[UK] Auditors criticise Swindon Council payroll problems

Serious problems with the introduction of a new payroll system at Swindon Borough Council in 2022 have received criticism from the council’s official auditors in a new report, Swindon Advertiser reports.

This month, auditors from Grant Thornton presented the report into their checks of the council’s books and systems for 2021-22 to the audit committee.

The report’s first recommendation is to fix the problem with the payroll system.

It states, “Our work has highlighted a significant weakness due to the in-year change of payroll provider.

“There remain a number of issues relating to the implementation of the new payroll system that are still to be resolved.

“We recommend the council should ensure sufficient resource is in place to resolve the ongoing payroll issues, specifically that timely and complete information is able to be produced for the payroll system and that outputs, such as payslips are accurate.

“The council should also ensure it undertakes a review to learn lessons from the procurement and implementation of the new system to ensure that other system changes are managed more effectively.”

The report reportedly acknowledges that the pandemic was a significant factor in shortened timescales for a payroll provider switch which appeared to be the cause of major issues.

It says, “The implementation of our new payroll system was less than ideal and our staff that were affected were incredibly patient while we worked to resolve the problems.

"It had been the council’s intention to carry out a full procurement exercise in 2020. That exercise was not carried out to the original timescale due to the impact of the pandemic.

“When the procurement took place, the council awarded the contract to Civica HR in September 2021. Delays to the procurement resulted in a truncated implementation timetable.”

The report notes that Swindon council was aware this would be a problem but had little choice to do anything but continue because the previous payroll supplier “was unwilling to continue supplying payroll-only services at a cost that was acceptable to the council".

The change to the new system began in January 2022 and following this the auditors said, “The transition period was beset with a number of issues including significant and numerous errors occurring on payroll runs between January and July 2022.”

A council spokesperson reportedly acknowledged the problems but stated that they were now fixed and an auditor’s recommendation had been put in place. He said, “We are confident the issues we experienced last year are now behind us and monthly governance meetings are in place to ensure we regularly monitor performance and take on board the lessons learned from the Audit report.”

Source: Swindon Advertiser

(Quotes via original reporting)

Serious problems with the introduction of a new payroll system at Swindon Borough Council in 2022 have received criticism from the council’s official auditors in a new report, Swindon Advertiser reports.

This month, auditors from Grant Thornton presented the report into their checks of the council’s books and systems for 2021-22 to the audit committee.

The report’s first recommendation is to fix the problem with the payroll system.

It states, “Our work has highlighted a significant weakness due to the in-year change of payroll provider.

“There remain a number of issues relating to the implementation of the new payroll system that are still to be resolved.

“We recommend the council should ensure sufficient resource is in place to resolve the ongoing payroll issues, specifically that timely and complete information is able to be produced for the payroll system and that outputs, such as payslips are accurate.

“The council should also ensure it undertakes a review to learn lessons from the procurement and implementation of the new system to ensure that other system changes are managed more effectively.”

The report reportedly acknowledges that the pandemic was a significant factor in shortened timescales for a payroll provider switch which appeared to be the cause of major issues.

It says, “The implementation of our new payroll system was less than ideal and our staff that were affected were incredibly patient while we worked to resolve the problems.

"It had been the council’s intention to carry out a full procurement exercise in 2020. That exercise was not carried out to the original timescale due to the impact of the pandemic.

“When the procurement took place, the council awarded the contract to Civica HR in September 2021. Delays to the procurement resulted in a truncated implementation timetable.”

The report notes that Swindon council was aware this would be a problem but had little choice to do anything but continue because the previous payroll supplier “was unwilling to continue supplying payroll-only services at a cost that was acceptable to the council".

The change to the new system began in January 2022 and following this the auditors said, “The transition period was beset with a number of issues including significant and numerous errors occurring on payroll runs between January and July 2022.”

A council spokesperson reportedly acknowledged the problems but stated that they were now fixed and an auditor’s recommendation had been put in place. He said, “We are confident the issues we experienced last year are now behind us and monthly governance meetings are in place to ensure we regularly monitor performance and take on board the lessons learned from the Audit report.”

Source: Swindon Advertiser

(Quotes via original reporting)