20 Sep 2007
We are pleased to announce the shortlists for the Computing Awards for Excellence 2007.
For the third year running we have received a record number of entries, 20 per cent up on the previous high last year. And the quality of the entries across the categories has been outstanding.
All the individuals, teams, companies and projects that have made the shortlist can be proud of their achievements all of you demonstrate the strength of the UK IT community.
We will be featuring each of the nominated entries in Computing over the coming weeks but only one can walk away with each prize.
The winners will be announced at the prizegiving ceremony on 7 November at the Battersea Park events arena to book your place at one of the best parties of the year, visit: www.computing.co.uk/awards.
Project awards
Private Sector Project of the Year
Public Sector Project of the Year
Community Project of the Year
Innovative Project of the Year
Green Project of the Year
Outsourcing Project of the Year
Student Project of the Year
Individual awards
IT Leader of the Year
IT Professional of the Year
IT Department of the Year
IT Team of the Year
IT Employer of the Year
This award is judged separately and the shortlist will be announced at a later date.
Company awards
Best IT Strategy
Best Small Business IT Strategy
Industry awards
Business Hardware Supplier of the Year
Business Software Supplier of the Year
IT Services Supplier of the Year
Networking / Communications Supplier of the Year
IT PR Company of the Year
Recruitment Consultancy of the Year
Technology Advertising Campaign of the Year
Editor’s award
Outstanding Contribution to UK IT
To be announced on the night
JPA has always paid me correctly and on time, and I find the allowances package reasonably usable and very fast. Aren't I lucky? However, as a career manager, I take a different view. The system has put us back about 15 years. It takes ages to do a simple posting, and it is virtually impossible to trawl for personnel with particular experience or qualifications. It is not fit for purpose and has just made life 20 times harder. I try to be positive and 'move with the times' but I am finding this change very frustrating. What we had worked - why fix it if it ain't broke?
Posted by: RAF career manager 13 Nov 2007
Please dear God let my eyes be deceiving me! I cannot believe that JPA has received nominations for these awards! Quite clearly the people who make the nominations have not spoken to any military personnel as quite frankly it has been the biggest travesty to hit the Armed Forces since UNSCR 1441!
I'm in the RAF and it has caused nothing but problems! 95% of the military still cant work out how to use, 95% of the actual system functions have been removed or disabled because they simply dont work, and 95% of the military are truly hacked off!
Of course, all the cracks will be papered over because some high ranking military officer who signed off the contract wants promotion, and the Government dont want to be seen as failing the military AGAIN!!
I hoep to God the panel read these boards to see how much of a kick in the face it would if JPA got any awards!
Posted by: RAF JPA Hater 07 Nov 2007
I've just had the joy of watching 3 senior engineering officers trying to work out how to use the new appraisal system on JPA. Half an hour later, and the reporting officer was still unable to prevent the system from defaulting to highly recommending his subject officer as a padre (reverend)! If 3 degree level educated officers can't work the system out what chance have the poor infantry men have?
Posted by: amused 01 Nov 2007
Now at last one of the JPAC ex staff has the guts and intelligence to speak out. This is an extract from an e-mail now bombursting and cascading onto the MOD scene. A 'senior supervisor' did try to halt it's progress, but to the revolting masses in the British Armed Forces, that's just a challenge! I have @'d out names of individual personalities as I consider them unecessary, you get the idea just from the descriptions. Pass this extract on folks, the truth should be out there and here's to the next award for meeting the stats targets.
E-mail extract below, this guy should be made Prime Minister:
-----------------------------------------------------------Well folks, my time here has come to an end...
I've had just about as much as I can take of this place. Never in my puff have I worked in such a bizarre environment.
We get trained on the systems through emails! (what's that all about? no wonder none of us have a clue!)
We can't swap shifts, even though we all do the same job and have the same skills.
We can't take holidays, even though we put in for them 5 weeks in advance. We can't even speak to CST ourselves, god forbid we should distract them from their tea/coffee and finger buffet (what do they actually do?) and why we have to go through management is beyond me!
And speaking of management... How any of the supervisors got where they are is a total mystery to me! They know absolutely nothing about anything. (but then if they had the same training as me, two weeks of playing solitaire, that would explain it)
You ask @@@@@@ (anyone got a breath mint?) for assistance and all you get is either a blank look or told she's busy (once again, what does she actually do?)
You ask @@@@ for help and you're given the most false smile I think I have ever seen, and she has no clue what you're talking about.
And @@@@@'s just as bad!
You've got @@@@@, now I've never seen anyone so misguidedly full of their own self importance! He thinks he's a pure stud, am I the only one that thinks he's a greasy little weasel? He's gross! He's just a total plamf. It's sad!
And then there's @@@@@ who seems to think he's a supervisor, but is actually not! But he seems to have delusions of grandeur because his signature on his emails says "supervisor". Why this has never been picked up by higher management is a mystery, but then they're hardly the brightest bunch of people are they?
They actually seem more interested in meeting their stats than focusing on staff morale or providing a decent service to the folks that are out there fighting for our country! I've honestly never seen anything like it... we get three calls in the queue and they all start flapping and running about looking for folks to stick on the phone.
I remember one day I was in "work" because my JPA wasn't working and the calls went up to like 4 in the queue and they all started flapping their wings and put people on the phone to answer calls, just to put them back into the queue... now is it just me, or is that not the most ridiculous thing you have ever heard?
But hey, all in the name of stats eh! Who cares that we're not providing a good service to the punters, so long as management look good... tis a joke!
But hats off to the team leaders that actually go out of their way to help us when we're stuck! Though there aren't many of you, we salute you!
Anyways...
I'd love to say it's been a blast, but to be honest it has been one of the worst jobs I have ever had. And I won't miss it one little bit.
Don't get me wrong, I've met some cracking people along the way. But that doesn't take away from the fact this place is soul destroying!
So, I'm off and I aint looking back... but finally before I shoot the craw...
Here's to all beautiful people (you know who you are)
Here's to all the weirdos (we know who you are)
And here's to the supervisors (karma's round the corner)
And finally... here's to pushing your staff out the door!
Cheery bee peeps, be seeing ya
x
Posted by: Slartibartfarst 29 Oct 2007
I feel the awards committee should consider the impact of the computing system on the individuals it is supposed to support. As opposed to overblown hype by the company that sold it to the MOD and those individuals within that organisation who benefit from bringing in an inflexible computer system to a customer base who have to be flexible and react to the unexpected. This is not support when basics such as pay are not correct even 18 months after it was initially launched. This has a bearing on recruitment and retention especially if you are waiting for your bonus after serving in hostile environments.
Posted by: RAF 26 Oct 2007
Having recently completed a 4 Month 1 week OOA tour in Iraq as of April this year i think you might be as pleased as me to know that JPA finally paid my Operational Bonus this month! 7 months after completing the tour. Now to me 4 months is 4 months. JPA decided it was 4 days then 3 weeks before finally agreeing. I also ended on the circle of death between JPAC and HR and only after losing my rag with both ends did it get sorted. Even McDonalds doesn't use this mess, why should we have to!
Posted by: Arthur Dent 25 Oct 2007
IT systems never solve anything. People do. IT is expensive, invariably too complex and creates a huge training burden. JPA is in the best traditions of MoD procurement; blinded by science, seduced by the salespitch and implemented during the busiest period of Operations since WWII. A modern day example of 'Lions lead by donkeys'.
Posted by: Joe RAF 25 Oct 2007
After 15 years of serving as a Personnel Administrator I would like to acknowledge and thank many of the commentators for their praise of the humble clerk.
The praise has increased somewhat after Apr 06 and fortunately for the majority of us we have maintained the need to provide PERSONAL admin to all those we support. JPA has corroded the teamwork, communication and ethos that is such an integral part of the Armed Forces. After losing so much to discover that somehow JPA is being nominated for awards beggars belief.
There have been numerous complaints about pay, however I always like to be reminded by the big selling point of JPA many years ago - "you won't get any more leave balance queries". Oh how we all laugh nostalgically when a phone call that took literally 30 seconds can now consume up to at least 60 minutes of your life.
Posted by: HR Administrator 25 Oct 2007
I wholeheartedly concur with every single negative comment thus far.....Indeed to even see this system nominated for an award is an insult of biblical proportions. The system is complicated beyond reason, ineffective in most areas and fraught with design faults. It has a help system in keeping with the worst 3rd world call centre and relies on users being able to spend hours at a terminal rather than undertaking their operational duties. However, the inability of the system to accurately handle pay, leave, allowances and career data is inexcusable. In addition the system now demands you do all reporting through the JPA system so it looks like everyone's career management is about to go into meltdown. Please, Please remove this joke from the nominations and let a little reality into your life!!
Posted by: hacked-off of Scampton 24 Oct 2007
We are continually informed that this dreadful system is wonderful......It is an unmitigated disaster. It is useless as a management tool. It has failed me and many of my soldiers. It is not acceptable. What is really sad, is that some service personnel and MOD civilians will receive Honours for inflicting this useless system on us.
Posted by: Serving Army Officer 23 Oct 2007
Joke seems to be a recurring word here. I have not been laughing. I have not had the correct pay since the launch of JPA for the RAF. My life insurance was randomly stopped (not good when you are aircrew) and nobody is accountable. I have wasted weeks of valuable personal and service time trying to get it sorted. Absolutely shocking system.
Posted by: Ian 23 Oct 2007
You have already recieved many horror stories about JPA, so lets just add to them. I was given an 11 month continuance of service and JPA duly amended my personal record to reflect this, however even though it was on the records they terminated my service 11 months early....I just disappeared from the system!!! Net result only 11 days pay in May, JPAC informed me to apply for an advance....yes on JPA the system I did not exist on. It took 6 weeks to rectify, by "the back room" an area we are not allowed to talk to and at one point the solution was to give me a new service number and identity. Award for incompetance maybe.
Posted by: Chris 23 Oct 2007
It has come to light that personnel are sent course information through their workflow notifications. This is admirable, however, there are several things that make this system fall down.
Firstly, that Line managers (and Personnel Co-Ordination) are not aware that one of their staff have been so detailed, secondly, that unless personnel check their workflow notifications on a regular basis, weekly in some cases, they could miss a career critical piece of information (and its not encouraging to know that it takes so long to get into the system and get the information off the system), and thirdly, for those less than eager to attend those courses scheduled, how easy does it become to not turn up for expensive training?
All in all, on top of the pay and allowances fiasco, and the incomplete nature (even now) of the information (or the complete inability to access pages to update YOUR OWN information held), this system is utterly useless. I am so glad to be reaching my exit date - I certainly didn't have the stress levels that this system induced throughout my 20 year career, when you could approach a well-trained Admin section when any problems arose - with the assurance that they would get it sorted sooner, rather than later.
Posted by: S R Chamberlain 23 Oct 2007
I am particularly fond of the extract (detailed below) taken from the SPVA 07-12 Corporate plan. Such modesty, such success, such a satisfied customer base.
