Number 1 mate,

Although 'rudeness' may not be acceptable. There is no excuse WHATSOEVER for ANYTHING going wrong with pay FULL STOP!



...and yes the capitals are SHOUTING.

well said that man! (target still underpaid by hundreds of pounds a month.... mortgage = painful!)

Thanks no1matelot, I will watch for that but am not holding my breath.

Regards

STH

STH
 

Mine paid correctly today.

Regards

Ginseng

Got mine too - although I was also fortunate enough not to suffer any problems last time around.

Cheers

SBG

Thanks all, I too have received payment in full today!

I should add that (due to a minor error on my part), were it not for my Chief Clerk I would have got about 10% less than the full amount, so thanks Anita!

Regards

STH

No. 1

I have never been rude to JPAC or any other call centre and nothing I wrote suggested that I had been. If the system worked even reasonably well I doubt anyone else would be either. In fact, on the numerous times that I have called JPAC, the operators have generally seemed more frustrated at not being able to answer my questions than I have at receiving no answer.

My original comment was a simple list of quotes from the conversations so I don't see what there is to be baffled about. My quip about passing PompeySailor's regards to Heidi was an attempt at humour - something that is quite often used as a coping mechanism when faced with all types of adversity.

N Joe

Amazing how the standards of "customer service" can differ. I asked a rep at Fred Olsen to send an email to the ship my father-in-law is on, wishing him a Happy Xmas, but I didn't send my email until late on Christmas Eve. She emailed back the day after Boxing Day, apologised for not being open on Christmas Day, and sent it straight afterwards. It cost nothing, except a little extra effort on her behalf, and the goodwill generated is worth at least two more group cruise bookings. It's the combination of little things that give a good impression. It wasn't her job, it was a favour, and she did Fred Olsen Lines proud.

In the case of JPA, it's the combination of continual errors that gives the overall impression. Given the huge pot of money, it has to be asked why the testing was not completed so that these errors were not made. How on earth can any competent organisation generate a pay run which can't even calculate the tax of a large percentage of the workforce properly? How can it fail to run simple 10% variance checks on monthly balances? How can they have failed to run the system silently in tandem for a couple of months, and the excuse about not having the time to double enter the data is crap. We managed it with the RN pay system and some simple ODBC procedures to pull monthly activity across into a test bed. We only got shut down because EDS had effectively bought Centurion and the pay system and wanted a tri-Service pay package that they could manage and run.

Heidi didn't even ask for my Service Number, and told me that I should be grateful as I had just been paid! Being "grateful" for being paid is a new one on me, especially as they owe me the money! I don't care whether Heidi had nice eyes or made the tea well, her customer service procedures were incompetent. You simply cannot answer a question on a system which runs on Service Numbers, without asking for someone's Service Number!

And you have to wonder about a system which has to ask me to confirm my address to raise a customer query, but then fails to send the pay slips to me.....

Isn't it sad when you hold your breath/cross your fingers/etc when checking your online bank balance for your pay and being grateful when it is there! Mine was there today minus £100 for an advance paid to me in Apr! End of my interest free loan...blast.

Don't we all just hate JPA
 

Since going live on JPA they owe me £1000, I was the lucky one. My fellow SAC-T's still have not recieved there SAC-T pay. One lad is now owed £4500. But due to working with the navy their pen pushers haven't got a clue what to do. Its has all been a major cluster f:mad:

Unfortunately for the young lad, you are quite right the Navy HR personnel do not know what to do as we had no insight to that particular RAF problem prior to RN Go-Live. All these SAC-T problems should still be raised through RAF Innsworth as they are dealing with the legacy issues prior to transfer of their pay accounts.

JSP 752 Ver 5
 

Hmmmm. Now the lunatics have REALLY taken over the asylum. Per the latest PTC 'T' letter (whatever that is) you now have to receipt everything you claim for under DS, NS and IE rather than anything over £5. :mad:
SBG

So how do I get a receipt from the newspaper vendor at the railway station, the laundromat on a Sat morning and a Payphone for my 3 min phone call???:confused:

MOG:ugh:

Well I just hope that your Flight Commander or Divisional Officer is doing all they can to sort your problem out. It is shameful that not only are we sending our SAC(T)s to work in the RN to fill their manning shortfalls we also can't manage to pay some of our lowest paid troops the money they've been promised.

