A Government takeover of the troublesome Novopay teachers' pay system is "fabulous", says a Hawke's Bay principal.
On Wednesday senior cabinet minister Steven Joyce announced a Government-owned company would take over management of the Novopay system from Australian company Talent2 from October this year.
Hawke's Bay schools have struck countless problems with the system since it was introduced in 2012, including overpayment and underpayment of wages as well as missed wages, with school staff working long hours to try to correct the problems.
Hawke's Bay Principals' Association president Mike Bain, from Te Mata School, said it was good to see the Government take responsibility and accountability for Novopay.
"Novopay has made huge leaps and bounds in terms of being more consistent and yet there are still fundamental flaws and consistent mistakes and random errors, so any move on behalf of the [Ministry of Education] to resolve that has got to be a good thing.
"From our perspective it's a fundamental human right to work the hours and get paid for them."
Most problems with full-time teacher pay at his school had been resolved, he said.
However relieving or part-time staff, support staff, and staff whose hours changed frequently were "constantly barraged" with pay processing problems.
Te Mata's administrator spent 80 per cent of her time dealing with payroll problems, as opposed to 20 per cent before Novopay was brought in, he said.
The school had faced difficulties contacting Novopay to resolve problems.
"You can ring twice in a day and get different people who give you different answers. We've had issues where supervisors have absolutely insisted they're correct and we know that they're absolutely 100 per cent wrong."
One teacher who had been working at the school for 18 months disappeared from the payroll and did not get paid for a fortnight, he said.
Talent2 will pay the Ministry of Education between $18 million and $22 million including $7m cash and other considerations such as license to use the core software by way of a settlement.
Mr Joyce said although the system had been improving, recent contractual issues involving Talent2 not being prepared to further resource the system led to the management takeover.
Reaction from others in the education sector has been mixed.
New Zealand Principals' Federation president Phil Harding said while placing Novopay under Government management would bring greater accountability to the public, its announcement did not cure the Novopay "shambles".
"The same challenges of random errors, frustratingly slow problem resolution, inaccurate personnel data, and significantly increased workload will continue," he said.
"Success will be determined by the way the new entity is managed and, more importantly, resourced to deal to these priorities."
New Zealand Educational Institute national secretary Paul Goulter said the Government should have taken over Novopay at least a year ago.
"Government has dragged its feet for two years while the problems with Novopay wreaked havoc in our schools.
"While Government has negotiated a compensation package with Talent2, the issue of compensation for schools struggling on the front line remains unresolved. Our schools and the staff directly affected continue to pay the price."
Schools, he said, needed reassurance the system would not once again get 'flicked out' to the private sector, and the Ministry needed to rebuild confidence that it could deliver an accurate and efficient payroll system.
-additional reporting Adam Bennett