I also note that one of their Key Targets (number of errors not to succeed 0.15 per 1000 txns) was uplifted from 0.1% in 05/06 (not achieved but tie in with the implementation of JPA) to 0.5% in 06/07 (achieved). The message clearly is that if you are failing to deliver simply uplift your target by a factor of 10 and then declare to the world what a signal success you have delivered.
Extract from SVPA Corporate Plan
"Following the successful implementation of JPA, individual Servicemen and women will in future receive much of their administrative support directly via self-service computer terminals and an SPVA Enquiry Service, backed up by JPAC specialist teams".
"Areas where judgements have to be made that will affect the entitlements of members of the Armed Forces or where the work is potentially sensitive are staffed by MoD personnel, both military and civilian. These include the Pay and Allowances Casework Cell, the Joint Casualty and Compassionate Centre and the majority of the MoD Medal Office. Each of these joint organisations was formed to replace previous single-Service areas as part of the delivery of the harmonised JPA vision and all of them immediately delivered outputs of outstanding quality, very quickly gaining the confidence of their user communities".
Posted by: Lord Haw-Haw 23 Oct 2007
When i first used JPA i thought it was a very good system, the idea of checking your pay, leave and personal status over the intranet sounded to good to be true. This myth quickly disappeared into thin air as soon as i had to speak to the help desk requiring information about my pay. the only reply back is sorry speak to your HR staff or i will get back to you within 48hrs. I must have personally spoken to the help desk about 10 times this last year, and i have never had any correspondance back from JPA, the reply is, ill get back to you with in 48hrs is this a standard reply they say to any question they can not answer?
checking your leave balances, well whenever they can be bothered to update it, is it ever correct you might as well ring up your HR to get an up to date answer.
JPA has caused major errors with pay and allowances, and the person nominating JPA for an award should be embarassed or are they having a laugh.
all short listed nominations for this award should feel let down being put in the same category as JPA
Posted by: Paul Fairclough 23 Oct 2007
Now look here you little scallywags. Having a laugh at SVPA expense is one thing but these 34 pages of comments go way beyond the pale.
For once in your life look at the BIG picture, raise your eyes above the parapet, and forget, just for a teeny-weeny moment, about your own minor issues. I am the first to admit that only 20000 or so pay transactions have not gone as well as we would have anticipated, but damn it all, this pales into insignificance when you take into account all the diversity training we have to put in, the daily reporting of extremely complicated statistics to very, very senior Ministers that we must comply with, the time we spend throwing mini-office parties in anticipation of all the plaudits soon to come our way, and the 30 mins per day we expend dealing with customer enquiries. To top it all we have to spend at least 5 hours a day each responding to your ill-founded complaints.
Now look, I'm being serious now. If you keep this up those corporate tickets we have purchased for 7 Nov will be wasted, and you know how much we hate to waste the taxpayer?s hard-earned cash. Furthermore, and I?m only saying this on behalf of my staff, our bonus payments this year, much like the venerable Met Commissioner?s, will be put at risk and the damage to our morale, and the impact on future customer service, severe.
So, lets all start pulling together. I personally promise you that all these problems will be sorted by the time we get the Navy?s two super-carriers, so please, stop this negativity and crack on with those part-time jobs you all do so well in order to top up your missing income and allowances.
Posted by: A very, very senior person indeed 23 Oct 2007
I'm not sure of the award criteria. I would ask that any judge consider and verify the following;
The JPA project has claimed a successful data transfer from an obsolete system. It should be noted that a large team of military clerks worked 12 hour shifts covering 24 hrs for several weeks to input the data that JPA could not transfer. It would be interesting to know how much data was actually moved over by programming. Clerks are still discovering areas where essential data has not transfered and data input is still being carried out at this local level. Also for a "what you see is what you get system", JPA requires data to be input twice or more under different roles.
The innovative training package was no different from other on line training except that it failed to address 98% of the system capabilities and the interface was geared for a 5 year old child. It also caused our on line systems to take over 5 hours to complete a 1-2 hour package or to crash entirely. In the end most people took a CD home. The training was wholly inadequate and many of the supporting Business process Guides are inaccurate or misleading.
MoD Floor Walkers have confirmed that JPAC are concentrating their resources to answer routine telephone calls within the 10s target at the expense of critical i-support requests that hold the key to many of this sites other respondents problems. The i-support queries only seem to be actioned towards the end of the 10 day target period, at this point they are often returned without action; JPAC may be quite correct in doing this but have created a wholly unecessary delay in the fault resolution process.
From a Quick survey of the 12 HR Admin at this site together with 50 or so Users, it is obvious that their needs are not being met 18 months after Go Live date. As a member of the admin team for 8 years, this is the first time that I have felt unable to offer a quality service to the military or to advise them of how to resolve an issue themselves; I cannot see that this is an improved service.
Any good system should make administration easy for all involved in its use. JPA does not! Whilst glitches will be ironed out, major local issues especially concerning reservist administration are constantly arising with resolution dates advised as 18-24 months.
It would be interesting to hear JPA senior personnel replies to the comments on this site. However, all in all JPA is a failed opportunity to give all three services a system they deserve.
I
Posted by: Martin 23 Oct 2007
Whilst considering his options re: leaving an air force that was going back to the stone age with no top cover from cowardly air ranks and man management at nil as every man fought for himself with zero career management and a government intent on slaughtering its armed forces, JPAC arrived. Ill considered and launched well before it was ready, it was a disaster from the start. My husband spent hours of work time holding for the call centre or trying to work out just what he had to do to get his allowances which he'd paid for in advance. At one point an e-mail came out that just said 'sorry, you can't claim any allowances for a month'! This 'straw' broke the camels back for both of us (and many other lateral transferees at officer and enlisted level) and my husband is now an RAAF officer enjoying life in the 'lucky' country of Australia with amazing personnel support from staff who are motivated and appear to really care. Their alternative to the JPAC system works and we are very happy. Boys and girls - get out and join the Ausssie or NZ military - you will not regret it and they want you. I look forward to seeing the idiots who introduced this system (and presumably sneakily nominated themselves for this crazy and ill researched award) becoming MBE's, OBE's and Knights of the realm in the next round of government influenced awards. Yet another cover up by inept and uncaring senior officers and government officials. It is a disgrace that demands to be exposed - come on Daily Mail, you're usually straight onto these things!
Posted by: Nic 23 Oct 2007
I recently underwent a "seamless" transfer from the RAF to the Royal Navy, all was fine until JPA came online and I went from being paid level 9 higher to being paid level 1 lower despite the fact that I had already completed over 9 years of service. To add insult to injury I was required to prove that I was entitled to level 9 by producing every scrap of documentation pertaining to my transfer including the letter from whitehall stating that I would stay on level 9. I have been informed by my own HR unit that it this fault is likely to repeat itself when I have completed 2 years in the RN, and that I will probably have to go through the whole process of fighting to be awarded my correct level of pay all over again.
Posted by: Jonah 22 Oct 2007
I have worked for 9 months and received NO pay whatsoever!! I have also lost my service number and have been reallocated a recruit number.
I have put in regular (every two weeks) queries and 'I' requests which have either been not answered or answered late - none of which has helped my situation. Every time something was 'fixed' it threw up another different problem which cannot be 'fixed' until the next pay run - meaning the staff only have one try each month to sort my pay.
It seems to be a system that is so complicated even the people who have the job to administer it do not seem to understand it.
What chance does a 18 year old recruit have?
A total shambles and a disgrace to all those involved in the project at the MOD.
Posted by: Damien McGill 22 Oct 2007
Have a look at the JPA relevant comments in the AFPAA annual report. All is rosy on Planet Glasgow but you may notice a slight mismatch in performance perception from the customer end of the telescope..
www.mod.uk/NR/rdonlyres/0370069C-E13C-4FFB-8C51-20A17A20C1BE/0/AFPAA_Annual_ReportAndAccounts_20062007.pdf
Posted by: Dept X Media Ops 21 Oct 2007
Having been owed £2780 since April, JPAC staffed with unhelpful chimps who blame everyone and everything except themselves. Nope JPA is not an award winner unless you have an award for ripping off customers by charging large amounts of money for something that does not do what it says on the tin.
DII(F) up for next years award? Someone's smoking crack!
Posted by: Skint JPA user 20 Oct 2007
When they introduced this new fantastic computer system - it was met with trepidation and quite rightly so. The system can be a nightmare to log in to, taking up to 20 minutes at peak time. When you log this you are told to try again in 2 hr by JPAC who by the way are not much use, however the people can't be blamed as the training they receive is not that great. So the only award this system should be getting is 'Turkey of the Year'
Posted by: Carol McGowan 19 Oct 2007
JPA has cocked up my son's salary so often and left him being forced to borrow from me until it gets sorted so many times that he is now considering leaving the forces.
How can this state of affairs be good for retention within the forces....This nomination is a farce
Posted by: Mark Rahaman 19 Oct 2007
I, luckily, have just escaped from administering reservists via JPA.
Imagine how bad JPA is for regular service personnel. And then add the fact that reservists work a varying amount of days per month and then add in the fact that they get deployed and effectively become regulars for a while. And then imagine you have had no training whatsoever to prepare you for any of this!!
JPA is total pants-it doesn't pay regular or reservist service personnel properly. Both of whom make huge sacrifices for this country and get JPA in return!
THERE IS NO WAY JPA SHOULD GET ANY KIND OF AWARD FOR ANYTHING!
(Apart from being pants)
Posted by: I'm so glad I don't have to deal with JPA anymore! 19 Oct 2007
If your bank rolled out an internet banking service with no encryption and no secure session (the little padlock at the bottom of your browser and the "HTTPS" address), you'd refuse to use it and expect them to fix it..........
Posted by: RAF Software Developer. 19 Oct 2007
May I suggest the judges consider carefully the implications of their actions before thinking about posting JPA as a winner. Do you really want to upset every member of the Armed Forces, who have had to suffer the problems caused by JPA, given that they have access to inordinately large quantities of arms and munitions? Vote Nay on JPA - Nuff Said!
Posted by: Crabfat 19 Oct 2007
I have been appalled by the JPA project. The software is counter-intuitive and cluttered with ill-conceived pages making it difficult to read and understand. The menus bear no resemblance to anything a serviceman will have seen before, and navigating around it is a nightmare. Training packages have been little more than a token to appease the critics and I struggle to find anybody who understands this infernal package.
The expenses package is unnecessarily complex; one might cynically think deliberaltely so to dissuade people from making smaller claims, and there are not enough cost categories to allow some claims to be made at all - that alone is a disgrace.
If an 8-page handout is required just to explain to one of JPA's victims how to fill in the preferences page on an OJAR, the authors of this package - and those responsible for buying it - should be languishing in jail by now.
Posted by: L Smith 19 Oct 2007
As an administrator on an Auxiliary Sqn, I have not only had my own pay cocked up for the last 12 months (and only sorted after innumerable isupports and phone calls from my Flt Lt to the apparently one person at JPAC who deals with maternity for 3 services) and pay statements that paid me then took it back, ultimately telling me I owed £4,500, which I didn't, I also have to raise isupports for my Auxiliaries as they can't get access to terminals or JPAC to sort their own out. Not good enough that when they come to me to find out why they haven't been paid properly I have to say 'well, JPA didn't pay you for the days we uploaded'. Doesn't cut it really. Had one guy who didn't get op allowance we input for him and was £2000 down. What do you say?
