Avtur - Well said. After 9 months of suffering JPA, I can see only a deterioration in the conditions it has brought. Initially I was even prepared to give JPA the benefit of the doubt, after all, surely all those leaders who had told us we would see a real benefit in being 'able to take control' of our own admin, could not be speaking total hoop? Now I can see that it is quite the worse thing in my 22 yrs service.
I work in a NATO HQ, I do not have access to JPA in my workplace, I have to use a shared 56kbps dial-up connection in another building - even entering the simplest 2-line claim cannot be achieved in less than 30 minutes. It often takes me several weeks before I have time to put a claim in, several times I have experienced anomalies on JPA which have totally screwed the foreign exchange rates, international calls to the 'help' line to attempt to resolve issues have to be paid and accounted for (no military phone connection). I am lucky if the pay gets to my account in under a month after expenditure.
Take into account the inevitable audits (I am running at about a 25% rate) and JPA is taking up more of my work time than you would believe. It has now got so bad that I cannot spare time away from the desk to sort some of the issues and have found myself coming in off leave to sort JPA issues - I would not bother if I was not so out of pocket. I would actually like someone to send me one of those bloody annoying surveys on time management so I can itemize the waste of time JPA has become.
I heard last month that the Army are not going to let their chaps interface with JPA, but will have a trained corps to handle claims and admin for individuals - it is too important for said individuals to continue their jobs as soldiers apparently. Shame that the RAF do not act the same; I've had an idea!...we could fill in a blue claim form thingy... and pass it on to a section in the headquarters...and they could then credit an entitled amount to our bank accounts.... and then we could get on with our primary jobs!
Back to Avtur's point. JPA is pedigree rubbish that is getting worse and worse. It is the biggest 'push' factor that is going to make me take my coming option.
End of rant.