I'm ashamed to say that this is yet another example of shocking treatment of our personnel who frankly deserve better.

Improvise, adapt and overcome. Ask your Chief Clerk for a pad of receipts so that you can meet the current regulations. Once a couple of hundred people, at every unit, have gone in and asked for JPA-approved receipt books, someone might clutch-in somewhere and realise that this is another pointless exercise, designed solely to make it easier for you NOT to claim than to claim your entitlements.

If you can't find someone to sign the receipt, do what we have done since time immemorial. Get a mate to do it.

I still don't think you've grasped the idea behind JPA, have you Pompey? Also think you'll find those who make policy won't give a stuff about it being workable or not; they probably won't have asked anyone either.

Sbg, Jto, Mog
 

Not strictly true, and based on a selective quoting of JSP 752. It is true that the specific exemption for any item under £5 appears to have been removed. It is also true that the underlying principle remains that all expenditure should be supported by receipts where they can reasonably be obtained. Nevertheless, the JSP continues to specifically recognise that it may not always be possible to obtain a receipt, especially for small items such as newspapers etc. What the JSP requires, and has always required you do in such circumstances, is to make and keep an itemised and signed list of all valid expenditure for which you cannot produce a receipt. In essence, nothing very much has changed, and anyone who tells you that the JSP says you must have a receipt for every penny is WRONG. The removal of the £5 limit could actually work in your favour, since it is not now open to anyone to argue that the JSP says you must, without fail, have a receipt for any item over £5 (but of course you must obtain one if it is reasonably possible to do so).

Regards

Ginseng

Thanks Ginseng for your erudite answer. You've probably seen it, but for those that haven't here's the relevant parapraph from the T-letter:

"The new regulations confirm that the payment of actual costs makes it necessary for all expenditure (NS, DS and IE – other than IE for those hospitalised whilst on duty) to be supported both by receipts and supporting documentary authority to undertake the duty. As such, receipts are required for all expenditure where these can be reasonably obtained, albeit that it is recognised that obtaining some receipts, eg for newspapers, may be impractical."

The thrust of this issue goes back to a matter of time vs expense - how much is it costing HMG in terms of my time to account for (nearly) every damn penny spent on T&S? Added to the Audit/JPA clerk's time, surely flat rates are more economic to administer? It would make a difference, even if just for IE expenditure.

please don't think I'm having a go at you personally - you've been a constant source of advice and good sense on this subject.

Cheers

SBG

Interesting to note that during the recent debate about MPs expenses they moaned about having to receipt anything under £500 IIRC.....

Rules for one but not the other methinks......

BT

SBG
 

No problem.

The T-Letter paragraph which you quote (I hadn't seen it) is a direct lift from the JSP, but in isolation it is not quite all that the JSP has to say on the subject, hence my reference to selective quoting.

Regards

Ginseng

As an Auditor of claims I am perfectly happy that if you are unable to obtain a receipt for your newspaper from the vendor then when you retain all your receipts for the year in which you are required write a small note, probably no more than a couple of lines that you actually expended that amount of money. When/if you get audited the Auditor will be quite happy with the note as this has covered everything that you expended within the IE limit.

I think the whole purpose of the change to the JSP is to stop everyone on temporary assignment from claiming a flat rate £5. £5 is the limit. If you do not actually expend that amount of money then why should you be re-imbursed.

Also I may point out the a survey has been carried out into the true cost of a 3 minute phone call/newpaper/laundry. Phone call £1.90 for a three minute call using a BT charge card to a Mobile Phone. £0.65 for the Times(daily) and whatever your laundry cost bearing in mind that most Senior Ranks/Wardroom(Officers Mess) the laundry machines are free.

That is OK if you are in a mess in the UK. or anywhere for that matter, but as you know, we RAF types much prefer hotels to land based ships.

I don't think a 3 min call to a mobile from the USA is £1.90, also most hotels charge for washers/driers.

I know the USA IE is upto £10, but if :mad: MPs do not have to provide a reciept (otherwise known as PROOF) for any amount, why should I create space for a year, for many months worth of reciepts for a 65p daily newspaper.?

Heard today that the JPA staff may be going on strike, hmm question is how will we tell the difference!!??