JPAC staff pick and mix their isupport replies - we've raised exactly the same query for 2 guys, one was sorted and the other was closed, referring back to good old unit HR, 'this is not within our remit'!!
It has the potential to be great, but just not on this scale.
Posted by: Oggie Admin 19 Oct 2007
JPA Award! Don't make me laugh! When it came in for the RAF my pay was wrong for the next 6 months through a fundamental inability to calculate the correct allowances. Also claims require you to have full understanding of the system which is what we paid the Admin Clerks for. Now they have gone, nobody is an expert and we all suffer. Rubbish, rubbish, rubbish, system.
Posted by: BS 19 Oct 2007
Caveat: I have shamelessly crashed your thread following a link from the site that informed me of JPA's nomination; I am not a regular here.
I civilian terms my current role as an Army officer equates roughly to "HR Administrator". I am responsible for ensuring that my units' soldiers are correctly administered: pay, allowances, claims, discipline, assignments, qualifications, promotion etc.
I have never in 10 years of service been told I am incompetent and have no reason to believe so; yet since Feb 07 I have been unable to carry out these functions for my men and women.
This would be bad enough in the civilian sector, however; in the military if we are not able to invest in our soldiers how can we expect their loyalty when we require them to go into harms way?
JPA is both functionally and morally bankrupt. UNICOM, the main system it replaced was poor in many ways but was operable. It may be the JPA is technically capable of doing the job but its introduction has resulted in administrative paralysis that is seriously damaging the British Army.
I very much hope it does not win!
Posted by: Stockholm 19 Oct 2007
The introduction of JPA as the "IT-solution for the 21st centrury" has been an absolute disaster. I am a "professional user" and am at the point of self-destruction because of the inadequacies of the system. Try logging on at peak times (or not as the case usually is) or saving a record given the miniscule and insufficient bandwidth. The training issue has been massively underestimated, professional users and self-service "customers" alike are guessing at processes, resulting in incorrect actions. The JPAC are woefully knowledge deficient, many pay issues have still not been resolved. The only award should go the MOD for being "Mugs of the Year" for buying and accepting such a heap of junk.
Posted by: RAF Career Manager 18 Oct 2007
Stop slagging JPA please. It's perfectly fit for purpose and I've never heard of anyone who can substantiate their claims that it's no good.
I would write more in support of this wonderful system, but I'll be late for my appointment at the Community Mental Health Clinic..................that said, I may not be able to afford the journey, having been underpaid again this month!! Some might say it's performance-related pay, but that's a different issue!!
Posted by: Wibble 18 Oct 2007
Which future director of JPA had the audacity to even propose JPA for an award? The individual has obviously never tried to enter a travel and subsistence claim, or worry about if/when they would be paid. Since the inception of this useless system my colleagues spend 50% of their time battling with JPAC, trying to claim money they are owed or complaining about the poor service. It took me a letter to my MP before my pay was eventually sorted. What a great system!!!
Posted by: SO7 RAF Waddington 18 Oct 2007
I was in Basra Iraq last year when JPA "went live", and because the deployed side of this so called fantastic administration tool wasn't ready, I couldn't access any of the tools or my account. Whats worse is that the majority of deployed personnel who i spoke to in Basra at the time, didn't get paid at all. I remember spending most of my time on the run up to the "go live" date, worrying about my pay.I then remember spending a fortune on phone cards after this date, trying to reassure my distraught wife in the UK, that she could go food shopping for her and my children and that we would sort the overdraft out at a later date. We had no support in theatre, my family had no support in the UK and the whole system is a total waste of money, (in my humble opinion).
Bring Back 1771s.
Posted by: R A F Officer 18 Oct 2007
As several people posting onto here have said, JPA is helping to reduce the number of servicemen...
A Friend of mine in the Para TA has not been paid since he joined, and now refuses to participate in training until it is resolved. Apparently, according to our Lords and Masters, we value the contribution made by our reserves, it's a shame JPA sees that value as ZERO!
Posted by: Dan Winterland 18 Oct 2007
JPA rollout has been an unprecedented disaster. Not only are there large numbers of people still not getting paid correctly, the whole system regularly grinds to a halt because it cannot cope with the sheer number of users. Try logging at peak times if you don't believe me - very frustrating for all concerned. The project was only deemed a "success" because it rolled out on time, but there were and still are so many holes in the system that are going to take months or even years to resolve. And don't even get me started on the Call Centre that is the JPAC.
Posted by: Disguntled RAF Serviceman 18 Oct 2007
This is totally unbelievable. We purchased an off the shelf package that did not meet anywhere near our requirments. The cost of additional workload by everyone involved from HR personnel to individual users is incalcuable but must be horrendous. Please, please abondon this rediculous notion. It would be equavalent to giving Robert Mugabe the Nobel Peace prize.
Posted by: Snr Admin Offr, Air Cmd 18 Oct 2007
I am in the RAF and have found JPA to be a disaster and highly unfriendly system.IT DESERVES NO AWARD APART FROM WASTING MONEY AND CREATING POOR MORALE.
JPA is a typical IT project, designed by IT people for IT people and not for normal users. When oh when will the industry start asking real users what they want and design human interfaces that are intuitive and work the way that people work not the way programers want! The very senior leaders obviously do not use JPA. If they did they would have got it sorted out. What a ridiculous scheme. We do our own typing, we do our own HR work. Is this a better way to work. I think not.
Posted by: piran 18 Oct 2007
Apparently 99.9% have been correctly paid. If this is what JPA have told the politicians, no wonder the rumour that the system is a failure has not got out of the bag. Has someone actually put the comments together and considered that JPA might be wrong. I would like to meet 1% of those who got paid correctly (and I mean all allowances too - they add up to total wage and salary). The other 98% must be on Mars. JPA award - You are joking EDS - Right??
Posted by: A Gagged Air Force Pilot 17 Oct 2007
JPA was supposed to be easy to use, fast and efficient and a more accurate way of payment and personal administration...instead we get a system that has a mind of its own. I'm part of the "Computer Generation", i have used computers all my life including PC/Laptops yet i find navigating around JPA impossible. 90% of the time, people have no idea what anything stands for! And when you press "Back" the bloody thing crashes, so you have to start all over again! Uttly Useless!
Posted by: ET(WE)1 Davies RN 17 Oct 2007
Having taken over 4 hours to input a months worth of claims (in the period that each and every item was receipted and accounted for), my system crashed, so I spent 4 hours redoing the work.
On checking the figures that JPA calculates £ from $, on some entries it had converted thus: (assume £1=$2) Claim $10, JPA Calculates £5, then when you leave that screen, JPA takes the £5 as $5 and adjusts your claim to £2.50.
When correcting these errors, JPA will then take other entries it correctly calculated,before, and recalculate them again, in this incorrect manner.
Thus each and every line of every claim, must be checked, at least TWICE.
How can this save money, when pre-JPA we had a system which had junior ranks being paid to do much of this work, and now we are paying senior officers to do the same. There is also a vastly expanded JPAC who just seem to say the standard reply "Contact your unit HR"
I am terminated.very shortly, and will not have a unit HR department to help, so how will my pension problems be resolved then?
JPA is a disgrace.
Posted by: Rick G 17 Oct 2007
Quite rightly JPA and its myriad of problems have been berated throughout this comments section. I would like to ask the judges of the awards to comment on how they feel about the nomination and what message they can pass onto the nominator of this totally Unfit For Purpose system. As no one in the MOD will listen to the grass roots, perhaps they might have the power to pass on all the comments of the hard working servicemen and women whose lives are blighted by this system on a daily basis.
With the new appraisal system being placed on JPA, we are now looking at entire careers being ruined in the same way our pay has been.
Posted by: Annoyed and dismayed of the RAF 17 Oct 2007
JPA may be a fantastic system. However, as the help desk have no power to change things, unit HR staff have no training to change things, & agencies that don't use JPA (i.e DHE) have the power to affect things, the net result is that any errors (and I defy you to find somebody who has been correctly paid every time) can take months to rectify. The civvies at MOD claim that we must "expect a few teething problems" - why? I bet their pay is fine. I spend, on average, 8mths of the year on Ops for this country. The very least they could do is pay me correctly.
Posted by: JG 17 Oct 2007
me & the missus in the raf. they didn't take the correct deductions off me for 6 months, after being told numerous times. HR staff tried as well, but 'the computer didn't recognise....' - still waiting for the big bill to come before the cops try & do me for fraudulant claims!!. top tip for all unfortunate members of the JPA mug users association.. keep your pleading emails to take the money off you, log all calls to JPA & keep the money ready for the payback. One last note..the only person to gain from this micky mouse system..the guy who approved it. Did he get a gong or big $$'s??
Posted by: Kirsten 17 Oct 2007
As a previous RNR officer, and now management consultant, I have to say you'd be doing the whole IT profession a diservice by even considering JPA for an award.
It's caused me, and my friends no end of grief and is exactly how a public sector IT implementation shouldn't happen.
Award JPA anything and watch your credibility vanish...
Posted by: Mere Landlubber 17 Oct 2007
The thought that this piece of IT could be put forward for an award is a joke! As an administrator we were left floundering in the wake of JPA, not able to help personnel coming into the office, not trained properly and left totally frustrated by the people who came into us frustrated that they couldn't get their pay sorted or anything else JPA related.
The problems are still ongoing, pay is still cocked up and problems take forever to resolve. The JPAC were incompetent and unhelpful - everyone in the office i worked in wanted to pull their hair out. I was so stressed I wanted to blab to the media about this crap that the geniuses above had landed with us - luckily someone else got in there first!
Morale in the forces is at an all time low already, and to be faced by this nightmare many people PVR... what does this tell those people who insisted on putting the system into place?
SAMA was old and many different systems were being used across the three services but at least we could resolve problems ourselves, knew the back door routes to sorting out troubled pay. Well done the Government!!! If this gets an award it'll be another blow to everyone - people should not be recognised for this absolute pile of cow poo.
Posted by: Sam 17 Oct 2007
How can the MOD be up for an award for the implementation of JPA. The training delivered was sub-standard, it was rolled out behind schedule, unfinished. The service users can't access it as the IT infrastructure isn't established, and due to a privitisation scheme we now have two organisations running the system - who simply blame each other for the inevitable problems.
Posted by: Kevin Scrafton 17 Oct 2007
I am a HR Administrator in the Navy. My problem is not with JPA. Its the idiots who have taken a system used by international companies (ICI & McDonalds) to name a few, and bastardised it to complicate it.
Basic Pay is no longer controlled by the Writers / Clerks. Its arranged by drafting desks (many of whom do not know the first thing about pay) who issue assignment orders - not JPA. Im not saying that JPA is good - I dont like it - but its the silly routines we add to it that has made major errors - basic pay being incorrect being the main one.
