Editorial: Novopay a sore on Govt rump

Prime Minister John Key and his Mr Fixit Cabinet Minister Steven Joyce must be wishing they had never heard the word Novopay.

It has become the problem that won't go away and a ministerial inquiry has found that IT firm Talent2 and the Ministry of Education were "unprepared and overwhelmed" by escalating problems with the payroll system for teachers. The inquiry into Novopay, carried out by Sir Maarten Wevers and Deloitte chairman Murray Jack, found the ministry did not have good leadership on the project.

"Ministers were not always well serviced. Reporting to ministers has been inconsistent, at times unduly optimistic and sometimes misrepresented the situation."

Two senior staff at the ministry are under investigation over advice they gave to Cabinet ministers Hekia Parata, Bill English and Craig Foss recommending they approve Novopay, which has cost $23.9 million more than budgeted.

There is some disappointment in education and opposition party circles that Ms Parata, in particular, has escaped blame and they have a point. One can't help wondering if the Prime Minister, his finance and education ministers should be taking more responsibility for this debacle.

While the problems obviously occurred further down the chain of command, it happened on their watch. Many teachers and schools have been adversely affected and it has taken longer than acceptable to sort out.

Added to this it was our money - taxpayer money - that was frittered away on a faulty system.

Simply not good enough.