Staff not paid on time as £17m computer system glitches continue

Glitches with Norfolk County Council's MyOracle system have meant dozens of contracted council staff have not been getting their wages on pay day.

The council has had to make emergency payments to make sure staff did get money that month.

The MyOracle computerised human resources and finance system was introduced in April, but there have been ongoing issues.

In June, it emerged 34 people, including firefighters and social care staff, were not paid at the right time.

And the council has admitted problems have still not been fully resolved.

Another 14 workers were not paid on time in July and a further 13 last month.

A Norfolk County Council spokesman said: “Each month we process 21,000 payroll transactions, and we are aware that a small number of contracted staff did not receive pay on their scheduled pay date in July and August.

"We understand this can be worrying for people, and we resolved these issues quickly using additional pay runs to ensure payments were made in the same month as they were due.

"We have been communicating directly with affected staff on a regular basis, and we continue to do so. We have apologised to anyone who has been affected by this issue."

Liberal Democrat county councillor Lucy Shires (Image: Archant)

Liberal Democrat county councillor Lucy Shires raised the issue in a written question at a recent meeting of the Conservative-controlled council's cabinet.

She said: "We are hearing howls of complaints from officers about how poor MyOracle is functioning, with staff not being paid the right amount or even not being paid at all."

She asked how much the system had cost and what further payments would be needed to correct the problems.

Tom FitzPatrick (Conservatives) is standing for Fakenham division. (Image: Norfolk Conservatives)

Tom FitzPatrick, the council's cabinet member for innovation, transformation and performance, said £17m had been spent so far, set to rise to £19.5m.

He said MyOracle, bringing together human resources, payroll, finance, budgeting and procurement software, will introduce "significant" new ways of working.

He said, over the next 10 years, that will bring "efficiencies and savings", but acknowledged there had been "challenges with some elements of the implementation".