Posted by: R Addison 16 Oct 2007
An award - is that for real? As I was reading this article, one of the politest sqn execs walked in and said ....f*****g JPA!!! We all laughed and offered to forward said article. The man hours spent on trying to process the simplest of things is ridiculous, frustrating and unnecessary, and I am a supposed HR expert so heaven help the poor chaps who fix aircraft for a living. To give an award of excellence would be a travesty, and is a shining example of why so many of my colleagues do not see their future working with such a frustrating system and have decided to use their talents else where. Roll on my service exit date!!!!!
Posted by: frustrated of HR hell 16 Oct 2007
Businesslink.gov.uk, Dorset County Council, Glasgow City Council, Kent& Medway Health Informatics Service, NHS Connecting for Health, Northumbria 101 Partnership & Pharmaceutical Oncology Initiative Partnership
BBC Worldwide, BT, Channel 4, East of England Ambulance Service NHS Trust, Innovation Leeds, Northumberland County Council & PDSA
All the other winners & Nominees of the other award categories who have ALL so far failed to get a mention in 22 PAGES of comments!!!!
By my mentioning of them all here, by default, it should tip the votes!!!
Posted by: JPAVictim 16 Oct 2007
JPA cannot cope, since day one the training records I enter have been a problem with JPA. Nothing works as its supposed to. When the army came on line 'us clerks' were told we could not keep a history of training any more as JPA could not cope. Who ever nominated JPA for an award wants shooting.
Posted by: Annoyed clerk 16 Oct 2007
Just wanted to add my own experiences.
I have a pay problem that started two days after JPA entered service.
It was finally sorted this month!
Sums it up really.
JPA was an ill conceived botch job that has done more than the Luftwaffe to destroy the morale of everyone in the RAF!
Posted by: Flt Lt B (Pilot) 16 Oct 2007
To accept a computer system with some 500 known problems and then after 18 months find that this is nearly 800 and without a software update in sight would be inconceiveable in the private sector. This program is neither user friendly or adaptable and will take 3 - 4 years to make it the system it was originally sold as! As a user of this system it is feels as if we have taken 4 steps backwards from the previous flawed system!
Posted by: Darryn Dixon 16 Oct 2007
I left HM Services just before JPA was introduced ....... thank goodness, otherwise I might never have had my end-of-service payments paid! I still keep close contact with several of my colleagues still in the Services and not one of them has anything good to say about JPA. The overriding feeling is that it is a disaster, but it is also a disaster that would cause too much loss of face to go back on, apparently! Unbelievable.!
A system introduced by desk-toting blunties who wouldn't know 'sharp' if it cut them!
Posted by: Daniel Bernoulli 16 Oct 2007
Pay has always been an emotive subject, hence the thrust of most of this feedback being about not getting paid. Despite all the negative feedback the RAF gave the MOD, they still went ahead with it and lumbered the Navy and Army with it aswell. The MOD are the real idiots in this sorry tale. No doubt they nominated them for an award. Just shows how out of touch they are.
Posted by: RAF Cranwell SNCO. 16 Oct 2007
This morning I spent 2 hours trying to claim allowances for 2 days away in a hotel! There is ZERO flexibility in the system, if what one wants is not in black and white...forget it! Im sure i was told flexibility was the key to Air Power...guess THAT message never got through!!
Posted by: Flt Lt Underpaid, MOD HQ 16 Oct 2007
I have spent the last yr being sent from pillar to post by JPAC in order to get my payslip sent to the correct location, and not 450 miles away. JPA is such an inflexible and poorly managed system that even this relatively simple issue cannot/will not be resolved anytime soon. God forbid I end up in the same position as other colleagues who have far more significant issues with pay. Luckily the Wehrmacht did not have the option to use the morale destroying capabilities of JPA in 1940.
Posted by: RAF Offr 16 Oct 2007
JPA??? Award??? The worst thing that's happened to us in years. You know you're onto a loser when the 1* who rolled it out started his presentation with 'Now, I'm in charge of rolling this out but it wasn't me who chose it....'. By all means give it an award if you're holding the IT Razzberries.....
Posted by: Flt Lt Disbelieving 16 Oct 2007
i joined RAF in sepember 06 was emergency taxed the whole of the last tax year and have still not got the money back i never got a payrise for LAC for 5 months i got it all back now but it took a lot of hard work i cannot believe that bunch of useless muppets have been nominated for this
Posted by: Tom Dunbar 16 Oct 2007
I personally find this nomination a disgrace and a betrayal of our entire armed forces. With the exception of the baffoons who signed this system off. Thousands of people are underpaid or not paid at all with little or no will from JPAC to resolve any issue. I have been billed over £3000 for no reason whatsoever! Although JPAC admits I owe nothing, they stated that no functionality existed for the repaying of this money to me.
I am now very close to defaulting on my mortgage, which will result in myself and my family becoming homeless and potentially bankrupt. Our hierachy need to realise that they are playing with, and lying about our lives. Morale is currently at an all time low and nobody in the Government seems to care.
I am tired of seeing Gordon Brown's smug grin on the television holding babies and visiting troops in Iraq. Save the fuel on his flights and pay the troops the money they are working so hard for. Many soldiers are earning minimum wage or less, which in itself is a disgrace, but at least they should expect to receive it. Is Gordon Brown going to accomodate my family and I in No. 10 when we become homeless?
I hope they are ashamed!
Posted by: RAF Officer (Under a Railway Bridge) 15 Oct 2007
The MoD may be seeing budget benefits within months of implementation. The Users and Admin staff are not. 18- months from initial roll out all are still having major unresolved problems centred but not limited to incorrect salary payment; Reserve locations are having major issues getting new recruits onto JPA. It should be noted that Full Operating Capacity was put back 18 months after initial RAF trial of the Software highlighted major problems; the only reason Army Go Live went ahead in Apr 07 was to ensure that civilian job cuts were made 12 months later to meet a central government requirement. These cuts of experienced admin staff will go ahead even in areas where there are major JPA problems.
It may be a mjaor ORACLE package, but the off the shelf system adopted has not been suitably adapted to meet the demands of the complicated and variable MoD pay and allowance system; eg Flexifields are used in totally illogical places to input data, the entry screen defaulting to "Name" rather than "Service Number", Mileage based MMA claims being held in a "Receipts based Area" - the list goes on and on. The Business Process Guides are error strewn and are not being centrally amended, local work arounds are the norm.
The "innovative" online training was no different from many online training schemes and actually crashed our MoD systems; in the end we obtained a CD copy and completed the training at home. The training contant was inadequate, it was limited to basic tasks it failed to address Recruitment, Reserve Pay and other major time consuming tasks. The training Teams for Off Site training raised this as an issue to Project Management and were ignored.
The volume of "one off" problems and the time-consuming corrections required have actually increased the admin burden. Individuals who were to have borne an increased role in monitoring their own data and pay have been left confused with the system and unablr to resolve their own problems.
Remote access has remained an issue. Recent Newspaper stories whilst exaggerating the size of the problem, did highlight the fact that many operational staff were unable to resolve pay issues in particular, which then caused major hardship issues.
The Users of JPA have been provided with a slow and complicated IT system which is not fit for purpose.
Posted by: Civilian Band C2 15 Oct 2007
How can an IT system that is riddled with errors, has no in-built security, has taken 18 months of user complaints to even get close to being a usable system be nominated for an award. The fact that there is still no inbuilt security to protect user logins is a disgrace in this world of incresaing cyber crime. If I had a choice I would not use the system, as it is not secure, and its introduction into use was a complete farce.
Posted by: User and IT professional 15 Oct 2007
JPA must be the most useless IT system ever introduced, which is supported by an incompetent and clueless JPAC support centre. This is a personnel system that has no idea how to calculate leave(!!) - I and many thousands of other Service Personnel have no clue what leave we are due, and as for pay - it must be verging on a criminal offence not correctly pay so many thousands of service personnel. This is a travesty and a joke and represents all the very worst of IT in a nutshell.
Posted by: RAF Officer 15 Oct 2007
as an admin bod i am disgusted that this system has been nominated for anything other than a place in a skip. the system is un-user friendly and i am supposed to tell people phoning for advice and guidance to contact the ever useless jpac. i have somebody paid by cheque £25000. all cheques were returned unopened by recorded delivery, but the system can not remove the overpayment from record.
good eh?
Posted by: anon 15 Oct 2007
As one of the Change Leaders for JPA at RAF Waddington, I can honestly say that JPA is the biggest mistake I have seen in HR in 21 years of Service. While the aspirations behind JPA were sound, the Military failed to invest the money that was required to deliver a system worthy of replacing the old IT package - they failed miserably. We therefore got an HRITS that was not fit for purpose and to rub salt into the wounds, they took a 30% reduction in staff because of the anticipated savings JPA was supposed to deliver. The system is not fit for purpose, we have created so many work-arounds that we now have more Excel Spreadsheets than JPA was supposedly to replace, and moral in HR staffs are at a all time low. As a 38 years old WO with 17 years left to serve, I am exercising my right to leave in 18 months time. I am embarrassed for HR, have no belief in the top management and cannot wait to go and work for a company that truely does care for its people - not a company that espouses it in the Strategy document.
Posted by: Dusty Millar 15 Oct 2007
This system was the butt of too many jokes prior to its commissioning, "July probably august" being the favorite and only printable comment. Hit with a never ending series of delays from month to month. It defies belief that a system which was supposed to save manpower and be user friendly was such a complete failure. The operators worked incredibly hard to carry over the information from the old system only to be met with a barrage of unhappy customers who could not access the system or input their own data. Please do not reward incompetence with an award. Instead give the operators in the various personnel sections that worked so hard some recognition
Posted by: Terry Cowan 15 Oct 2007
JPA is by far the worst piece of administration software that I as a service user have had the displeasure to use. Not only was the contract un-tendered it was late and vastly over budget. Moreover, to use it is labour intensive, time consuming and frustrating. The only people who sing its virtues are senior military officers - but they would would'nt they?
Posted by: Robbo 15 Oct 2007
It is exactly what it says in the subject. Totally useless system manned, in the main, by people of the same ilk. The service hierarchy should be made the sole users of this total piece of crap. The inconvenience and suffering this system has caused is too vast to comprehend
Posted by: RAFbloke 15 Oct 2007
I am a HR professional whose value and worth has been totally stripped away by JPA. In the days when a serviceman would come and sit in front of me and discuss their problems and we would endeavour to give them the best advice possible, but most importantly face to face contact. Now they just hear the 'Thank for calling the JPA Enquiries Centre' message and our left feeling very frustrated and devalued. Businesses have changed their ethos away from call centres back to human contact to give their customers value and worth; i wonder how long it will take until we come full circle?
Posted by: Waiting to help! 15 Oct 2007
Having recently PVR'd out of the Admin trade I may have had some doubts, after reading the comments people have posted on this I have no doubt in my mind I'm doing the right thing. It is the most user unfriendly system I have ever used and it's whole reason for being brought into service was to reduce the workload of clerks. This has not been the case, if anything this had made what was a not to bad a system (SAMA RIP) into a living nightmare. Good luck to the clerks who haven't PVR'd yet, there can't be many of you left out there!!!!!
