Leaked Email: Unit4 ERP System Leaves Some School Staff With 'nil Pay'

Exclusive After schools in Surrey, England, went live on a new £30 million HR, payroll and finance system, the responsible county council is being forced to prioritize support calls for problems that are delaying staff pay.

According to a note sent by Surrey County Council's service desk – seen by The Register – it confirms issues that have “already had an impact on pay which has resulted in someone either receiving nil pay, a significant underpayment or has left the individual in serious financial hardship.”

We have also received other related reports complaining of multiple problems and errors with the new system's payroll performance in schools, including overpaying and underpaying staff, some of whom are considered vulnerable, a likely reference to lower paid employees in the schools.

The council has apologized for "any inconvenience to employees and schools."

The service desk email says those finding they have a problem with the system will be placed in one of three priority groups.

The group with the highest priority includes: "Anything that has already had an impact on pay which has resulted in someone either receiving nil pay, a significant underpayment or has left the individual in serious financial hardship. This includes incorrect Local Government Pension Scheme deductions and impact to Universal Credit claims. We aim to have these resolved within three working days."

The Register asked the council why it was necessary to create a group for very serious problems which might leave staff struggling for day to day money, and how many service desk calls were placed in this group in the last three months.

We are sorry for any inconvenience to employees and schools adversely affected

A spokesperson said: "Following the installation of a new Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system last summer, we have experienced some issues relating to payroll.

"We have put in place a number of workarounds and extra resource to try to minimize the impact on staff and schools. The recovery plan is making good progress, with the number of errors reducing significantly over time.

"Some level of disruption was expected throughout such a fundamental transition to a new system, but we are sorry for any inconvenience to employees and schools adversely affected; our primary focus has always been the welfare of our staff as we resolve any errors, and we are grateful for their efforts and patience as we work through these issues," the spokesperson added.

The council went live with a cloud-based Unit4 system in June 2023, after the cash-strapped public authority delayed the introduction of the finance, HR and payroll software from December 2021. It was initially delayed until April 2022 at an additional cost of £3.9 million ($4.96 million), including payments to the new supplier, implementation partners and SAP for extending support for existing software.

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Like many local authorities in the UK, Surrey County Council is struggling financially. It spends more than £1.1 billion ($1.4 billion) a year on local services and expects to add a further £1.2 billion ($1.5 billion) in debt.

The new Unit4 ERP system replaced software from SAP. The council first implemented the German vendor's R/3 in 2004, and later upgraded to ECC 6.0. In 2015, the council contracted with an independent support provider which effectively "froze" the council into its version of the software, with limited options for maintenance, upgrades or patching. In 2017, Surrey's administration decided to get a new contract for maintenance and licensing, but to stay on the same system due to the cost of moving to a new ERP platform. ®