People and Money
An official response from the Principal and senior leadership team to a letter from elected members of Senate regarding People and Money.
Dear elected members of Senate,
Thank you for your latest letter regarding People and Money. Please be assured that we are still acutely aware of the ongoing disruption and colleagues across the University remain dedicated to resolving these challenges as quickly as we can.
You have raised concerns about establishing timelines for when these issues will be resolved. We are making progress on key issues, however the overall picture depends on a number of variables which will impact these outcomes. We will continue to work diligently on our plans to tackle the issues and update the University community regularly as we progress.
The individual points set out in your letter, along with positive action being taken to resolve them, are outlined below.
Payments
When can postgraduate research students with outstanding expenses expect to be paid?
We are making student payment expenses on a regular basis. Once student expenses are submitted, processed and approved, payments are made each week.
More than 1,550 student expenses have been made since People and Money went live and we have a specific call queue in the Finance Helpdesk to identify approved expenses and pay them on a regular basis.
When will postgraduate students be given access to the system to be able to claim expenses directly, as they could prior to the implementation of People and Money?
We have listened to feedback and will investigate ways we can improve the process for students, including self-service forms. This will be carefully reviewed once the immediate challenge of the backlog has been cleared.
When can all other staff expect payments they have made out of their own pocket to be reimbursed?
More than 7,500 expenses, totalling more than £2.1 million, have been processed since our finance services went live in People and Money. Staff expenses, once approved by a line manager and in line with the expenses policy, are being paid on a regular basis – at least weekly.
Stipends
Were November stipend and scholarship payments to postgraduate students all completed successfully and without requiring students to chase missing or misdirected payments individually?
There were very few issues with the payment of PGR student stipends in November, and where these were identified they were resolved as quickly as possible.
Can the December stipend payments to postgraduate research students be guaranteed?
We are making every effort to ensure December payments are made on time. We are following the same process this month as we did in November, as well as bringing the payment date forward to before Christmas. The process includes a quality assurance check with the Colleges as well as a contact form and email address for students to raise concerns.
Will there be adequate staffing over the Christmas shut down to be able to deal with any outstanding stipend payment issues, and will these channels be communicated to all students well in advance?
Staff and students should follow established finance procedures during the winter break. We are planning for business continuity during the closure, building on the standard emergency payment process Finance puts in place each year. We will of course also ensure that staff who have been working tirelessly over the last few months are able to take some well-earned time off.
Payroll
When will the backlog of new contracts (new starts, transfers, secondments and additional posts) be cleared?
The HR Operations team are processing contract requests in real time – there is no backlog. The HR Operations team successfully processed all payroll-critical transactions ahead of the December payroll cut-off deadline where full and accurate information was received on time. They continue to provide an additional triage service to review contract requests on receipt to flag any missing or incomplete elements within the submission.
When will employees be able to obtain proof of their annual salary from the People and Money system now that it is not listed on their payslips, and without having to raise an individual query with HR?
We are currently investigating adding a new annual salary screen into People and Money, which will allow staff to view their full-time annual salary information directly in the system. Guidance will be sent out to let staff know when this is available.
What provisions are being made for access to historical pay and tax information, and when will these be available to staff?
Ahead of the launch of payroll in People and Money in April, we let staff know they needed to download all historical payslips and P60s before the summer as, after this point, it was not possible to provide ongoing employee access to the legacy system to view historical payslips or P60s.
However, all staff can access their payslips since April 2022 via People and Money by going to ‘Me’ > ‘Pay’ > ‘My payslips’.
Paper P45s are issued to all staff who leave the University and they show how much tax a person has paid on their salary so far in the tax year (6 April to 5 April). Staff leaving receive their P45 shortly after they have received their final payment from the University.
Staff can request historical payslips and P60s from the Payroll team. Please raise a service request in People and Money using the category ‘Pay Enquiries – General’ or ‘P45/P60’.
When will staff P60 documents be available to view directly online in People and Money, as stipulated in the University Payroll policy?
P60s for the 2022/2023 tax year will be available via People and Money via ‘Me’ > ‘Pay’ > ‘Year-End Documents’. They are usually published in April or May. Communications will be sent out to let staff know when they are available.
Supplies and services
When will the backlog of payments to the University’s suppliers be cleared?
We are now paying more invoices than are being received, and have paid out more than £150million in invoices, expenses and other payments since our new finance processes went live in People and Money.
However, we know there is still a backlog of work to get through before we can return to our ‘business as usual’ volume of invoice processing and activity.
To support this work, Finance has reallocated Finance Business Partners to support backlog activity and the teams are also prioritising issues escalated from budget areas.
We are particularly aware of the impact on research activities, and have a number of ‘sprints’ underway, where we are working intensively to pay the oldest outstanding invoices, to target specific suppliers and on supplier creation in the system.
What compensation, outreach, and other measures will be undertaken to repair our supplier relationships and ensure future access and continuity, what is the timeframe for these, and how will success be tracked and evaluated?
We strive to have strong collaborative relationships with our suppliers and we have been working hard to maintain and repair relationships. The Procurement team has been proactively managing the supplier relationship with our University-contracted suppliers and has offered to support colleagues with local supplier queries.
Is the system prepared for a second wave of orders, once staff who are currently not making orders while the backlog is cleared resume their normal ordering practice? Will extra staff and resource be made available?
As part of our planning for 2023, we have started to recruit additional staff into Procurement and Finance and this will continue in January. Staff should continue to follow guidance available to order goods and services and set up new suppliers.
Research grant finance processes
What is the justification for reallocation of the Project Manager system to local areas on only an exceptional basis – why not permanently, given the specialist knowledge of the needs of the University contained in local areas?
A decision was recently made based on dialogue with colleagues in the Enactment Group on a way to roll out the Project Manager system access and we are now working with the Colleges to do this.
How and when will the numerous issues with the approval process (including, but not exclusive to: situations where line managers are not the appropriate approvers, excessive additional workloads imposed on line managers and dead-end approval chains) be rectified?
We are in the process of developing our plan for 2023 and some aspects of the approval process will be included in that. We will communicate this early next year once the plan is developed.
When will the backlog of 365 research projects still to be set up on People and Money be addressed?
We are working through the projects that still need to be set up on People and Money. We have processed more than 320 and are working through the remainder of the backlog, as well as new projects that have come in during that period. We will also continue to run ‘sprints’ in the new year to clear the backlog and get back to a stable processing level.
Training and support
Given the failings in providing adequate training to users of People and Money so far, how will the training being provided be improved to help address the numerous issues users are currently facing with the system (as outlined in the comments accompanying our original letter)?
We are in the process of developing our plan for 2023, and training on the new processes, ways of working and the system form a key part of that. We will communicate this early next year once the plan is developed.
Review
We also received your separate letter about expectations of the external review of People and Money and have noted your points. We would like to reassure you that the University remains committed to a professional external review.
Work is currently being undertaken on the planning, scoping and timing of this review. A proposal will be shared with Court – who have stated their support for an external review – for consideration at a meeting of Court next year.
I hope this conveys that our commitment to radical and urgent action to resolve the situation remains strong. As I mentioned in my last letter, our work with you, Court and Senate will fundamentally underpin this effort.
We will continue the conversation with all staff in the New Year via town hall meetings, direct emails and Implementation Group updates and encourage you to take part in these forums to help us to address these issues.
So that Senate members are kept fully informed of progress around People and Money, rather than responding directly to your correspondence, we will post regular updates on SharePoint for all staff to see – so please keep referring to this page in future.
Peter, on behalf of the senior leadership team
Professor Peter Mathieson, Principal and Vice-Chancellor, The University of Edinburgh