Foss Craig: Urgent Debates — Teachers and Support Staff Payroll—Ministerial Inquiry into Novopay SystemText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeFoss Craig: Urgent Debates — Teachers and Support Staff Payroll—Ministerial Inquiry into Novopay System[Sitting date: 04 June 2013. Volume:690;Page:10650. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon CRAIG FOSS (Minister of Commerce): I agree with and endorse and join with Mr Joyce when he apologised and I apologise to all those who have suffered through the unfortunate outcomes from the way in which Novopay has played out over recent months—albeit it has got quite a bit better in recent months—and the issues that have been of major concern over recent months. School staff support staff boards of trustees principals—you name it—have suffered because of what this report released today points to.I will not get political as one or two members have done but what I would like to do is just point out some of the facts in the report and actually let the report speak for itself. I do acknowledge members around the House not questioning those who produced the report and I join them in respect of the professionalism and standing of the people who were in charge of it. Just a couple of things—for example on page 79 under the section“Leadership—The Secretary for Education”. I will quote the first sentence: “The two former Secretaries for Education told us that they were clear that final accountability for the Novopay project lay with them.” That is quite clear. Yes Ministers have responsibilities; of course they do. But Ministers—those who have been in a ministerial role or in a ministerial office—know that Ministers rely on the advice that they get from officials in response to questions asked reports required Cabinet guidelines etc. Perhaps as this report shows unfortunately at least in this instance that has not been able to be relied upon.I will just make a quote again. On page 88 which is one of the findings it quite simply says in bullet point one: “Ministers were not always well served by the quality of advice about the project from the Ministry.” And then there are points two three and four and Mr Joyce read out point four particularly in relation to the 5 June 2012 report which essentially recommended that Ministers sign off on the go-live. The assumption of course was that that advice rested on robust governance internal audit monitoring fairness robustness transparency peer-reviewed testing and reporting and quality control—and no unintended perhaps conflicts of interest and not being captured by processes that in fact started in 2003 as members do I think know. The timeline is very interesting. About eight or nine Ministers have been involved in this Novopay system. So the assumption that advice rests on robust public service ethos is perhaps a fair assumption. Not just in education but across Government across Cabinet and across Governments the advice of professional well-meaning public servants is relied upon and used every single day. Unfortunately the report here outlines some instances where that does not seem to have been the case and the Acting Secretary for Education Mr Peter Hughes is investigating those matters right now.I do note that the Acting Secretary has also just put out a press release and I do want to take a couple of quotes from that. Essentially what it does say is: “The acting Secretary for Education Peter Hughes says he accepts in full all of the findings and recommendations of the Ministerial Inquiry that relate to the Ministry.” Further down where he is talking about the system not just since go-live but the bits leading up to go-live and the system as a whole he goes: “In the end those efforts fell well short. The Ministry did not have the capacity—skills processes and governance—for a project of this scale and complexity. There was not enough oversight from the leadership.” He repeats: “Government Ministers were not served well by some of the advice and reporting they received and that is unacceptable. I have apologised to them.” I accept that apology of course and as Mr Joyce and other speakers have noted the system is running much better now perhaps now where it was intended to be—albeit there were the problems with implementation.But sadly many agencies mentioned in the report both Government and outside of Government have in various ways and forms somehow been captured by the changes. The customisation contracts not being finalised and schedules customisation have been captured by that. All that has led up to advice that is not robust and perhaps misrepresented advice being given to Ministers which led to them making the recommendation to their colleagues to pick up on the ministry’s advice and to go live. So I repeat as unfortunate—and I do generally apologise for all of those—as the angst—