Not the time to lay blame for Phoenix failures, deputy minister says

The deputy minister in charge of fixing the federal government's problem-plagued Phoenix payroll system is urging people to withhold judgment on blame for the botched rollout until after the auditor general and the ministry conduct their own investigations.

• Judy Foote says 'there was no going back' at time of Phoenix launch

• Payroll fix could cost $50M this year, government says

At a briefing Wednesday, deputy minister of public services and procurement Marie Lemay said questions of accountability over how the government could approve the full launch of the system in April should wait until after the problems are resolved.

"I also want answers," said Lemay. "But we have to take the time to review the facts."

"I expect we'll see multiple points of failure that will be identified and we need to understand these fully. At this point I think it would be wrong to state that one person or one element is to blame," she said.

"Once we have a complete understanding of what went wrong, appropriate steps will be taken."

Problems began shortly after rollout

Lemay's comments come two days after Minister of Public Services and Procurement Judy Foote told a House committee she had received repeated assurances that the Phoenix system was ready to go when it fully launched, but declined to say where those assurances came from.

The government rolled out the payroll system to some 120,000 federal employees in February, and despite urgings from the public service unions to delay the full launch, the government rolled out the system to the entire public service in April.

After Phoenix was introduced across the country, employees began reporting pay problems. By July, the government acknowledged more than 80,000 public servants have experienced some pay problems, with the majority being underpaid, while some have been overpaid or not paid at all.

Foote also confirmed at that committee meeting that the auditor general had agreed to review the rollout.

10,000 claims processed in 2 weeks

Lemay provided an update on the government's progress in dealing with the backlog of claims that had accumulated before June. Since the last update two weeks ago, compensation workers have processed close to 10,000 claims, bringing the backlog down from 67,500 to 57,500.

The government has promised the backlog will be eliminated by Oct. 31, and Lemay suggested that they remained on track to do so.

She also noted that the ministry has received 47 new "priority one" cases of workers not receiving pay, and said those would be handled by the next pay period, and that another 145 "priority two" cases would be handled in the next six weeks.

Expense claims to be paid by departments

Renée LaFontaine, the chief financial officer of the Treasury Board Secretariat, also outlined more details of the process for employees looking to be reimbursed for expenses as a result of having their pay delayed or withheld.

LaFontaine said claims under $500 such as non-sufficient funds charges or interest on late payments will be handled by the department of the employees.

More complex cases or those for claims over $500 will be forwarded to the Treasury Board office, she said.

The cost of setting up the office at the Treasury Board to handle the claims is estimated at less than $1 million, LaFontaine said.

That figure doesn't include the cost of the claims. LaFontaine declined to provide an estimate for how much that might be, but did say that those costs would be covered by the departments themselves.