Because they tell us to and if we don't we get to go and see the good old police and get charged with fraud when we get audited.:ugh:

Currently in USA preoccupied with how I have to "manage" my capped actuals...It has created an accounting nightmare for an accounting ludite like me; ensured that among my friends and collegues we have to keep tabs on who had the popadoms, how many they had, when they had them, and how much they cost; pre-occupied us to the extent where just living and surviving away from home has defocused our concentration on the professional tasks that we were deployed to achieve.

Well done to the arse that imposed this system; you have succeded in destroying the limited and only perks of being continually detached from our families, focused our attention on the pointless aspects of accounting rather than the mission that we were deployed to achieve, and for ensuring that the Service now spends many pounds in order to save a few pennies.

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.

Sorry to use your quotes, but this is what you do.1st point. If you do not have access to JPA where you work, E-mail your expenses to your Unit HR and get them to fill out the manual form that they can send up to JPAC. This should lessen the amount of time that you have to wait for your money.

2nd Point. Your 25% audit of claims is about right. 1 in 5 claims are audited so you are only 5% above the line. Bearing in mind that if you put in more that 4 claims per 30 days all your claims will be audited for a further 60 day period. Trick to remember here is to put more than one journey on each claim.

3rd Point. If you do take your coming option make sure that you don't work for the civil Service. Their Pay system (HRMS) is even worse than the one you are working on.:ouch:

to use the seasonal vernacular: "Oh no it isn't."

I ger paid every month, on time and the correct amount. It a claim is slightly late they will run a second pay run and slip it in on time.

If I file a claim it is in the bank in two days. I have never been audited. If I am audited and the Taxman decides I have been paid too much the civil service will make up the difference.

I do not need to justify my PIE.

The only downside is I must keep receipts for 3 years not 12 months.

Civil servants do not have capped actulas, they just have actuals, and it includes Wine.

Quite right, I forgot the half bottle of wine. Naturally this means you must dine with another CS - Mouton Cadet with the Fillet Mignon and Sautern with the desert.:}

I'd be very interested if that were possible - seeing as many of the transactions on JPA are to be by the individual - and that is password access. One of the airships at a secret Bucks HQ directed his outer office staff to do this work - and they were unable to as it is personal entry only. I'd always feared the workload it would put on our Army privates (and airships of course).

From what I understand at my unit, Banana Boy is quite correct, When privates want to use JPA and enter data they will be sat with a HR staff member who will tell them what to do. They have been told that they will not have solo access and will be baby sat for 100% of the access time.

From what I have heard from mates in other Joint units the same is true with them as well.

Number1Matelot
 

Numner1matelot, you rock and actually know what you are talking about. Very well done!

Many thanks for the vote of confidence.:D

BBC Look North and JPA
 

BBC Look North have just run a long item on JPA. Various claims on no pay, inaccurate pay with e-mail from a Rockape who said he was fed-up with sitting in a hole in the sand being shot t whilst his wife and family hadn't received the money to pay for food or the morgage.
MoD stated that the system functions well and that 99% of pay and allowances were delivered correctly in December.
This did not apparently tie up with the Beeb's information; they interviewed a Tory MP from Yorkshire who is tabling questions in the House; they also had several quotes from what was discreetly described as a RAF forum.
Maybe something will happen as said Tory MP was getting agitated about the planned roll-out to the Army later in the year.
This had all the hallmarks of a carefully planned assault - any other regions carry a similar report?

Err no they're not. They are paid for and maintained by Mess members through Subscriptions and Bar Profits. I think it appropriate to claim Mess Subs when visiting another mess, but I hadn't considered claiming the 'profit' element of the bar purchases.

STH

But they should be - they are scaled items and should be publically funded through the Works Services budget.

Talk to Catering Ops at STC if you want to know the truth!

As maybe but I have never lived in a mess where the livers in haven't had to pay a laundy charge for the upkeep of the washing machines.

Put my first travel claim in this week. In the bank within 2 days...:ok: :ok: Progress. Now....if they can just sort out my GYH they did not pay me Nov/Dec.....

Just wait till you get back off that 4 month det to find out that they Audited you 3 months ago... and find your in-tray lots of snotty letters from PSF... :mad: