Novopay cannot charge teachers to access their own payroll information

It took a complaint to the Ministry of Education, an opinion from the Office of the Privacy Commissioner and a determined PPTA executive member to stop Novopay illegally charging teachers for their own information.

A number of PPTA members, including some senior managers responsible for payroll in their schools, made contact with PPTA after discovering Novopay was charging teachers to access their own payroll information. More specifically, an attempt by the Ministry of Education’s failed payroll contractor to impose a $103.50 charge on the NOVO9t form to obtain a Statement of Service.

PPTA President Angela Roberts made contact with the Ministry of Education’s deputy secretary responsible for Novopay Rebecca Elvy to question whether the charge was legal given an employee’s right to access their payroll information under the Employment Relations Act (ERA) and Privacy Act. The ministry refused to budge on the charge, stating Datacom used to charge $50 for the same information.

In one example, a deputy principal who was also his school’s payroll officer- was told by a Novopay call centre operator that, “such charges were common in Australia”.

This sounded fishy, so PPTA sought an opinion on the matter from the Office of the Privacy Commissioner who confirmed public agencies could not charge for such information and private agencies could only make minimal charges in-line with guidelines published by the Ministry of Justice.

Excerpt from article "Novopay pulled up for illegal charging" published in PPTA News June 2014 (volume 35 no. 5)