‘I would ask you to address this matter urgently’

On June 10, John O’Brien, the chief executive of St James’s Hospital in Dublin, wrote to the Health Services Executive outlining what he described as monumental concerns about the Payroll, Personnel and Related Services (PPARS) system. Here is the text of the letter.

Mr Sean Hurley

ICT Directorate

HSE Corporate

Irish Life Mall

Block 4, Floor 3

Talbot Street

Dublin 2

AS you are aware St James’s Hospital has been a key partner in the development and implementation of the PPARS system since 1998. In particular, the hospital has played a pivotal role in the design and implementation of phase II of the project and was the first agency to go live with the payroll/time elements of the system in October 2003.

From the beginning, we experienced system configuration weaknesses, specifically in the areas of calculation of allowances, factoring, public holidays, sick leave, etc, and there were general inaccuracies and a paucity of information in the routine reports generated by the system. St James’s worked closely with the National Team to iron out these difficulties and helped in the process of defining national core standards.

However, many of these issues continued unreceived and were repeatedly highlighted in formal caveats to the St James’s sign-off process the regression tests relating to each of the subsequent go-lives, i.e. NWHB and MHB in mid-2004 and MWHB in November 2004.

An additional concern emerged before the NEHB/MHS go-live which related to a corruption of the regression database, with consequent loss of data integrity. This was largely due to the indiscriminate application of changes to the system configuration which affected payment calculation rules.

At a high-level meeting with the PPARS national team, it was acknowledged that weaknesses existed in the technical change control process and a commitment was made to put in place a dedicated expert team for this purpose.

In recent months, we have experienced further significant problems in the payroll production system. For example, following a recent payroll run approximately one hundred and fifty employees were incorrectly paid. After some investigation, we established that the problems arose from a number of configuration changes applied by the PPARS team in an uncontrolled fashion and without prior communication with St. James’s.

As a result of continuing system difficulties, we are experiencing a weakened payroll process, which is leading to a diminution of our relationship with staff and their representatives. There is particular concern in this latter regard, with staff representative groups now threatening to effect public protest events to reflect their dissatisfaction. We are also finding it difficult to assure external auditors as to system integrity regarding fiduciary matters.

An issue of immediate concern centres on the latest regression resting process, currently in progress, to enable go-live of a further five locations within the Health Service Executive. From our experience to date the process has been totally inadequate and incomplete in the context of requirements necessary to assure performance certainty following such go-live.

It is clear that PPARS governance has not absorbed lessons from previous regression exercises and changed processes and protocols to reflect related learning. All indications suggest that a go-live in these circumstances will lead to a considerably distortion in payroll results given the number and complexity of system configuration changes proposed coupled with a weak or non existent change control process.

In our view serious consideration must now be given to a cessation and re-planning of this regression process.

In summary provisions for the national management and resolution of PPARS issues has been consistently below acceptable standards over the period of 18 months of live SAP payroll at St James’s. The consequential risk to the integrity and smooth production of St James’s payroll has remained unacceptably high. The arbitrary imposition and application of system changes, whether technically correct or not, is not acceptable under any circumstances.

There is a fundamental requirement for a review of the current PPARS structure and operation, with particular emphasis on the need for robust communication with live agencies and an emphasis on a partnership problem solving approach, rather the current dysfunctional provisions which are leading to a breakdown in trust and confidence.

Again, I must emphasise the high potential risk of significant payroll malfunction. Given the recent track record, and the low level of confidence, any further extension of this system to other HSE groups will only be acceptable in the context of prior stabilisation and resolution of existing critical issues.

In essence, the Hospital is now unwilling to continue with an arrangement which clearly threatens its basic functioning. Its ability to meet its fiduciary accountability obligations with assurance and its credibility and relationships with its workforce, in the interest of and commitment to supporting a National approach to effecting Corporate business system within the Health Sector, St James’s has fully promoted initiatives in this area with its Voluntary Institution colleagues.

In the current circumstances, it is clearly not tenable to continue thus. Also, the highly negative experience of the Hospital with the standard of central governance management and operation of the PPARS initiative raises monumental concerns regarding the performance expectations and capacities of the System with respect to the core business (EPR) Initiative to be commenced imminently.

I would ask you to address this matter urgently and would welcome further immediate discussion.

John O’Brien

Chief Executive