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