25 Oct 2007
Problems with the armed forces’ £100m Joint Personnel Administration (JPA) system are down to training and cultural change issues rather than the technology itself, according to the military administration.
The JPA programme was designed to modernise human resources (HR) within the wider context of aims to “harmonise” the Army, Navy and RAF, creating a single source of management information and ensuring equivalent pay rates across the three services.
“We wanted to build on commercial software, to make as much as possible common across each service, and to drive out benefits by making the function more self-service, with a greater degree of automation and centralised support,” said Mike Robinson, head of the delivery unit for the Deputy Chief of Defence Staff – Personnel (DCDS (Pers)), which takes overall responsibility for HR issues in the armed forces.
But Computing has been deluged with complaints from service personnel and HR professionals, citing unpaid wages, confused allowances and difficulties in sorting out problems.
Both the DCDS (Pers) department and the Service Personnel and Veterans Agency (SPVA), which oversees the implementation of JPA, acknowledge there have been teething problems. But they maintain the programme is broadly successful.
JPA has already saved £100m and has cut the military’s HR workforce by 20 per cent – or 1,400 posts. It is also one of the largest Oracle payroll implementations in the world, with 220,000 active records.
“We are not underestimating the amount of effort that still needs to be put into making sure everybody understands the system, but from the departmental perspective JPA is going well,” said Robinson.
The problem is not that the technology does not work, say its backers. System supplier EDS is meeting its contractual obligations. And, according to the SPVA, 99.84 per cent of JPA calculations were correct in July; 99.9 per cent in August.
The issue is that the data being input for the calculation is not necessarily right. That is because the system’s customers – individual service personnel accessing self-service terminals and units’ HR professionals – are not using it properly.
Both of these groups maintain that the system is not user-friendly, and that training was grossly insufficient. In acknowledgement of early difficulties, the military’s management has revised training for HR professionals.
But staff resistance is also a factor, according to SPVA change director Ali Sansome.
“There is a large degree of cultural change and the extent of resistance to it was underestimated by everyone, particularly in a military culture where staff do as they are told,” she said.
“The reality is that it takes people a lot longer to become comfortable with such radical changes. We are certainly seeing that those people most familiar with the legacy systems are having the most difficulty in making the transition.”
Efforts were put in upfront but it was not until the system was fully live that the nature of users’ difficulties were revealed.
There is top-level awareness of the problems and full commitment to ensuring they are addressed, said Royal Navy Commander Simon Hardern, military assistant to DCDS (Pers) vice-admiral Wilkinson.
“We certainly do not have our heads in the sand – we recognise the frustrations and are being proactive,” he said.
Where is my money? What armed forces personnel have to say about JPA...
The reason why so many service personnel do not know how to us the system is because there is not sufficient terminals allocated at locations. In a TA unit where I am the Regimental Administrative Officer individuals are extremely frustrated that they cannot access the system due to only one terminal for 50 personnel and that during a drill night other duties are expected to be completed. The Tri Services financial situation is desperate due to the Afghan war and lack of funding means that additional IT equipment can be afforded.
Posted by: steve james 24 Jul 2010
I am ex RN but my close friend still serving informs me that people are accruing vast amounts of leave, flying home and claiming vast amounts back, well and truly ripping off the ill concieved system. One guy had amassed 102 days leave others were advancing themselves pay
Posted by: steve 17 Jun 2009
I was involved with testing and analysis of elements of the JPA system. During this time both myself and many other colleagues also involved, raised serious issues with the quality of the data and processes but were ordered to stop. Some servicemen where told to either stop complaining (when they raised concerns over JPA's quality under development) or they would be removed from the team. To this end some resigned from the service. At the most senior levels both MOD and EDS managment refused to accept that JPA was not fit for purpose, and still do. Its failures have nothing to do with training but everything to do with the refusal to admit that an off-the-shelf package was never going to be able to meet the needs of the military, but, too much had been invested to back down. The so-called savings dividend expected to pay for JPA will never be attained and in fact it will cost more to run not less than its predecessor systems. The users are unhappy with its functionality and now have to do many tasks using manual action rather than as before automated tasks. We have taken a huge step backwards - so much for progress.
Posted by: Honest answer 15 Aug 2008
I'm with the royal marines and it came to my attention that nobody in my company was claiming GYH EARLY YEARS, you're entitled to 12 warrants in your first 3 years of service. It seems there is no effort in showing the lads how to claim for this, meaning that each man is losing around £1500 on average. More needs to be done to show lads how to use this equipment and less abbreviations need to be used also.
Posted by: Lee Curl 09 Jul 2008
18+ months into RN implementation of JPA and it is still causing problems every month for a great number of personnel. My pay statement has not once been forwarded to my correct work address in the last year (it gets delivered to Portsmouth, and I work in Faslane) - Pay supplements magically appear on my statement, other charges do not. It is easy for these JPAC people to slope the blame to the armed forces users - but the truth of the matter is that whenever one contacts the JPAC regarding a query, you always get the 'we don't deal with that' standard answer. Armed forces HR staff are frustrated because they are unable to change some basic entries - which means armed forces personnel are incorrectly paid month upon month. The most recent cock-up came two months ago when the JPAC team automatically assigned all submariners the new supplement pay - which is only meant to be for submariners at sea - 2 months on and it still isn't resolved.
The bottom line is, they've cut corners and delivered a shoddy, two-bit system that is vastly inferior to the processes that were in place previously.
