I suppose you could try the trick that people are trying with the banks - hit them with a legal claim for unfair charges (in their case) and take them to a small claims court. It would appear the banks are rolling over on almost every case, but trying to delay the whole process. If EDS were hit with multiple small claims court hearings, their response would be interesting.

This is the link about the banks (http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/cgi...41050760,24632) I don't know how much of that could be modified to apply to the current JPA situation? Any friendly (and free!) solicitors out there who could point out the exact legal failings of the current system to pay people correctly or to rectify problems within a reasonable time?

Anyone know if the old pay system is going to be reintroduced?? :E I am currently down only a relatively trivial £250-ish and so far only for 2 months. Fortunately I am keen and aware enough to challenge some of the issues on my pay statement, but what about those currently OOA or who are perhaps not quite as rigorous at checking their statements?

I do not find the new statement anywhere as near as user friendly as the old one. The utter stupity of getting a refund of food charges etc for a period of leave paid back as the amount divided by 30 or 31 days is utterly stupid. Why do we have to have this? Why can't they just refund No of days away x daily food charge? Is anyone out there listening? Do their airships care? Or are the fat, dumb and happy? After all DCDS Pers seems content that JPA is working!!!!

Oh and I understand that DCDS Pers (he who was responsible for the introduction of this farce) has just ordered that all "open" calls from the first 4 months of JPA be "closed" - after all they must all be sorted by now!!! :mad: :mad: So if you still have an "open" call I suggest you check its status.

JPA do release updates/bulletins, but you have to be on the system to see them! One that you may be interested in that the RAF will lose all access to the system when the RN come online for a 10 day period. And then unit HR staffs (the ones that they decimated) will be the only people allowed to access the system for an unspecified time after that.

The "closing calls" is correct, and they also operate a policy of "group closure" - if more than one person has the same problem, they investigate it as a group issue, and close off everyone's call regarding that subject. Nice way of keeping the numbers down!

Cea Paid (sort Of!)
 

Hi All

Sorry to bring this back to the top of the thread, but I promised I would when I eventually got paid the CEA owed and I have been ... well sort of.

My ongoing grumpiness eventually led those nice people from Human Resources (you know, the ones who used to sort out Boarding School Allowance) to pay me by BACCS transfer. The £12K arrived in my account on the day the overdraft ran out. However, this is only a loan pending payment through the JPA System. When that happens (and I am assured it will, one day) I will need to write a cheque for the full amount to pay the Station back.

I cannot possibly be the only person on here who is in a similar position - how many more are there out there?

I still have to redress the Stn Cdr (who has been great throughout I might add) so that he can pass details up the chain and (hopefully) refund me the costs associated with the overdraft.

I notice that there is a new thread for our Dark Blue Bretheren faced with this debacle. The very best of British. Oh and here's a question I was asked by one of the JOs the other day:

"If we are not allowed to have our mobiles on in the buildings on the Stn, what are all those stupid little yellow mobile-phone-holder 'deck chairs' for that JPA have sent us?"

Errrm

Regards

STH

Well, it appears my 'saving scheme' has matured - JPA looks set to pay me the majority of my dues at the end of the month.
MacBook Pro perhaps?:D

Wow, RAF roll-out, what fun that's been, and I'm not even RAF personnel! (although perhaps the username gives it away)

I, as well as many of my colleagues, feel sorry for you all, and for what it was, wish SAMA would be brought back online. But, that would be seen as taking a step back, and God help it if the Government were to be seen as doing that!

Haven't read that much about the Enquiry Centre here (admittedly, I've not read all 54 pages of this thread!) but I can assure you, the Southern (for a diplomatic way of putting it) section really will try and do anything they can to get things resolved but we are limited in our capacities and it does frustrate us.

Moving on - it's a shambles that the RAF gets no access for a length of time for RN roll-out. 8th October is the cut-off date (date for your diaries) if you'd like anything actioned. It's expected to be shut-down then. 23rd October - D-Day Mk II. I just hope it goes better than the RAF roll-out... for all our sakes....

Wonder how the RN feel about their pre-Christmas pay being handled by JPA ? Mmm... confident as we are no doubt.

Anyway, only time will tell whether things will improve.... let's hope the mysterious back offices and programmers put down their doughnuts and get to work.... quickly.

Rant over for now, sorry if it bored you, just had to get it out!