Posted by: KIRSTY 15 Oct 2007
18 months on and a system that was supposed to deliver both manpower and monetary savings cannot seriously be deemed to be a product of excellence. As a current serving Pers Admin/Unit HR/JPAC scapegoat, I am totally appalled that someone, somewhere in the MOD Ivory tower has the nerve to submit JPA as a legitimate and viable entry - they have got to be dillusional. Maybe just another nail in coffin for not signing past 22 years!!
Posted by: Dazed and Confused Adminer 14 Oct 2007
After 6 months to resolve a pay issue and only to find I could be brought to unit strength (apparently I'm unique).
Only resolved after much sweat tears and time away from my job (1hr a day x six months at WO1 higher rate). The disappointing thing is that the 2 old dears who are excellent had not received sufficient training and I believe are now retiring.
The latest in an ongoing row over unpaid allowances to the value of £100 at the latest count I have wasted £50 pounds in man hours resolving this issue. It as come to the point where my team and I no longer claim for most of our entitlement, a cunning plan, I wonder?.
This system just move the admin burden from a single specialist to the masses that have other primary tasks leading to and increase in the error rate volumetric. i.e. a self fullfilling prophesy.
Posted by: Regards in frustration Shaun (WO1) 14 Oct 2007
I'm not in the Armed Forces although i have the misfortune of working with JPA every day as a Tri Service Back Office pay clerk. This clearly has to be some kind of joke. Probably thousands of Personnel not paid correctly or even at all. No real training given to us or the Unit HR staff and now we're left to deal with this hell that is JPA while certain management (no names mentioned) continue to pat themselves on the back at their success!! This nomination is at best in poor taste and at worst deeply insulting and offensive to all those men and women who risk their lives to serve this country. If whoever makes the final decision on this has any sense or compassion this nomination should be scrapped an quite frankly never mentioned again.
Posted by: Disgusted 14 Oct 2007
For the longest slow motion train crash in history
Basic functionality has not been sorted out before they try to roll out new - it is illogical and pathetically slow (and I have BB access!)
An example - where do I claim mileage-based travel expenses? Under the mileage-based expenses tab, or the receipt-based expenses tab?
Go on, guess!
The system cannot even cope with automatic abatement - a simple subtraction task for any system that is supposed to know what we get paid
Poor requirements analysis, poor implementation, poor testing, poor scheduling
Posted by: Serving RN, Bristol 13 Oct 2007
Sorry chaps, but you have obviously all got hold of the wrong end of the stick!
It is not JPA that has been nominated for an award, it is US, the users, for having to put up with such a big pile of shite.
Seriously, I would love to know how nomination was submitted and by who - it must surely have been someone linked very closely to the software producers or JPAC. Certainly NOT the end users!
Computers are supposed to save man-hours - this system actually increases them for personnel trying to sort out their admin matters.
Posted by: JAP Victim 13 Oct 2007
I have seen major change programmes come and go. But this is by far the worst so far. 2.5 days training with the caveat its on e-learning support. Brilliant - if you have the time to use it. Undermanning, now additional staff cuts and a JPAC EC whose standard answer is "we have 10 days to reply" outstanding - when you have a family very stressed with no money. But the best response - "is the soldier there with you, we cannot talk to you direct" - well no - I am calling about a person who is in the middle of a field and cannot call himself, but his pay is wrong etc - "we cant help". Or the complete winner Hi, can I speak to someone about a discharged soldier - "is he there to verify his data"? No he is discharged and thats the problem - "we cant help you". This was meant to be a more effective method of doing business, brilliant concept reality is vastly different.
I think everyone accepted there would be teething troubles - and we certainly have had them. Unfortunately I cannot see this improving. There should have been more investment in trg, both at Unit and JPAC EC level. JPA should have been tested fully before it came in.
I cannot see any other public service having accepted this why should we.
Posted by: James 13 Oct 2007
I can only echo the many comments already raised.
As a reservist working in the IT industry I can appreciate the irony of yet another appalling implementation being written up by those with a vested interest in puffing its apparent success. Alastair Campbell was a mere amateur by comparison.
Any quasi-professional body - and I used to think of Computing in that light - would carry out some form of user audit before allowing this twaddle to reach the light of day.
My last mobilisation for compulsory military service was a financial struggle, given the various organisational failings of MoD, my civilian employer and HM Revenue & Customs, all of which cost me money - and I was able to access reliable phone and e-mail service during my mobilisation!
I'm not sure that I can afford to risk the next one, given that JPA cannot pay me reliably for my training time and still won't pay my mobilised colleagues correctly. But I don't want to join the White Feather Society - interesting moral dilemma, eh? My family or my country ....
As mentioned elsewhere, the wars are being fought 24/7, and we reservists train at weekends - good to know that despite all promises at the introduction stage JPAC tend to work UK office hours and the system gets taken offline most weekends for maintenance etc. - gawd, has no-one ever heard of shadowing, mirroring or any of these other new-fangled techniques from the 1970s?
Our unit professional admin'rs have their heads in their hands as they try to make it all work - being told that it's a known software failing that has been written off as 'too expensive to fix' is a great motivator for them.
As for the assumption that everyone has high-bandwidth, reliable connectivity to the MoD network when they need it - words fail me (well, I'll just say DII and run away.)
Posted by: Despairing Reservist 13 Oct 2007
Under JPA rules if you have a problem they are supposed to sort it or at least inform you within 10 days of the progress they are making.
I waited 3 months after discharge for my penultimate wage packet despite contacting Service Personnel and Veterans Agency 5 times directly and going through my last unit twice I never received one call back.
When phoning all I got was 'problems implementing JPA (despite it being deployed later than originaly intended) have caused hold ups with some peoples pay and claims you will be contacted'.
Requests to speak with supervisors were met with 'they are too busy sorting out problems to talk to you'.
Not a ringing endorsement
Posted by: Chaz 13 Oct 2007
How can an IT system that doesn't work be considered for an award. I have numerous examples of aircrew having their Flying Pay stopped for no reason at all. Also, I know of one person who was overpaid £10,000 and subsequently paid £4000 in tax. The next month JPA recovered the whole £10,000, leaving the individual £4000 out of pocket. He had to contact the tax man to sort out JPA's error.
Posted by: Anon 12 Oct 2007
Please, you have to be joking, this IT system was signed off as not fit for purpose but was still introduced. Have a problem with it, speak with JPAC, they tell you to speak with Unit HR, who tell you to speak with JPAC, and so the circle of death begins!!!! and I know, I'm Unit HR.
Posted by: Unit HR Staff 12 Oct 2007
The biggest military diaster since Dunkirk. Yet another prime example of Senior 'Leadership' making a total hash of things. Most of it doesn't work, the bits that do make the same task 200-500% longer to accomplish than the IT system it replaced. It's rubbish - don't buy it.
Posted by: Fernando Morientes 12 Oct 2007
I've been in post for 8 months and I am still awaiting an assignment order through JPA. I am receiving workflow notifications for my previous post and had failed to receive an annual report for my current post. My service history had been lost from my enlisted service period and my separation totals have never been corrected from my enlisted service.
JPA getting an award? you are having a laugh
Posted by: Anon 12 Oct 2007
I work in administration for the Reserve Forces. The JPA Project Management Team totally failed to address the requirements of this large and significant sector. They were still coming up with bolt-on pay systems at the date of the system introduction. Admin staff received incorrect and inadequate training and incorrect Guides to work from. The initial help team for pay processing consisted of three untrained personnel to cover the whole of the UK. Many workarounds are still being identified at local level, there is no focal point for the issue of information.
As a result at my location over 10% of personnel are still being mispaid, many with issues that are long term and have no resolution date planned by the JPA Team. Local emergency payments are being made to control the situation. Officers promoted are rewarded with pay cuts and specialist personnel are paid at incorrect low pay points. New personnel are waiting several months in some cases to be entered on the system.
Where major problems have been identified and Change Requests submitted, the anticipated Change Time is 18 months plus.
The local level administrators have been inadequately trained and have poor support structures when problems are encountered. Preparation for Job cuts is being made prematurelyand many posts filled with short term untrained casual staff.
The system is not available during reservist training times at weekends and the help desk is not manned during their evening working times.
It is also slow to load screens and requires access into a multitude of areas to make entries or to check problems.
Personnel are regularly stating that it is not worth the effort to try to recover expense based claims on the system.
The predecessor to JPA was designed in the 1980s. It was far more reliable and operator friendly than this unwieldy error strewn system.
Change always has initial problems, but in my sector, the problems are increasing with little chance of improvement in the near future.
In the long run the system may prove its worth, but the project has been poorly managed and inadequately programmed and tested. I would not expect the team responsible for this system be granted any award.
.
Posted by: Martin 12 Oct 2007
Sir, JPA is the one most quoted reason for malcontent in the armed forces at present.The failing of JPA to support me whilst serving in Baghdad caused my family financial embarrassment. I had no access a remote terminal for 4 months and my pay was irregularly innaccurate. I was forced to use my own meagre phone allowance to contact the help centre, who did nothing but refer me to my unit HR in the UK, who in turn were prevented from making changes to my pay by the JPAC. My wife was unable to resolve this and had to resort to borrowing money from parents until my return. Since repatriation, it has taken over 7 months to resolve; furthermore, I have staff under my command who have been incorrectly paid for the last 9 months without resolution. It beggars belief that a system that was inducted into service use with only 50% confidence by the senior staffs was allowed untested to create such financial chaos to those putting their lives on the line for their country.
Posted by: An RAF Senior Officer. Bucks 12 Oct 2007
Unless I am mistaken, fraud is costing the UK millions each year. JPA is behind a firewall, but is HTTP !!! It is only a matter of time before some geek hacks in and steals every detail of all of our service personnel and their families.........
Surely the designers of this disfunctioning system would have made it HTTPS !
No doubt some high ranking officer is now a CE at EDS !!!
Posted by: Poff - Airman 12 Oct 2007
JPA transactions are transmitted over their network in clear text. All bank details, pay information, medical and personal information. When I log into my bank, I get a secure padlock icon in my browser - not on JPA....... Security obviusly wasn't important to them.
You can't even claim back expenses for petrol purchased for a hire car properly. JPACs work around is to claim it as a "taxi fare".
Posted by: Mr A User 12 Oct 2007
I cannot believe what I am seeing. JPA nominated for an award! Scandalous. The introduction of JPA has been a backward step for the Services. It has been an ill thought out project which is neither user friendly or accurate (please check pension calculator) and quite simply a disaster.
Posted by: Serving Officer 12 Oct 2007
I have just spent time reading all 15 pages of comments on this site from members of the services who as can be seen are not impressed with JPA to say the very least. I feel very frustrated that individuals are still not getting paid for a variety of reasons months after the event and we can do nothing about it as the system and those within it are either incapable of sorting it out or programming constraints and finance are in the way.