Posted by: Annoyed 16 Jun 2008
Pay mistakes are nothing new. No computer system will ever solve them as ultimately the information has to be generated by a person.
In 1982 I was sent to the Falklands straight after the surrender. I didn't get paid for two months, well I did unfortunately into someone else's bank account. Not bad considering I had just bought a house and missed my first two mortage payments.
Posted by: Steve Unwin 17 Mar 2008
Ive been waiting for 2 days pay since july 2006, it shows i have been paid for it but i havent as it isnt on my payslips, and also i was due another 2 days pay at the end of this month jan 08 and guess what? of course it hasnt been paid, jpa is destroying the armed forces, it needs to be seriously looked at before you have no forces left, ever wondered why they are leaving in droves. and i'm a reservist so i have to wait til next month to get it sorted again.
Posted by: donna 02 Feb 2008
The trouble with Ali is, as a civil servant, she is driven by a different set of values from those of us that wear uniform. She is totally resistant to the military culture and quite happily dismisses 'problems' because she has never tried to understand the military culture or ethos and dismissed as 'emotional' one issue when I was a member of the JPA Business Design Team. JPA, or something akin, is way overdue - all admin and HR professionals within the services acknowledge that but the functionality has been reduced and known problems ignored to ensure that it rolled out. An action replay of Pay 2000 for those in the know. Most of it is OK (but try telling that to someone trying to concentrate on staying alive in Iraq or Afghanistan) and it is evolving but probably the worst overall aspect is not the software or the functionality but the fact that the call centre (supposed to help) is worse than a firewall and I get a better service from my mobile phone providers call centre in Bombay!
Posted by: I prefer to not put my name as I am still serving. 12 Nov 2007
'But staff resistance is also a factor, according to SPVA change director Ali Sansome.
"There is a large degree of cultural change and the extent of resistance to it was underestimated by everyone, particularly in a military culture where staff do as they are told," she said.
"The reality is that it takes people a lot longer to become comfortable with such radical changes. We are certainly seeing that those people most familiar with the legacy systems are having the most difficulty in making the transition."
Efforts were put in upfront but it was not until the system was fully live that the nature of users' difficulties were revealed'
So it was nothing to do with a system that can handle basic things like a pay run correctly, use terminology even somebody with a masters degree in business speak would have trouble understanding and have a call centre that is as much use as a chocolate teapot.
The whole project is flawed from inception to completion (if you can call it that). Its very easy for the senior officers to blame the failure of the system on everyone else beneath them. To quote the rap group Public Enemy No1 - Don't believe the hype!
Posted by: Annoyed Serviceman 26 Oct 2007
Yet again the people at the top have made the right descion and we, yet again are cited as being wrong and not capable to understand this hunk of junk that is JPA. Are people not surprised that we are leaving at a faster rate than ever before in the services, due to disasters such as this. I was considering staying in the Armed forces until recently. I guess I will be joining the line for the exit then. Sorry Boss, I guess you will just have to find another victim to join your little circus.
Posted by: Very fed up RAF bloke. 26 Oct 2007
Sarah, firstly let me congratulate you on a well balanced article which I would have to say the majority of us are happy with Thank you. Secondly the complaints that led you to write this article, could end up as a regular feature for you as can be seen here. We are being blamed for JPA/EDS?MOD failings as usual we aint happy, but we aint surprised either. Maybe this could be your next article, "What the average serviceman thinks of the management?" It would open your eyes to the range of expletives in our vocabulary. Thank you once again
Posted by: Jay 26 Oct 2007
This is the "leadership" we have come to expect from our pathetic excuse for senior officers.
If something goes wrong because they've messed it up, it is automatically blamed on the rank and file servicemen!
Don't you think we have enough to worry about without being blamed for a system we were forced to adopt without proper training?
Absolutely unbelievable!
Wake up, you idiots!
Posted by: Annoyed RAF Airman 25 Oct 2007
I hadn't realised that this was all my fault and down to my resistance to change. Silly me. I guess it's along the lines of the RAF buying a new type of aircraft and then telling us to fly it. Without any training. When we decline their kind offer and said aircraft then don't go flying whose fault is that? Mine because I don't know how to fly it or the RAF's for not training me?
Answers on a 107mm rocket to the MoD/EDS please...
Posted by: P'd off pilot 25 Oct 2007
If they are trying to slope shoulders, they are doing it badly. Any decent Programme/Project manager should know that Training is part of the Programme/Project. Therefore, to simply say that "this bit works" is unacceptable. The Programme has not satisfied some of its objectives, they may say it has been successful simply because they have hit some monetary targets, but the fact that such a large proportion of its users are disillusioned is a huge minus and they should have the decency to stop raving about "what a success it was"
Talk about "lessons learnt"!! Training has been the failure of many an IT project!!
Posted by: Mark 25 Oct 2007
Typical comments from senior MOD management and EDS. You get what you pay for, and it is the users fault JPA is cack! Sorry people wake up and smell the coffee. The majority of soldiers did not join the army to be admin gurus. More to the point the majority of servicemen did not join the forces to operate PCs, they joined to do the trade they elected to train for albeit Infantry, Tankies or truck drivers. HR had HR specialists, now due to some MORE cost cutting the MOD wants us to take on the role of HR as well as our normal jobs AND be experts in IT! Then when it doesn't work its all our fault! Arrogant to the extreme and yet another reason I will be happy to leave the forces!
Posted by: Hacked off Soldier 25 Oct 2007
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