It seems teachers dealing with the cynically dubbed ''no-pay'' Novopay education payroll system still have no real reason to celebrate - despite receiving the much-anticipated results of a technical review and the announcement of a $6 million support package from the Government last week.
The conclusions of the Deloitte review into the system, released by Steven Joyce (the minister now responsible for Novopay) certainly offered no revelations that weren't already apparent to long-suffering education staff - that is, that the system can be fixed but to do so needs greater effort from Novopay provider Talent2 and the Ministry of Education; and that the core software platforms are not stable because of a backlog of issues related to the high degree of customisation of the system and inadequate quality assurance processes which allowed incorrect data to be entered.
Teachers have been arguing for seven months - since the flawed system was rolled out last August - that neither the ministry nor Talent 2 has done enough, and that the complicated payroll should have been trialled before being implemented.
The saga reads like a ''how-not-to'' catalogue of errors, with problems of non-payments, overpayments and underpayments ongoing and compounding, administrators working overtime to keep on top of errors, hours spent trying to contact a helpline, some schools footing bills as a result of paying staff from their own funds, stress levels high, every new blow adding further salt to the wound. And there seems no end in sight as the Government spends another eight weeks deciding whether to continue with the system or revert to the previous provider, Datacom.
While the support package - amounting to $105 per school plus $105 for each full-time equivalent teacher - has been welcomed, principals say it does not come close to compensating teachers for the extra workloads created by the system - let alone for future work as months of backlogs and secondary problems (such as failed mortgage and other automatic payments, which have been affected but been put aside while the main problems are dealt with) are addressed - or any as-yet undiscovered problems.
The review found the system still has more than 500 errors. More seem to come to light each week - the latest being a glitch threatening to terminate some staff at the end of the school term. The ministry said last week it was confident the bug could be fixed before the date of termination - April 21 - but teachers can be forgiven for having no confidence in that assurance.
After all, as far back as the beginning of September when Otago primary school principals first vented their frustration in a letter to then education minister Hekia Parata, a ministry spokeswoman said the issues were being ironed out and staff would be paid ''that day''.
Then secretary for education Lesley Longstone ordered the Novopay Governance Board to meet urgently. Ministry of Education chief information officer and Novopay Governance Board member Leanne Gibson said the board was addressing key ''teething problems'' with the system and ''we look forward to having a successful pay run in two weeks' time''.
But in November, it was reported the number of errors had leapt from 490 to 3227 in two weeks. Associate Minister Craig Foss, who by then had taken over the Novopay issue from Ms Parata, said all errors would be resolved by the end of the week.
Responsibility for Novopay has been hot-potatoed from Ms Parata to Mr Foss and now to Mr Joyce. It - and the relationship with Ms Parata - were clearly partly responsible for Ms Longstone's resignation in December, after only 13 months of her five-year contract.
The costs to the taxpayer - of her $425,000 payout, the $6 million school compensation package, the $5 million set aside to deal with the problems, part of which has funded the Backlog Clearing Unit and its 100 staff, the $700,000 for the technical review and ministerial inquiry - are mounting and could well substantially increase yet.
Talent2 seems to have escaped relatively lightly despite the absolute chaos raining down around it. The ministry needs to hold it account and limit the burden on the taxpayer. But it, too, has considerable work to do. Mr Joyce needs to pass one of his biggest tests and prove he is worthy of the title of Government ''fix-it'' man.