But what is of real concern to me is that with this being the case that the very Senior Military Officers appear to still be blissfully unaware that there are problems with JPA. A lot of the problems affecting finance which in turn affects morale and as we have seen people are leaving the services at a time when we can ill afford it.
It pains me to say but I feel the case is that they do not want to hear.
All these comments should be forwarded to the Ministry of Defence with the request that the Service Chiefs read and take note of how those people at the sharp end feel.
The next MOD spokesperson who when asked if JPA in good order says "yes" he/she should be forced to say that in person to all the service personnel who have written in.
Mind you being a bit cynical I feel that they would still say the problems do not exist.
Award!!!!!!!!!
Concerned Territorial Army HR Administrator
Posted by: V Parsons 12 Oct 2007
I am a Professional member of the BCS, I worked for the Army legacy system alongside JPA roll out personnel and assisted in data migration, the JPA morale at ground level was dire. They knew the product wasnt ready and that a great many service people were going to be unhappy. The key driver for JPA senior management was Time. They were determined to hit the deadline and only did so by dropping functionality, and moving some serious issues into "Post release maintenance". One of the main reasons JPA is seen from up on high as a success is because it is so difficult by the people on the ground to get support and pass their problems up the chain, and thus senior management take (relative) silence as success. The truth is, the groundswell of ill feeling by its userbase is immense. One of the fundamental drivers for JPA was to shift the responsibility for admin from the clerk to the soldier. One major problem being, it was a full time careeer for a person to learn and understand what a soldier was entitled to, and then pass this onto their soldiers so they could claim. This expertise has been removed and now you have soldiers who have no idea of their entitlements, being supported by newly drafted civilians who also have no idea of what they are entitled to. I would suggest the people looking for on the ground feedback on JPA visit the Unofficial Army website (RHQ forum http://www.arrse.co.uk/cpgn2/Forums/viewforum/f=6.html ) and have a look at the myriad of JPA posts and people screaming out for help
Posted by: Mark 12 Oct 2007
As someone who is both a customer of the system itself, and a student of both IS Projects and Change Management, JPA should be held up as the perfect example of how not to introduce such a system. It was hugely immature at the point of its introduction, the support structure behind it was inadequate and poorly trained and resourced, it introduced a whole new way of working without even the slightest nod to the culture of the organization upon which it was being imposed, and required extremely high-level management intervention within weeks of its arrival in order to defend its originators and mollify the concerns of its victims. It was wholly unfit for purpose and, while it has improved over time, remains difficult to use and largely counter-intuitive to the user. It is most certainly not worthy of any kind of award or recognition, save as an example of extremely bad practice
Posted by: Serving RAF Officer, Scotland 12 Oct 2007
The key test of whether a new IT system deserves an Award should be the quality of service delivered to the end user. I have no problem with the idea behind JPA. All IT systems on this scale will have faults and bugs to be worked out. The most shocking thing about JPA is the total lack of regard for the end user. A system that was known to be incapable of performing to standard was introduced in a dreadful state, inevitably causing huge problems. The primary defence mechanism since that time has been to blame the (under-trained) end user for unfamiliarity with the system. That is the territory of the scoundrel. Please do not consider this system worthy of an award for at least 10 years, by which time it may be judged in a better light - if there are any remaining military customers by then.
Posted by: Serving RAF Officer 12 Oct 2007
This beggars belief. How could this project even be considered for an award in exellence. The then Deputy Chief of Defence Staff (Personnel) Air Marshal David Pocock, the senior responsible officer, the man ultimately responsible for delivering JPA (and claiming it to be on time and within budget) should hang his head in shame. Incidentally, I wager he's not had a problem with his pay and allowances.
Posted by: Serving Officer. SW1A 11 Oct 2007
Assuming you are judging the award on the final consumer or working level administrator experience of the system, JPA should be withdrawn from your nominees. If you look on this other web sites where military personnel express their opinions you will see it is described as user unfriendly with a poor back up system and unwieldy user guides. it was also implemented with poor training for both professional users and individuals. If this web site gets known you will be swamped with thousands of negative comments; JPA is one of the few things that causes the military to take the time to complain about it. I think it highly unlikely that you will find even a single comment in support of the award.
Posted by: MP 11 Oct 2007
Please give the award to JPA and invite a cross section of serving personnel and their partners along so as to meet and shake hands with the person/persons collecting the award.
Having been nominated I'm sure they have had a read through these comments by now.
One of the biggest cons ever bribed to the military, somebody got a nice backhander/job offer from this and if they didn't they are even more stupid than I thought!!
Posted by: 10enggone 11 Oct 2007
The TA makes up 1/3 of the total strength of the British Army. JPA was designed and brought into service with absolutely no regard for how "Part time" service personnel would be administered. How can you possibly award a failing system that has disregarded the requirements of 39000 employees? The installation of JPA terminals in TA centres has been very slow with some TA centres still only served by one terminal 6 months after the system went live. I Don't know one single member of the TA in my regiment that has been paid correctly or on time since April 2007, and this is despite the herculean efforts of the two civillian admin staff to try and make the system work. I received my first pay since March at the end of September, it was £400 short and the following week I received an updated pay statement deducting £300 worth of travel expenses (I hadn't received any travel expenses in my £400 short pay). As my colleagues in light blue have more than eloquently described - JPAC helpline is a waste of time and the burden on the unit admin staff has more than trebled as they have been required to now enter attendance info onto a spreadsheet which is then manually transferred into JPA as there is no system for recording the part time attendance of TA soldiers on JPA. Go ahead, give it an award.....
Posted by: TA Officer 10 Oct 2007
As a serviceman using JPA, and a former software developer I can offer a different perspective than most of the comments on this board.
The Pay and Allowances system for the UK forces is very complicated, BUT well defined.
The whole project has seemed to be a catalogue of errors from start to finish. When JPA was initially rolled out, the system overloaded...WHY? There was no adequate load testing undertaken. This was easily possible by distributing test clients across the forces network; this was not done and led to users being unable to log onto their accounts. Worse still, users were queueing up to use machines and spending hours of valuable time wrestling with JPA.
The interface is very badly designed, an example of the customer having to make allowances for the supplied product, rather than the other way around.
It is insecure; personal data is transmitted plain text over the forces network. The MOD are not discharging their obligation of reasonably protecting personal data.
The poor old professional users, having had their numbers slashed because of this wonder product are snowed under with work because of the difficulties in administering the system.
Example of using the system.. picking a job of choice?? How to display all of the possible choices?? Any clues on the interface...nope, enter # into the text field as a wildcard. Great for me and my fellow computer geeks, but what about your illiterate 17 year old soldier?
JPA is a failure no matter how it is dressed in @rse covering stats. The spin coming out of the MOD is frankly breathtaking and completely at odds with what the users feel about the system.
JPA has become synonimous with failure; I have heard of someone called JPA as an insult, as the best way of describing a particularly useless individual.
Given time, I am sure it will become much better. The MOD will no doubt be milked for apparent feature-creep in its evolution toward a usable system. Features that should have been elicited during the inception and elaboration of this product.
Posted by: MoreThanMyJobsWorth 10 Oct 2007
From all of these replies. Can someone really award JPA an Award. It's slow,confusing, gets people's personel details wrong, gets pay wrong, leave wrong etc etc. Not one good comment has been given by anyone who have posted a comment here. It does deserve an award. For the most ill conceived computer user system to date. In all it's complete rubbish
Posted by: Disgruntled RAF bloke 10 Oct 2007
If this wins an award, then it shows how little the judges think of our Armed Forces who are putting their lives on the line daily in some of the most dangerous places on earth and this system deems it fit not to even pay them correctly whilst they are doing so.
Posted by: RAF Techie 10 Oct 2007
Please do not allow this system to be given an award. it has never worked properly for thousands of people. the idea was good, but execution has been terrible. Training has been non existant for HR staffs and users.. JPAC really have nothing to shout about...They are worse that useless...
Posted by: Anon Serviceman 10 Oct 2007
Seriously? Unless there's an award for 'longest time for loading a page since I tried to download a DVD through an 8K modem' or 'More crashes since the World Blind Formula One Championship', I sincerely hope this is a joke.
Posted by: Serving soldier who has to use JPA's useless service 10 Oct 2007
Since the JPA system came into use the admin staff have had nothing but complaints due to the systems inability to process the simplest task, And the answer is always "the system cant handle it" every thing from claims to pay have been seriously disrupted to the extent of personnel not getting paid for 3-4 months. and being unable to get a cash payment as these are now illegal. How are people supposed to survive and who would work for no wages?. This thing is a joke!!!.
Posted by: angus john McBeath 10 Oct 2007
I was most surprised to see Joint Personnel Administration (JPA) in the Public Sector section for your awards; surely it can only be there to make up the numbers! JPA was introduced in an incomplete form in a haphazard manner to personnel who had not been properly trained in its use.
During the past 18 months, In spite of the intensity of current military operations, no one subject has been as likely to provoke anger amongst Armed Forces personnel. Large numbers have not been paid properly (often for months at a time), most of the terminology on the system is unfathomable and the support systems (Joint Personnel Administration Centre) are extremely poor. JPA has done nothing but undermine service ethos, over-complicate administrative procedures and wreak havoc with the lives of countless personnel.
Notably JPA, and associated problems, has been the single biggest issue on the letter pages of the RAF News in the past 2 years and I have yet to meet an individual who is better off after its introduction. If JPA is to receive any award it should be for incompetence, proving why so many military personnel are sceptical about the introduction of modern computer-based systems. If JPA wins this award, it should only be because the other nominees are spectacularly poor.
Posted by: Wilko 10 Oct 2007
A shining example of a fatally flawed programme management. No coherence between the different strands; a flawed info campaign; an unpaid transfer of work from the supplier (MoD) to the customer (the soldier); a complete ignorance by JPAC of their customer base; a toxic strategy of closing of help desk events if the customer does not answer the call-back; and a removal of corporate knowledge at the customer interface. If that is your definition of success then they should win hands down,
Posted by: Monty of Alamein 10 Oct 2007
At one point I was owed £1500. Despite unit HR staff's attempts (and there were many) to correct my pay and numerous (useless) phonecalls to JPAC, it took a Redress letter to the Rear Admiral in charge of AFPAA before I got my money back. A system that has such far-reaching effects on people's lives should undergo far-reaching analysis BEFORE its implementation to ensure it actually does what is needed. I can't believe JPA has been nominated, what a joke!!
Posted by: RAF Flt Lt 10 Oct 2007
I am pleased with JPA this month as it is the first time I have had the correct amount in my pay packet since April. At least I think it is correct - you can't really tell from the confusing pay statements.
Although it is nice to get allowances paid quickly, the system is incredibly difficult to master and has some serious and annoying bugs in it - like being unable to deal with foreign currencies correctly, or randomly setting your basic pay to zero without alerting anyone. This is NOT an award-winning system.
Posted by: Angry of Wiltshire 10 Oct 2007
JPA being up for an award is an absolute insult to all Service Personnel. If the criteria for a sucessful system is one that meets and satisfies its customers needs then JPA is a massive failure. I do not know of any service person with a positive word to say about it.
