Novopay information release

The Ministry of Education uses the Novopay payroll service to pay teachers and other staff at 2,457 schools. Novopay pays approximately 90,000 school employees every fortnight, and up to 110,000 over the course of a year.

The Novopay service went live in August 2012 with the first pay run on 5 September 2012.

There is a high level of public interest in decisions about Novopay and its performance as shown by the number of Official Information Act requests received by the Minister and the Ministry of Education. Consequently we are proactively publishing a comprehensive set of Novopay related information from project inception to the current time.

Note that explanations are provided about why information has been withheld, edited or changed (redacted).

For further information please contact us at info@education.govt.nz. Media queries should be directed to media.team@education.govt.nz.

In this section

  • Ministerial Inquiry into the Novopay project - Documents relating to Ministerial Inquiry into the Novopay project
  • Background on Novopay - This document project lists key Cabinet and Ministerial decisions on Novopay and provides a general timeline covering the period from June 2005 to the present.
  • Novopay project initiation - The steps in the process of developing a business case, selecting a vendor (Talent2) and concluding a contract followed approved government processes.
  • Developing Novopay - Once the vendor (Talent2) was selected and approved, a project was established to develop and implement Novopay.
  • Fallback planning and alternatives - In 2012, the Ministry requested Datacom to propose a business continuity option in the event that Talent2 did not meet its milestones. This section lists key fallback planning and alternatives documents.
  • Datacom contingency proposal April 2013 - The documents on this page include Datacom’s proposal to take over running the education sector payroll, Deloitte reports on key risks in the proposal and advice provided to the Minister.
  • Novopay testing and readiness for go-live - Information outlining the testing process and the results achieved together with information on system and sector readiness for go-live.
  • Novopay test plans - Information outlining the test plans in the Novopay schools' payroll project.
  • Novopay Remediation Programme - Novopay Remediation Programme
  • Briefings and correspondence about the Novopay project - Briefings provided to the Minister responsible for Novopay, the Ministry of Education Chief Executive, Cabinet Papers and Minutes and correspondence between the Ministry and Talent2.
  • Ministerial advice - This page contains the advice on Novopay provided by the Ministry to Ministers.
  • Novopay payroll statistics - This page contains statistics from 5 September 2012 (pay period 12) which show the number of school staff paid, the total value of the payroll and other related statistics.
  • Novopay Technical Review - Terms of reference and the final report for the Technical Review of Novopay, February 2013.

Documents

Documents are available in PDF format only. Accessible versions can be supplied on request from info@education.govt.nz

Report on recent pay periods

Information withheld or deleted

Deletions have been made under the following sections of the Official Information Act 1982:

  • section 9(2)(a) to protect the privacy of natural persons.
  • section 9(2)(f)(iii) to maintain the constitutional convention protecting the neutrality of officials.
  • section 9(2)(b)(ii) to protect information where making the information available would likely unreasonably prejudice the commercial position of the person who supplied or is the subject of that information.
  • section 9(2)(f)(iv) to maintain constitutional conventions which protect the confidentiality of advice tendered by Ministers of the Crown and officials.
  • section 9(2)(g)(i) to maintain the effective conduct of public affairs through the free and frank expression of opinions.
  • section 9(2)(h) to maintain legal professional privilege.
  • section 9(2)(j) to enable a Minister of the Crown or any Department holding the information to carry out negotiations without prejudice or disadvantage.

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