-JayPAC Frontliner

Oracle Openworld
 

JayPAC,

Not been invited to California next month, then ?

http://www.oracle.com/openworld/atte...nce/index.html

FP

JPA Farce
 

I asked for an advance of rates prior to deploying to Iraq because of the unorthodox manner in which I was briefed and transported. It was paid 10 days after I needed it, and whats more they tried to reclaim it in full from my pay 30 days after it was issued. I had no JPA terminal in the AOR I was working hence I could not complete the correct forms and submit them. My pay has been screwed up since May and has not been corrected for 5 months and other than welfare phonecalls I am unable to do anything. When I get home the RAF wont have access because of Senior Service primacy while their pay is messed about and I am about 2K short. Luckily Mrs SLC has her own account and is able to monitor mine (you can give access to others to your account if you trust them enough).

What I have done that may be of use to others is sent a tersely worded email to the email helpdesk and must have got one of the few competent caring people there; it was answered within a day and all recoveries were frozen until my return. I think they are trying to help and it cant be easy for those that are professional and care.

You can sue your station commander or take him to the small claims court because he is the Senior Officer directly responsible for you. Its a gutsy move and comes with its own hazards. I sent my Stn Cdr a solicitors letter a few years ago when my pay had been completely screwed up for 9 months, it was sorted out in 2 weeks. But if you do ......dust off your No 1's you will be seeing the inside of a lot of offices.

On the plus side, there seems to be some kind of lottery built into JPA. Back in July I must have got 5 numbers because I got the overseas portion of my pay twice. But this month, I've got the bonus ball as well; JPA has inadvertantly overpaid me by almost £30,000.

I know of at least one other who has had the same prize and it seems that JPA doesn't know how to recover it. Add in some FFR changes and it's going to get very confusing. Any suggestions on what to do with this windfall while the RAF is locked out of JPA?:ok:

Hi interest savings account, locked in for 6 months. Tell them that they cannot recover it immediately, and you would like to see the proposals for recovery, and you are looking at 6 months. You also want to see the documentation and breakdowns of why the money was paid incorrectly, and how they come to the figure that they claim you have been paid. Tell them where you have put the money, and that it is safe. Tell them that you will be keeping the interest and donating it to a Service Charity. Tell them that if they decide to get arsey about it all, you will take the pay slip, their letters, and anything else to a solicitor and the press.

Watch them squirm.

Of course, legally you have no right to hang onto the money. Best bet in reality is to open an internet only bank account, slide the whole lot in there, and wait for them to contact you about repayments. They could take you to court for immediate repayment, but admitting that they stuffed up this badly would not look good - court is very, very public......

Ring Wing Commander Field (the Chemical Ali of the RAF), and tell him you'll be putting it on all red come Friday night. Then put the phone on handsfree while your mates gather round to hear the spluttering :E

FrogPrince - Must be joking, my good man! We'd never be allowed NEAR California! Although, it is a rather enticing prospect - sun, sea, slating JPA.....

Ali Barber - That certainly is a bonus ball! Wonder if we can find one like it! Think PompeySailor's advice is probably best! Though, can I ask what the £30,000 overpayment was for ? Would be most intriguing to know!

Overpayments / Advances
 

The experience of a few (lots) of people who were overpaid and then badgered into writing cheques to repay the money, only to then find that JPA also reclaimed the same funds back the following month is v bad.

If you have had an advance of rates there is no system within JPA to balance the advance against the full claim. PMA have a growing list of people who owe money back which will be reclaimed "sometime" :ugh:

Keep the money safely, don't spend it because its recovery will be effected at this "sometime" future date.

If it is a 'simple' overpayment the system may reclaim it at the following pay period, unfortunately you then enter the JPA pay merry go round and, similarly to the old system, it will be months before it balances properly.

Do you also realise that the RAF/JPA may not be aware of this overpayment? It's a little known fact that the audit trail/budgetary limit control element of JPA was not instituted, and that there is no one tasked with ensuring that the overall monthly spend is within tolerances - by contrast, the RN has designated a 2* to at least cast a cursory glance over the vote allocations for each element of the pay system to ensure that the variation is reasonable, and at least trackable. Which is why some people go an awful long time before being asked to pay money back. Unfortunately/fortunately, JPA and RAF rely on the honesty of the people to admit to these sort of cockups.

Best advice - sit quietly and try not to smirk too much.

I've seen my pay statement and it is for the normal amount. This money has come out of the blue (or purple now the RN are coming on board?).

Nothing on the pay statement, but the bank shows a BACS transfer? Interesting.