The very nature of our job (i.e. moving around a lot, remote locations) means that we need a flexible and robust system that deals with our pay, allowances and admin needs. I don't disagree with the principle of JPA, i just think everything about its integration and support has been diabolical.
It is about the MOD cutting costs, stats and meeting targets rather than addressing the needs of people risking their lives for this country.
Posted by: Stu Simpson 10 Oct 2007
You are joking! I simply cannot get my leave balance correct - I am fortunately being paid properly. I have tried my unit and the help desk. The only thing they should be awarded for is actually creating perpetual motion - as a complaint is bounced between internal and external helplines. Frankly not being able to call someone back is not a reason to close a service request! Must be bloody good for the stats though.
Posted by: postie 10 Oct 2007
What nonsense. The system is in chaos. HR admin staff who have not been trained to use the system are the so called experts. The helpdesk has no idea of military pay or background. Queries are closed without answers or any apparent understanding of the military pay system. The TA weren't even considered or consulted on JPA. It really is a case of the blind leading the blind. Business Process Guides that don't work, relevant information that cannot be put into the format units require, 1000s on the lost souls register, pay increments that don't get processed, pay uploads that don't work. The list is endless. Just another private company taking advantage of a Government department and providing a system that is neither use nor ornament. 42 years as an administrator on service systems and this is without doubt the worst ever. Bring back UNICOM with a windows based programme.
Posted by: Ken Pearce 10 Oct 2007
I'm afraid the short answer is yes. The comments already posted probably represent the more disgruntled personnel, but I have struggled to find any users who have a good word to say about it. I personally find the user end of the system confusing, simplistic in its application to military culture, difficult to interpret, inflexible, and frustrating to use when you can't find the right category that applies to what you are trying to input. The number of individual pay problems has been staggering, and the JPAC fail to solve the majority of issues (it took over 6 months to rectify my pay issues, and I am still paying back money overpaid to me 10 months after I brought it to the JPAC's attention - my HR staff sorted it in the end). After months of trying, I can now master the expenses package (for simple stuff), though I have been audited for amounts of less than £10 on numerous occassions (wasting my time providing receipts and so on). However, the real traversty as a Service is that JPA provides less functionality in its mangement applications of RAF manpower than the systems it replaced - JPA is proving inflexible, over complicated, and necessitates constant workarounds by hard pressed military staffs - it is creating turmoil behind the scenes with establishments, postings, career (?) management, etc.. The transfer of competencies from the legacy systems was so poor that I have yet to meet anyone whose competencies are correct on JPA. The knock-on effect to individuals of the 'management' aspects of JPA is huge, creating difficulties at almost all levels of interface. JPA will probably work in 10 years time, but the rush to introduce it (to enable HR manpower cuts to save money) has led to a sub-optimal system that is not fiot for purpose - none of this was about improvement, it was about saving money. And in the RAF, I'm a moderate voice on the JPA issue!
Posted by: RAF Bloke 10 Oct 2007
Well, having seen it in action since April I can honestly say I am appalled that anyone would consider this system worthy of anything other than an award in how not to produce and how not to introduce an IT system. Looking at the system and its introduction there are several key areas that would concern any user of service or manager of personnel using it.
This is a huge powerful system, which is being under-utilised becuase people simply do not know what it is capable of. A fundamental lack of trg is key area of concern. 2.5 days for professional users and an e-learning disk for self service users and line managers, with the caveat that e-learning is there to support everyone - brilliant idea, the only thing lacking is the time to allow us to use it. Had more investment been made in this area many of the problems would not have occurred. You have BPGs that dont give the full guidance, there are too many sites with information relating to changes in rules and regulations. Everything is electronic so unless you re-read the JSPs you dont always know what has been changed.
What about when things go wrong how many times do we have to phone the JPA EC to be told "we have 10 days to respond", brilliant when you have a family in front of you with no money becuase of a problem with their pay.
What about HR staff not being able to talk to anyone about the problems a person has, because he or she is not infront of them (and yes I do understand the Data Protection Act) - really helps when the serving person is in the middle of a field and has got a desparate message back asking for help, or when he/she is discharged and has problems. We simply do not work in a "Tesco, Shell or 9-5 environment" located in one place. The total inability to understand this is beyond me.
What about the huge increase in paperwork generated by an inflexible system that does not allow you to have an undo button!
What about submitting sheet upon sheet of requests both manual and support, some answered some not.
What about the change in working practices that no one told other parties they would be taking on. Where was the consultation with respective CoCs - why are we now trying to have a bun fight over who does what, whose repsonsibility are certain areas.
And the final straw - civilian staff reductions as result of the savings to be made under JPA - If anyone out there can tell me how the workloads have decreased under JPA please let me know - I must be missing something.
Everyone expected that there would be teething problems - as there was with UNICOM, and in some areas we can see some benefits, such as quicker processing of claims (once you have worked out how to submit them) and sometimes disturbance allowance.
However it remains an IT system that cannot yet cope with the demands of the service, which when coupled with a support centre that fails to deliver is enough to drive anyone away.
Posted by: leejam 10 Oct 2007
I am apalled. My friends are dying in the middle east and yet the jokers who brought this dreadful system into 'service' are looking at champagne cocktails? The company will blame the Services, but the fact is it's far too complex and it doesn't work. Underpaid and undervalued - our people deserve better and our leaders (the Treasury?) deserve stringing-up. T0ssers!
Posted by: Simon de Henlow 09 Oct 2007
Can we please be told the name of the person who nominated the MOD's JPA for an award? An award for what exactly? How can you possibly give an award to a system that simply does not do what it was designed to do? I doubt that there is one person in the whole of the 3 Services who has not had a problem with JPA.
Posted by: Stan 09 Oct 2007
I am office who has to deal with the guys whos pay, rates, leave, days away have gone wrong, because according to JPAC, it is my fault as I am the HR who asked the system to do all these things incorrectly, funnily enough I don't have access to the system in order to get it wrong in the first place! I'm now leaving HM Forces purely to get away from this system, not worth the stress of being unable to help out my colleagues, it is rubbish, enough said.......
Posted by: admin bod 09 Oct 2007
I cannot begin to understand how JPA has been nominated for an award such as this. I feel I am one of the lucky ones when it comes to pay, which boils down to the fact of not daring to touch the system as it might go off in my face. My leave has been ruined by JPA and I have made my feelings well and truly known only to be told, wait for it. ITS and HR problem. JPA can't negotiate themselves out of a paper bag, let alone looking after the armed forces.This system should never have been rolled out in the time frame it was done in. JPA was apparently brought in to save money. I think it has had the opposite affect. This system is a beached whale and is not at all ready to cope with the demands for the armed forces.
Posted by: Disgruntled JPA victim 09 Oct 2007
20,000 calls answered per week-why so many if this system is so good??
It took me 8 months of being banded from pillar to post by JPAC to sort out my pay: the staff there do not have a clue on how the Armed Forces operate.
It would almost be funny if it were not for the fact that servicemen and women are putting their lives on the line with inadequate equipment when the money spent on this white elephant could have been better used to support them. And their pay wouldn't be screwed up to boot!!
If JPA wins any award, it will be a direct kick in the teeth to every member of our forces.
Posted by: JPA sucks. 09 Oct 2007
the effects of JPA as a system have been adequately described in the prior comments. It has been a major influence on my decision to leave the RAF early - after 30 years of service. A commercial enterprise would not have stood for such a debacle, or its long term effects on morale and the welfare of its 'employees'. If this award is made the whole awards under consideration would be seriously devalued.
Posted by: dissapointed 09 Oct 2007
As a member of the junior service, I have had to use the system since the first day it went live. The pay foul- ups have been terrible, the call centre staff clueless. What a monumental b*lls- up. One positive aspect, I now appreciate how good our unit admin staff really are at their jobs, and at the jobs JPAC should be doing. Still, I'm sure the government saved money. I hope the other services had a better roll out once we had highlited the gaping holes in the system. An award, my *rse!
Posted by: Spanner Monkey 09 Oct 2007
Just adding my voice to that of others - Please please please do not even consider JPA for an award. It is an unmitigated disaster which has further burdened those whom it is meant to serve. I thought IT systems were meant to be aids to productivity - this one has tied two hands behind my back and left me typing with my big left toe.
Posted by: Spanner 09 Oct 2007
I have seen men trained to be disciplined and resolute in the face of danger, reduced to almost complete despair by JPA. Crappy website, useless IT, staff who are ignorant, rude and who don't care or understand the service ethos and worse of all, a system that isn't a patch on the one it replaces. It makes me almost weep that the military is in the hands of such halfwits making decisions like introducing JPA and it typifies what stinks about the MoD today, and the people who 'run' (ha!) it and why good people are leaving the RAF in their droves. This nomination, let alone JPA, is an outrage. Its a disgrace. How anyone could possibly reccomend this is beyond belief, who nominated it and who asked the end users? I smell corruption.. just more civil servant mutual botty sniffing and gladragging I imagine.
Like I said, an absolute disgrace.
Posted by: David C RAF ret'd (thank god) 09 Oct 2007
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 then told that it could take up to 10 days to resolve, by which point i've missed the pay deadline and underpaid again (Not a small amount either, talking 50% of my wage a month, living off advances which come straight off the next month). Who is running this system? When they closed Glasgow Zoo did they move the monkeys to JPAC?
Posted by: FJR 09 Oct 2007
Since the go live date, none of my monthly pay runs has been correct. I'm sure I am not the only one. Award, don't make me laugh. It's common knowledge that at the launch party none of the uniformed staff attended, preferring not to be associated with this fiasco.
Posted by: NCA, Waddington 09 Oct 2007
Ministry of Defence joint personnel administration project.
This project was described as an "ocean going disaster" by one of the RAF's most senior officers. I know, I was in the room when he described it as such. How on earth this made it on to a short list for an award is simply mind boggling. Who submitted this?
Any hint of approbation by computing would be severly damaging to your reputation. How about an award for the most morale damaging IT project of 2007?
Posted by: Robert Curry 09 Oct 2007
I cannot believe that JPA has been considered for an award. The system is NOT fit for purpose. Simple pay complaints take weeks or months to be rectified. Allowances have become time consuming and difficult to submit. There are few "experts" left to ask for advice as they were all taken as a "saving" to bring JPA into service. There is no-one to complain to and the call centre is manned by people who often just can't help. This system has ruined a once streamlined system and it was not accepted by those doing the testing - they deemed it NOT fit for purpose. It would be a complete travesty and a total insult to all service personnel if this system were to win an award!!
Posted by: Centurion 09 Oct 2007
My crew and I have spent all day today trying to put in a claim for a few meals overseas on JPA. Predictably enough, the website didn't work correctly (if you do it how you're supposed to it does the conversion from local currency to sterling twice -- which didn't help us in this case!), and we were not assisted by the JPAC who gave us duff information on how much we should claim for.
It's all very well using JPA as a justification to get rid of some admin staff, but not if that means tieing up front-line aircrew to the point were we need more crews to cover our flying and JPA commitments!
