The minister now responsible for Novopay has been told it could take up to two years for the faulty school payroll system to work as it should.
A briefing report for Steven Joyce says when Novopay started last August, it was not user friendly, resulting in an unexpected number of teachers submitting information by email.
The service centre of Novopay operators, Talent2, was not able to cope with the volume of manual forms, resulting in a backlog that caused delays.
An education union is critical of information in the briefing document to Mr Joyce and that schools cannot be blamed for the problems.
NZEI president Judith Nowotarski says blaming schools for a system that was not trialled or resourced properly is not going to fix it. She says its members have put thousands of extra hours into getting payments fixed.
The report said the system's software is sound, but to work successfully Novopay needs to regain the confidence of the education sector and for schools to submit forms online rather than via email.
It said that if the Ministry does keep Novopay and waits for all schools to start using the online system fully, that could take 18 - 24 months.
Auckland Primary Principals Association president Jill Corkin said schools won't wait two years for Novopay to come right.
The Association said it has lost all confidence in the payroll system and it's going to take a lot of work to regain their trust.
