25 Oct 2007
I was in Iraq when JPA went live and the majority of deployed personnel I
spoke to in Basra didn’t get paid at all. I spent most of my time worrying about
my pay. I then spent a fortune on phone cards, trying to reassure my distraught
wife that she could go food shopping for her and my children and we would sort
the overdraft out later. We had no support in theatre and my family had no
support in the UK.
RAF Officer
JPA has been an absolute disaster. I am at the point of self-destruction. Try
logging on at peak times or saving a record given the miniscule bandwidth.
Training has also been massively underestimated – HR professionals and
self-service users alike are guessing at processes.
Careers manager
Thousands of people are underpaid or not paid at all. I have been billed more
than £3,000 for no reason. Although JPAC admits I owe nothing, it states that no
function exists for repaying me. I am very close to defaulting on my mortgage.
Our hierarchy need to realise that they are playing with our lives. Morale is at
an all-time low.
RAF Officer
My pay has been wrong since JPA implementation in the Army. Every month I am
told to wait until the pay run to see if it is sorted. When it isn’t, I’m told
it could take up to 10 days to resolve, by which point I’ve missed the pay
deadline and am underpaid again. It is not a small amount either – we are
talking about 50 per cent of my monthly wage.
Soldier, Scotland
The senior military officers appear blissfully unaware of the problems.
People are leaving the services at a time when we can ill afford it.
Territorial Army (TA) HR administrator
I deployed to Iraq and there was no JPA terminal to complete the receipts
process, so my advance was recovered direct through my pay. I spoke to the JPAC
call centre using my 20-minute phonecard – which should have been used to talk
to my partner – and was told that nothing could be done because I needed to
speak to my unit HR, who were not in theatre. I was significantly out of pocket
for the year it has taken to sort it all out since repatriation.
Anon
This morning I spent two hours trying to claim allowances for two days away in a
hotel.
Flight Lieutenant, MOD HQ
After problems with JPA, when I was remortgaging I had difficulty proving my
salary, as my previous four months’ pay statements were a joke. The whole
experience was very stressful and I have no faith that the system will work for
me in the future.
Anon
In Al Udeid in the Middle East, 16-hour days and one JPA terminal between 400
permanent staff and numerous transit personnel made time a premium. I input my
Children’s Educational Allowance (CEA) at the end of July. Returned end of
August – no CEA in bank. Told no entry has been received – please send a manual
claim. But now cannot input a claim as the “window” has closed. Lucky the school
bursar is understanding.
Anon
Whole TA battalions “disappeared” off the pay roll!
TA
Underpaid by £2,500, and five months of my time to get it back; a pay statement
that hasn’t made sense since JPA’s introduction; and a
service team that closes outstanding queries whether the problem is solved or
not.
Underpaid and frustrated
As an HR administrator, we were left floundering – not able to help personnel
coming into the office, not trained properly and left totally frustrated. The
problems are ongoing, pay is screwed up and problems take forever to resolve.
Sam
I am an RAF senior officer in Afghanistan. Until arriving in Kabul I was
spending at least an hour per day trying to track down the £7,000+ owed. As I
have no access to JPA here I would have to get a close protection team to take
me to check my pay chit. If they are screwing me around as an experienced Group
Captain, what are they doing to the younger, less financially stable lads and
lasses?
Anon
JPA is a malfunctioning, user-unfriendly nightmare and has contributed more to a
serious drop in morale than anything in the past 20 years.
SPD
having read the comments i am reminded of a friend who is a captain and was posted to UK in June. to date he hasn't received his salary, lucky for him he is capable of covering a rainy day. my point is if i or he were civilian then the error would be immediatley rectified or the work would cease and possibly compensation paid. the armed forces are underpaid as it is and can little afford to go without the full wage entitlement when it is due. not to mention the damage unpaid bills can do to your credit standing. the goverment has yet again procured a system that doesn't work
Posted by: Pete soldier 16 Oct 2008
I am currently serving as a clerk within the Royal Marines. As a highlight as to how little JPA has improved since it rolled out I'd like to mention 2 points:
1.In response to the new past-time of 'losing data' (IT security) JPA as an entity no longer allows me as an HR administrator to fix pay problems on behalf of my men. They have come up with a 'Special Access', and only those with their name on the list can administer their men - so far it has taken me nearly 3 weeks to get on this list still with no joy.
2. In the last month every time someone is reverted from a local or acting rank they have been put back to the lowest incement level of their proper rank. In some instances this has meant that a LCpl who has been serving for 6 years is reverted and somehow put onto a recruits wage.
Posted by: Spoony 07 Oct 2008
I have just got off the phone with my son who serves with the REME he is shortly to be posted to Germany & is getting married on 26th April he has just got his pay & found out that the backpay he is owed & needs about £800 is once again not in his paypacket, he is distraught he needs this for his wedding.