Where do I vote for these awards... ?
Posted by: Disgruntled of Kinloss 09 Oct 2007
I am in the RAF, and I am sick of not getting correctly paid.
JPA is a joke. It slows productivity. It's accessibility is very poor and frustrating. It's managers refuse to take critisism. It's Help Desk is appalling.
Soldiers in the Army Deserve 100X better. We in the RAF have wasted untold hours attempting to get allowances and pay straightened. etc etc etc..
Giving it an award highlights the snow job done on all of us in the RAF
Posted by: RAF Officer 09 Oct 2007
There is no way this system should be up for an award except for the one for total gross incompetance. As a former Admin Officer I am disgusted at the way military personnel have to spend up to 2 1/2 hours of their working day to submit one claim. In addition they have little hope of getting through to a helpline and if they do they are bounced from pillar to post. Personnel serving overseas at small units don't even have access to a JPA terminal and they can spend up to 2 years away without being able to see exactly what they are being paid. Pay statements provide less information and there is no base admin unit as such to help and advise anyone with a problem. This system was heralded as an improvement by the government in fact it has been a cost cutting measure that has placed more stretch and stress on our military personnel. Should JPA be given an award it would be a total farce and make these awards totally worthless.
Posted by: Blunty Bird 09 Oct 2007
JPA was and is a bold (but failed) attempt to modernise and unify 3 different and complex pay systems.
In common with other comments, I think its failing is due to a lack of understanding of the complexities involved (in spite of attempts to unify pay and conditions), a lack of suitable infrastructure (at home and AS IMPORTANTLY abroad) and a complete failure to understand the amount of cultural change across the Armed Forces that would be needed.
If these are criteria for winning an Award, then I think the Award itself is terminally devalued!
Posted by: Interested Bystander 09 Oct 2007
Which fool decided to give this absolute load of rubbish an award??
It does not do what it says on the tin - at all!! All it does manage to do is mess peoples pay up and generally cause confusion and anger.
This system does not work. Its a joke, If this was the 1st April - it would be the best April Fool ever.
Posted by: 8 months without proper pay 09 Oct 2007
JPA and its staff are totally unable to cope with the diversity of one service (RAF), let alone all three services. Things were so much better when you could speak to a serving member of the admin staff to discuss your problems. Currently the system is difficult to understand and finding out information, or answers is incredibly time consuming, or impossible. The only award I would recommend is the worst computer system of the century.
Posted by: Stan 08 Oct 2007
Underpaid by 2500 quid, and 5 months of my time to get it back, a pay statement that hasn't made sense since JPA's introduction and service team that closes outstanding queries whether the problem is solved or not (presumably to hit their pie-in-the-sky performance targets. The JPA team should be grateful they've still got their jobs let alone an award!
Posted by: Underpaid and frustrated 06 Oct 2007
Oh dear! It probably has all been said before, but I'd just to add another voice to the throng of chastisement of this terrible terrible system. It would truly be an insult to the Armed Forces were JPA to win an award, and the fact that it has been nominated in the first place must surely be the result of a piece of spin of which Alistair Campbell would be in awe of.
The pathetic nature of JPA is only surpassed by the incompetence of the staff at JPAC.
Posted by: Nicholas McCready 06 Oct 2007
You should ask the end users (ie, the Servicepeople) what they think of JPA. It's a malfunctioning, user-unfriendly nightmare that doesn't do many of the functions it was supposed to, and has contributed more to a serious drop in morale than anything I can think of in the past 20 years. JPA had a great deal to do with why I decided to leave the RAF early - it's an ocean-going disaster.
Posted by: SPD 05 Oct 2007
Please someone tell me it is Apr the First, as a "Victim" of this diabolical system when it first was "Tested" on the Junior Service, I find this nomination of an award a disgrace. The Prize given should be repaying the still "Hundreds no thousands" of Pounds that are still outstanding to us all.
Posted by: disgruntled Victim of JPA 05 Oct 2007
Pay incorrect for most of 2006 being up to £700 short at times. Staff at JPAC totally clueless of the product they were administering to. Workload increased due to expenses system being lumpy at best.
JPA (EDS) being given an award is like congratulating Adolf Hitler with a Nobel Peace Prize.
Posted by: Serving aircrew 05 Oct 2007
Whoever nominated this as deserving an award also deserves one - a P45 (unless he is also paid through JPA, in which case he probably wouldn't get one anyway). A poorly designed, untried and untested software package literally dropped overnight on to an intranet system that initially couldn't cope, with no training for the end users and a 'help(?)desk' manned by people who had no concept of what the armed forces did (nor did they appear to care) so long as their stats were OK. A package that overpaid some people massive amounts and underpaid almost everyone else - assuming they got any pay at all. I sat and watched entire offices cease any primary work whilst the occupants tried to get some sense (and pay) out of the system. Allowances were also haphazard, and major audits applied to people claiming minor (less than £30) sums - but at least they were the lucky ones in actually getting some money. It has been the prime reason for many people leaving the armed forces early, many of whom are even more expensive to replace.
Posted by: An Interested Observer, glad to be paid by someone else 05 Oct 2007
JPA continues the long tradition of poor planning and poor implementation of public-sector IT projects. It was procured from a company, EDS, with a long history of dreadful products, by government department less interested in "personnel administration" than in making ends meet. The result has been a great deal of stress for the MOD's employees.
Note that the Civil Service is not part of JPA; wise of them to organise their own, more effective system.
Posted by: Chris Barker 05 Oct 2007
Someone must be joking! Is it 01 April??
It is scandalous that JPA has been nominated for an award. The project was introduced far too soon, with a totally unacceptable number of bugs & known issues; it had to be taken off-line for considerable periods, with massive inconvenience to personnel.
The essential human interface on a station or unit has been devolved to a "Help" desk that is better known amongst Service personnel as a "Hindrance" desk. Try asking someone in Helmand or other battle zones how they can 'phone JPAC for assistance - or find a self-help terminal to use in their 4 hr sleep period...... . Absolutely crazy.
Did someone miss all the (on-going) media stories about JPA debacles? It will be a travesty if JPA is awarded anything - other than the most expensive piece of useless software in the last decade.
Posted by: Mike Jenvey 05 Oct 2007
This system is a shambles, it now takes MORE man hours to implement any changes than before. The services USED to employ specialist admin pers that knew how to keep the administration of the services working, now we have an IT system that hinders everything. This system was implemented by senior officers that are increasingly looking after themselves rather than the men under their command. After all we now have more AOC's than during WWII !!
Posted by: Wg Cdr Spry 05 Oct 2007
Surprising that no-one has asked the obvious question - if JPA is such an outstanding piece of software, why are the enquiries centre having to deal with 20,000 calls per week in the first place?
JPA is an absolute monstrosity. It was obviously implemented by someone who wanted to leave their mark on the Services by implementing change when no change was necessary. I was drastically underpaid for 8 months following it's rollout, and the situation was only remedied when I threatened action in the Small Claims court. Only recently, I had to wrestle with the JPAC because my annual increment was 8 months late. And when I wanted to put in an AIP, things seriously went udders skyward.
The sad thing is that I'm probably one of the more fortunate individuals.
Posted by: Airman 04 Oct 2007
As a supposed "Professional User" of this program, I am astounded that anyone would consider giving this anything other a Darwin Award! This program was thrust upon us at a moment's notice (to save a few quid) without any proper training package in place. It is little wonder nobody likes it. The "professional" users are still awaiting training, and the JPAC is a glorified call centre manned by spotty 17yr olds on a gap year from college - hell they even have a script to read from telling them what their name is when they answer the phone!!! It is hardly surprising that 85% of calls are "sorted" - its quite easy to say "I'll pass your call onto our specialist cell" or "Go and see your HR". Not a single person I know of has had a complex problem sorted by a phone call. If you judges have any shred of sense, this nomination should be withdrawn immediately.
Posted by: Frustrated Clerk 04 Oct 2007
An award for this. This has to be some kind of bad joke.
This was one of the worst implemented IT projects ever. People not paid, no training, no understanding of the requirements, poorly tested, a system the users could not log onto, no security. Oh bugger, pretty standard for government IT then. I would love to know which tw@t nominated them for the award !
Posted by: Mark 04 Oct 2007
As well as cocking-up people's pay, JPA could not cope with people working at weekends. Bank holidays are still having to be worked around because nobody thought to include them in the software, deployment notification dates are routinely short-notice and often wrong, aircrew spend hundreds of manhours submitting expenses with un-user friendly interfaces.
The system was simply not ready to be introduced, but was for 'on time' political reasons - accordingly it crashed and only the hard work of RAF admin staff, who were forced to introduce workarounds, ensured air force admin didn't grind to a complete halt.
Good idea, poorly thought out with a botched introduction that lacked expertise. It was crippled by political expediency and now lacks credibility - certainly across the RAF. I'd like to nominate the apple tree in my back garden for an award - it's done just as much for the RAF as JPA and arguably less damage.
Posted by: JPA victim 04 Oct 2007
Having been subjected to the JPA "Experience", I can honestly say the project has been a disaster. There was no changeover from one system to the next, one day it wasnt there, the other it was. Where was the gradual introduction, perhaps at a station level? Because of the armed forces works, we were told to shut up and get on with it. There was little consultation with service administrators in design, a big no-no in software design. Cue the big surprise when the system goes online and collapses as a result of the huge demand placed on it by service personnel (most spending lots of time in nasty places) requiring nothing more than being paid correctly. Ask how many redresses and PVR applications subsequently went in as a result. The whole event would have been almost comedy if it were not for the fact millions in taxpayers money was spent on a project that was (yet again) a farce. Money, by the way, that is currently desperately required by front line units, quite literally fighting for their lives.
Posted by: Sam (Officer) 04 Oct 2007
I would really like to understand the thinking behind the person who nominated The Joint Personnel Agency for not just one but two awards. They have obviously never had to negotiate the minefield that is the JPAC or worry about whether their pay is going to be correct (so far this year it hasnt been correct once). I would much rather see a global computer killing virus nominated rather than the travesty that was introduced to the forces to make our lives easier (hahahaha(note sarcasm)). They claim that they have closed most jobs at service desk, yes by telling you to go and see your unit HR clerk, who had told you to ring the JPAC in the first place. To put it bluntly they are a bunch of talentless misfits and instead of using a system that worked decided to bring in an over priced, piece of software that couldnt do the job that it is supposed to do without being completely rewritten.
Posted by: Jay 03 Oct 2007
You're having a laugh! I didn't not get paid over 1200 for 9 months. The numpties working at JPAC have no idea about military pay! they asked me what the allowance was!
If you give JPA an award your laughing at every service man and woman. We think its rubbish
Posted by: gareth 03 Oct 2007
JPA is not fit for purpose. It has not delivered the promised 'quantum leap' in personal administration. It was launched, incomplete and flawed, just to meet a deadline. It should have been delayed and subjected to more rigourous testing. Computing excellence, it a joke!
Posted by: Hugh (Air Cmd) 03 Oct 2007
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