I was in Iraq when JPA went live and the majority of deployed personnel I
spoke to in Basra didn’t get paid at all. I spent most of my time worrying about
my pay. I then spent a fortune on phone cards, trying to reassure my distraught
wife that she could go food shopping for her and my children and we would sort
the overdraft out later. We had no support in theatre and my family had no
support in the UK.
RAF Officer
JPA has been an absolute disaster. I am at the point of self-destruction. Try
logging on at peak times or saving a record given the miniscule bandwidth.
Training has also been massively underestimated – HR professionals and
self-service users alike are guessing at processes.
Careers manager
Thousands of people are underpaid or not paid at all. I have been billed more
than £3,000 for no reason. Although JPAC admits I owe nothing, it states that no
function exists for repaying me. I am very close to defaulting on my mortgage.
Our hierarchy need to realise that they are playing with our lives. Morale is at
an all-time low.
RAF Officer
My pay has been wrong since JPA implementation in the Army. Every month I am
told to wait until the pay run to see if it is sorted. When it isn’t, I’m told
it could take up to 10 days to resolve, by which point I’ve missed the pay
deadline and am underpaid again. It is not a small amount either – we are
talking about 50 per cent of my monthly wage.
Soldier, Scotland
The senior military officers appear blissfully unaware of the problems.
People are leaving the services at a time when we can ill afford it.
Territorial Army (TA) HR administrator
I deployed to Iraq and there was no JPA terminal to complete the receipts
process, so my advance was recovered direct through my pay. I spoke to the JPAC
call centre using my 20-minute phonecard – which should have been used to talk
to my partner – and was told that nothing could be done because I needed to
speak to my unit HR, who were not in theatre. I was significantly out of pocket
for the year it has taken to sort it all out since repatriation.
Anon
This morning I spent two hours trying to claim allowances for two days away in a
hotel.
Flight Lieutenant, MOD HQ
After problems with JPA, when I was remortgaging I had difficulty proving my
salary, as my previous four months’ pay statements were a joke. The whole
experience was very stressful and I have no faith that the system will work for
me in the future.
Anon
In Al Udeid in the Middle East, 16-hour days and one JPA terminal between 400
permanent staff and numerous transit personnel made time a premium. I input my
Children’s Educational Allowance (CEA) at the end of July. Returned end of
August – no CEA in bank. Told no entry has been received – please send a manual
claim. But now cannot input a claim as the “window” has closed. Lucky the school
bursar is understanding.
Anon
Whole TA battalions “disappeared” off the pay roll!
TA
Underpaid by £2,500, and five months of my time to get it back; a pay statement
that hasn’t made sense since JPA’s introduction; and a
service team that closes outstanding queries whether the problem is solved or
not.
Underpaid and frustrated
As an HR administrator, we were left floundering – not able to help personnel
coming into the office, not trained properly and left totally frustrated. The
problems are ongoing, pay is screwed up and problems take forever to resolve.
Sam
I am an RAF senior officer in Afghanistan. Until arriving in Kabul I was
spending at least an hour per day trying to track down the £7,000+ owed. As I
have no access to JPA here I would have to get a close protection team to take
me to check my pay chit. If they are screwing me around as an experienced Group
Captain, what are they doing to the younger, less financially stable lads and
lasses?
Anon
JPA is a malfunctioning, user-unfriendly nightmare and has contributed more to a
serious drop in morale than anything in the past 20 years.
SPD
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