What money?

Back at the end of June they paid my overseas allowance twice. Got a call from the bank today saying that the original clearing bank was asking for it back. Don't have a problem with that, nor if they do the same to reclaim the massive overpayment I just got. Only concerned that it was only because my bank queried it with me and wanted my authorisation as well, that I knew anything about it. no notification from JPA that they were about to do that. Good old HSBC, not so good JPA!

Can't get on line at the mo....is the JPAC website dead at the mo?

Just looking at the latest operational bulletin they are introducing some software to prevent too many users logging on to the system as while they have a system capable of steady state running they are upset that we are all on changing our choice of postings and next of kin details. It will be interesting to see how many people can't get on to the system when the Navy comes on.

PA

Perhaps if you all stopped applying for the Chief of the Air Staff job, or postings in the West Indies, the rest of the RAF could get on and do some account maintenance?

Can't wait to get on and start applying to be Second Sea Lord!

Just checked and they are not available! What is this hook I find in my mouth cast by the Senior Service.

PA

No West Indies postings? My mistake. We must have traded them off for the all the States jobs......:ok:

I leave the RAF in 8 weeks time and am still owed £1000.00. JPA Helpline says it is an issue for the Housing Exec (or whatever it is called today). They say it is an RAF matter. Local HR too busy with backlog. :ugh: :ugh:

I have decided that, on my last day, I am going to take the bosses service Corsa home. I will sell it back to them for £1000.00. :*

£1000 for a Service Corsa? You need to nick 4 of them to make that much!

Did anyone else out there suffer the PAYE fiasco last month? Mine jumped by some £600 for no apparent reason!! It seems that JPA caught the error because they paid me it back:D Actually before the end of the month and the monthly pay statement!! If they can't get PAYE right (even though this would appear to have been correct for the preceeding 5 months) what faith do we have that the system is actually paying and taxing us correctly?:rolleyes:

Bl**dy DHE!
 

Was this originally about DHE still charging you rent after you had moved out? (cant be bothered to search thru the entire thread). :ok:
If so, I had the same sort of problem earlier this year which was resolved eventually after the Chief Clerk started hassling DHE on a regular basis. DHE are the only ones with sufficient system permissions to go in and change the occupation/march out date but its far too much hassle for them to do their job!!! Glad i'm out now and dont have to put up with their shoddy service any more :ok:

DHE/MHS are great. I must admit, at the risk of exposing myself, that facing another frustrating week of not getting the job done for my significant 2*, I phoned the Chief Exec and gave it the "oh, sorry sir, thought I was getting your PS, but as you are on the phone....."

Job done, all paperwork signed, just a crying shame that I had to pull someone else's rank on this because the Liverpool/Local Office staff were so crap. I have never met an organisation that were able to drop their shoulders and shift blame so quickly and readily. And every letter they sent seemed to have left out the "satisfaction questionnaire" for some strange reason!

DHE/MHS are great
 

With the negligible risk of outing myself (computer literacy seems mutually exclusive to the DHE staff i encountered :rolleyes: ) what most impressed me was, after having received the solution that needed to be implemented (must be a first :) ) from the JPAC helpdesk, when i explained what needed to be done to the oxygen thief in the DHE office in UXB, ie. march me out of my MQ on 1 Apr on JPA as marching me out under the old system in mid March only accounted for up to 1 Apr, the reply was "But we hav'n't got time to action march outs to JPA because it takes too long to do". I managed to put the phone down without resorting to abuse (something part of me still regrets :)) and penned an email to the Stn Cdr which seemed to pay off a couple of weeks later with a full refund :D

MHS
 

Sorry for slight thread creep but today I had cause to ring 'customer complaints' in Liverpool:

4f I'd like to make a complaint
Brendan What is it
4f You have rescheduled my repair work for the 4th time on the evening before after I have made arrangements for someone to be in the house.
Brendan No we haven't
4f Yes you have, you rang me last night
Brendan The computer says we didn't because the parts not in.
4f You rang last week and told me the part is in and booked to come today.
Brendan What is your name
4f (rank) 4f
Brendan So that is Mr 4f
4f No it is (rank) 4f
Brendan I'm sorry Mr 4f but we don't recognise ranks

I could go on but I can feel my BP rising now. Funnily, the contractor arrived today,with the part, because the MHS schedulers had forgotten to tell him that he was being rescheduled.

It is a complete farce and another example of cheap shoody support to the serviceman.

