wider) didn't already know. Surely you could have got a large IT firm to do the audit that would come up with real findings not one that isolates the management and blames the workers?
Posted by Anonymous at 8:20:48 on February 5, 2013

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Accountancy firms with no IT knowledge >Yeah what is it with hiring Accounting firms who have people who have spent no time in the IT trenches doing the work?<
That shows exactly how much you know.
Posted by Anonymous at 8:37:07 on February 5, 2013

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Accountancy firms with no IT knowledge What we do know is Deloitte is remarkably good at sucking up to the right people to get projects then butchering them so badly they're a total waste - witness the $100 million blown at Auckland Council on three it/business projects that were a total disaster and delivered nothing of value. Seems par for the course with these big accountancy firms. No capability, no knowledge and no skill in IT.
Posted by Anonymous at 12:44:38 on February 5, 2013

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