New pay model on its way for Queensland

Queensland nurses are advised to check their payment summaries as pay bungle continues.

Queensland Health workers will be paid under a local pay model from September as the government struggles to fix its sick payroll system.

Premier Anna Bligh announced the move after a damning report by Auditor-General Glenn Poole on the bungled rollout of the system, which has left thousands incorrectly paid.

He found the project team gave the green light for the system’s rollout, despite knowing about its defects and being warned it had not been properly tested. He also said there were no contingency plans in place to deal with failures as they emerged.

Bligh said the localised payroll system, modelled on the federal government’s local area networks, would be in place in three months.

She said existing resources would be used to make the changes, which would see two new pay hubs on the Gold Coast and at Mackay.

Each hospital will be linked to a specific pay hub from the end of September, ensuring stronger links between pay hubs and staff.

Health Minister Paul Lucas, who is facing calls to resign over the bungle, said the current model was a centralised system removed from the day-to-day operations of hospitals.

“What people on the ground working in our hospitals and their unions have told me is that we need local information and local decision making when it comes to payroll and we have listened to those concerns,” he said.

He said the new pay system would ensure greater accuracy and expected workers’ pays to be right well before Christmas.

But he said it was not the final fix.

Meanwhile, nurses who have been underpaid are being warned to check their payment summaries against their own records in the new financial year.

As there have been two pay systems nurses would receive two payment summaries.
Workers should be keeping detailed records of their wages while problems with the pay system – which may extend into the new financial year – are fixed, the QNU said.

When group certificates come out, nurses are advised to check their own records against what Queensland Health have put on the certificates.

To support nurses in keeping an accurate record of the hours worked and the allowances and entitlements they should have received since the introduction of the new payroll system in March, the QNU have developed the QH nurse/midwife pay record.

Current to the end of the 2009/10 financial year, it is available on their website. A one page pay record is also available to use in the new financial year.

With AAP

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