Don't worry about going for the head honcho as long as you are sure of your facts and are polite and constructive.

I had been messed around right royally for over 18 months, first because someone of the requiste rank was not in post, then they needed time to get in post, then the paperwork was lost, then it was paid (only it wasn't) and then it all started again and still nothing happened.

I went direct to a CS * equivalent at STC and got a charming thank you back. Job done.

Something just got better...
 

I'm leaving; not before time some would say. But I discovered the easy way out of JPA. Use the manual Form (6 I think) to claim for everything you think you're owed and hand it in marked "retiring". The good folk in HR, as it now is (Dear God!), will process the paperwork with some urgency and you'll get what you're owed, pronto.

The point is that Form 6 is the easiest thing to use I've ever seen...so they do get some things right. Ciao!;)

"The JPA thread seems to be missing. Have we solved all the problems or is the long screwdriver evident?"

You found the JPA thread then. Where was it?

:mad: :mad: :mad: :mad:

I marched out of my MQ end of Aug. Assured that all paperwork would be done and pay adjusted. Latest pay statement says no! Talked to HR(:mad: name) and told to go back to Defence Estates. Did so and they said all paperwork submitted so not their problem. Phoned JPAC today and the :mad: idiot did not know the difference between single and married accom. I was told quote: It ain't nuffink to do wiv us'.
I leave the RAF in 23 days and am owed hundreds of pounds. What a sh!t way to end 25 years service.
I have just sent the mother of all e-mails to our precious HR personnel and am waiting for a reply. The next b@stard that tells me it is not their problem is going to spend the rest of their life being fed through a F:mad: ing straw.









and..........relax......breath in......breath out.......

Being just a newcomer to JPA (We went live 3 weeks ago) I can't seem to find any problems with it. The system works fine, the Help desk are helpful....my only gripe is that the Help desk numbering needs sorting out....


"welcome to JPAC...please dial 1 for the RAF, 2 for the Navy"...


For a start, its the ROYAL Navy and seeing as we are the senior service, shouldn't the RN be Number 1 ?

Just wait until your circumstances change for some reason! You'll be out of pocket for months while you try and sort out the mess!

Ha! don't be fooled by JPA going ok for the first few weeks. I was paid correctly for 2 mnths only for the friendly folk in JPAland to decide that this wasn't good enough and why shouldn't I be messed around like the other 99.9% of users. So in month 3 they dropped my pay band and back dated it for 4 months. I have tried phoning every day for the money they owe me which now runs over £1000 as they change my salary on a monthly basis taking more and more cash off of me. The people on the end of the 'helpline' (they should be sued for calling it that for a start) constantly tell me that someone will get back to me in 10 working days and my query is now at the highest level of investigation. No one seems to give a monkeys as they know you can't just pop over to SHQ anymore. I have heard a rumour, don't know how true, that they have quotas to meet for complaints solved so they work through the easiest complaints first in order to meet their productivity quota, leaving those with complicated cases to spend hours on the phone to no avail. Luckily we are both working or the bank manager might not have been too happy!

Wyler,
I moved out of my MQ about the time JPA went live. Thought I might have the same problem getting the system to stop charging for it. I got the same run-around as to who was responsible for actioning the instruction within JPA to stop the payments. In the end my very helpful mini-Adj discovered that she was able to stop the payment herself. She took my word for it as to the date my occupancy ceased and it was all straight on the next payslip.

Try and put in a travel claim. My Home to Duty (a mileage based thing) goes in as a receipt based expense!! Go figure!!!:confused:

Oh and you were second arrival on to JPA.. Tissue Princess???:{
It'll be 'Dial 3 for Trench Foot 'next...TSK TSK!!!:ok:

'J' Bloke!!:cool:

VVHA
 

I presume, then, that you are speaking as an RN HR administrator, since I understand your self-service users get cast adrift next week.

Don't be fooled too much just yet. Having had 6 months to experience the RAF's teething problems, and the opportunity to release Version 2 of the software to cooincide with RN rollout, we should expect the RN's experience to be a little less fraught than ours was. However, are all the problems solved? I wouldn't bet on it just yet. I hear some of your personnel have been given a zero leave balance because of problems with transfer of data from the legacy systems - manual override now necessary. And you haven't seen a pay run or tried to make an expenses claim yet!

Good luck!

Ginseng

Vec, maybe you need to get through to this helpline:
http://scottrope.typepad.com/scott_r...ing_machi.html

:)

sw