Clare Daly (Dublin North, United Left)
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226. To ask the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform his views on overpayments and problems of data protection in the PeoplePoint human resource system; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [42744/15]

Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour)
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Overpayments to staff of salary, allowances and expenses can and do occur for a number of reasons in any organisation, be it private or public sector.  These include, but are not limited to, delays in applying or approving or processing pay-impactful absences, or pay-impactful leave arrangements, or errors in calculating allowances, payroll or expenses.

PeoplePoint is the shared service centre that provides transactional HR and pension administration services on behalf of 35 Government Departments and Public Service Bodies for 30,000 civil servants.

An external analysis of overpayment cases conducted in February 2015 identified a number of factors that have contributed to an increase in overpayments in the Civil Service. It is the combination of these factors rather than any one factor that has contributed to an increase in overpayments.

1. Non-compliance with the standard self-service processes that were introduced as part of the roll out of shared services across the Civil Service.  Employees are now responsible for notifying their own absences and forwarding medical certificates in a timely manner, and managers are responsible for updating the absence record and return to work notification process, all through self-service. These features are standard self-service processes in many other public and private organisations, but were only introduced as self-service responsibilties into the Civil Service for the first time in 2013. When these responsibilities that are part of the standard process are not completed in a timely fashion, this significantly increases the risk of overpayment.

2. The issue of non-compliance with procedures or missing medical certifications is being addressed by management in each participating Public Service Body. My Department continues to engage with local HR Departments to assist them address the issue of non-compliance with the absence reporting process itself and to have a positive impact on their own Departmental overpayment balance. The data is showing a positive trend.

3. The new Public Service Sick Leave Scheme (2014) whereby people are reaching the limits of paid sick leave quicker than they previously would have, has made a very significant contribution to reducing absenteeism across the Public Service. However, an unintended consequence of reduced access to paid sick leave has been an increase in the number of overpayments. This can also be seen in organisations that are not serviced by PeoplePoint. A review of this circular is currently underway within my Department to evaluate and address any operational difficulties with it.

4. Another key factor giving rise to overpayments is that the majority of staff are paid in advance as opposed to arrears. As a result there is an inherent overpayment built into the system when a sick leave limit is exceeded. Once an organisation becomes a customer of PeoplePoint, the responsibility for recouping any monies owed transfers to PeoplePoint, regardless of the cause or date of overpayment.  A single civil service recoupment policy was developed by my Department in March of this year which sets out the standard procedure for recouping money from any staff member when an overpayment occurs.  This policy addresses a number of issues including the principles underpinning the recoupment of overpayments; the recoupment process itself; non-standard arrangements and repayment options.

5. When PeoplePoint began operating in 2013, a large number of new staff were hired into PeoplePoint.  The length of time required to upskill so many new staff contributed to some delays in processing leave and absence transactions in the past. This issue has been addressed through training and development and quality checks, and there is close monitoring of key performance indicators against service levels targets and these are being met.

Significant progress has been made on the issue through prioritisation and a highly collaborative effort across Accounting Officers, HR Departments and Payroll Centres. A robust communication plan is in place to educate and alert managers on the impact of failing to carry out their responsibilities in the absence process that causes overpayments. Monitoring and reporting on overpayments occurs on a monthly basis to the HR Shared Service Centre Programme Board and on a bi-monthly basis to the Shared Services Steering Board comprising Secretaries General.

In relation to data protection, a Data Protection Policy for Shared Services(March 2014) is in place for all shared service centres, and this includes PeoplePoint. Each operation has a fully trained Data Protection Compliance Officer (DPCO) in place. The DPCO is supported by the Operations Governance Manager in Corporate unit of the National Shared Services Office. Compliance officers are ready to respond to any breach of security swiftly and effectively. All staff in operations receive data protection training at induction, and refresher training on an annual basis.

The reporting of data breaches within operations is managed through the DPCO who gathers the data on the breach. Any breach is treated with the utmost seriousness. A breach is investigated, reported and assessed through a root cause analysis approach. A process in in place in each operation to report breaches to the Office of the Data Protection Commissioner, the Customer Department Data Controller, the data subjects as appropriate under the guidance of the Customer Department Data Controller, D/PER Data Controller and the Department of Social Protection.