He was promised faithfully last month (not to mention the six previous) that he would get it today - this month's excuse - we have paid someone else by mistake.
No wonder the armed forces have people leaving left right & centre.
Posted by: Keith Williams 31 Mar 2008
The JPA system has potential, but should not have been implemented by MoD. I find myself now spending 10-15+ hours each month trying to assess my pay. The acronyms which are placed on JPA make no sense at all. My wife has no access to help with my pay other than an emergency payment method. Yes we have saved thousands by cutting jobs within the forces such as clerks and writers, but these guys were also our front line boys and girls. Now we are undermanned abroad and at home. No wonder people like myself are leaving.
Posted by: LEADING HAND 19 Mar 2008
I am a serving member of the RN, I was not paid at all for 3 months in 07, it took some 7 months to sort out and funny old thing JPA has rejected my pay again in Jan 08. I am that frustrated that I have now submitted my notice and going outside, it can only get better.
Posted by: Serving RN Petty Officer 24 Jan 2008
I am a distraught wife who is tryin to balance money every month. It took JPA over six months to acknowledge that we were living in a quarter and we ended up with a NPD of over £2000 now trying to prove that my husbands LSA is wrong is proving just as difficult no one will take responsibility and no one is taking to him to let him know what is happening. Try and put a complaint in is not worth it as no one will act onit anyway. 16months on and still we do not know what my husband earns, no wonder every one is leaving and I can see why the MOD is saving money it isn't paying people!!!!
Posted by: Wife 26 Nov 2007
Due to a catalogue of errors I have not received any reservists pay for 19 months - not all of these are JPA's fault, but it is not helping. Having checked the JPA online self service on a Friday, my pay statement was there saying I would receive my pay. Over the weekend it disappeared, and I did not receive my pay. Having spoken to half a dozen people at the JPAC enquiry I have had half a dozen explanations, none of which ring true. I have no way of finding out what the problem is, or when it will be corrected, and am at the end of my tether. Nobody at JPAC seems to care that i'm owed thousands and am struggling to keep my head above water without it. Despite all the effort my own unit has put in to help me out, no wonder retention is such an issue when problems simply cannot be resolved in any meaningful time frame.
Posted by: TA Officer 31 Oct 2007
Technically, JPA works very well. In all but a very few instances, it now (after quite some work) responds reasonably well and successful claim transactions reach the bank fairly quickly.
Unfortunately, That's the end of the good news. An old adage, garbage in - garbage out. End user staff are now expected to process their own HR matters, I have received absolutely no training. The terminals are not in the right place, some staff, even on a large unit have not got a terminal in their building and have to rely on communal access, or begging a favour from a nearby section. Our Unit JPA manager has failed to help me out on several occasions in the last week alone, because he doesn't know the answers to my questions. I found answers, after looking through the help guide, only to find that there were two mistakes/discrepancies in it on a single page. Had I not found out, I would have been £600 worse off. To claim money for a course, I now have to submit 4 separate claims. There are still some processes that have not been mapped out properly, many claims are still being done manually. All this is on top of my existing job, all this work used to be done by our HR staff who are now being pared down to save the £100 million it cost.
The system was rushed in to meet a contractual deadline, it wasn't properly tested. Some of this is water under the bridge, technical teething problems have been sorted out. However, it is not possible to fix the systems reputation, and their seems to be no plan in place to train any of the self service users.
Posted by: RAF Engineer 30 Oct 2007
How could our hierarchy have inflicted such a morale crushing debacle on the Forces after years of cutbacks, senseless amalgamations, overstretch alongside countless other administrative debacles(ie. UNICOM, Pay 2000(2001?), AFPS 05 rollout). This is really the final straw for me. As a senior military administrator I am ashamed to have to turn to anonymous posts such as this to tell it 'as it is' - that is that Professional Administrators DO NOT KNOW HOW TO USE JPA PROPERLY (training?????). Our Chain of Command simply have no intention of helping us/dont' know or simply dont' care anymore. AGC(SPS) - be ashamed. No more, no more!!!!!
Posted by: ASHAMED ARMY ADMINISTRATOR 26 Oct 2007
Have your say on this article
Newsletters
Latest stories from Public Sector
Latest videos
You may also like
Public Sector jobs
Technology Patent Wars
Case studies from large organisations across all sectors
... And rich media, and flexible working, and peaks in traffic ...
Upcoming Events
Join us for this Computing web seminar, in which the Head of BI at the Co-operative Group Nick Colebourn will be explaining just how he reigned in the Group’s sprawling database estate and how significant savings were realised and data quality improved as a result.
Date: 31 May 2012
Time: 11:00 AM
Live June 13th 11:00am: Register now. During this web seminar we will be looking at the sorts of incidents that can bring data centres grinding to a halt and what can be done about them.
Date: 13 Jun 2012
Time: 11:00 am
Receive the latest jobs direct to your inbox
Are you being paid what you are worth?
