10 May 2014

Defence Force pay system 'success'

8:19 pm on 10 May 2014

The Defence Force says it has successfully rolled out a new pay system for its 14,200 personnel.

The force's chief, Lieutenant-General Tim Keating, said after six weeks the system was operating with a significantly lower error rate than the previous system.

As with any new system, he said, a few things needed to be ironed out but it was operating with a significantly lower error rate than the previous one.

He said the average error rate had been less than 0.5 percent, with the majority of these resulting from issues with data or process.

The pay system for teachers, Novopay, which makes 88,900 payments a fortnight, has faced ongoing criticism since it was introduced in August 2012.

The Government now expects that by mid-year it will have spent $43 million dollars on fixing Novopay.