Queensland's OneSchool computer system causing similar problems to Qld Health payroll

QUEENSLAND schools have been hit by a computer glitch that has left bills unpaid and staff on the verge of a nervous breakdown. Sound familiar?

Oneschool

IT COULD be the next health payroll debacle - but this time it involves Queensland state schools.

Problems with the OneSchool computer system have left hundreds of schools complaining of mix-ups with contractors' pay and other bills, leaving their budgets in disarray and "dangerous workloads".

One school was threatened with having its electricity disconnected after a bill was wrongly recorded as paid.

Some schools have not paid contractors in time.

Staff have been working weekends to fix the problems, with some allegedly on the verge of nervous breakdowns.

Alex Scott, secretary of Together (formerly known as the Queensland Public Sector Union), said the problems mirrored the health payroll disaster because the department appeared to be in denial about how bad the problems were.

"The department must delay the expansion of the rollout of the system until they get it right," he said.

"Queensland schools can't afford a health payroll-style disaster."

But late yesterday Education Queensland director-general Julie Grantham said they had decided to delay the final rollout to all state schools, to allow time to fix glitches and support administrators.

It followed an order from Education Minister Cameron Dick for more staff training and support.

The OneSchool system is used universally by state schools to produce academic reports, create curriculum and record student details.

But it has been the third phase - the rollout of a financial module which was implemented in 635 schools during the last school holidays - which has sparked the most concern.

Queensland Association of State School Principals president Hilary Backus said their biggest concern had been the delays in getting help for problems, which included bills and accounts payable, invoices and bank reconciliations.

But she said QASSP was satisfied the department was doing everything it could to deal with the problems and the system would be better in the long run, once these were sorted out.

Mr Scott said the union had received "hundreds of reports of excessive and dangerous workloads being created by this system".

"We've had reports of electricity and maintenance bills not being paid by schools, despite the system showing otherwise," Mr Scott said.

"Schools staff are being pushed to the limit to make sure schools can do business."

Problems identified by The Courier-Mail include:

• Supplier details either uploaded incorrectly or not at all, resulting in wrong suppliers being sent invoices. Suppliers that should have been paid within certain time frames were not.

• One school was sent an electricity disconnection notice despite their system telling them the bill had been paid.

• Daily problems with the way bank information was uploaded.

• A budget tool not working, leaving principals with no idea whether they were on, ahead or behind on their budget.

• Staff losing almost-completed work data because OneSchool was timing out with no visible warning.

• Departmental IT support staff taking longer than a week to get back to schools on OneSchool problems.

Ms Grantham said the problems had been a mixture of glitches - which they were fixing as they came up - and human error, which was natural as staff got used to the system.

She said schools which took on the system in the June/July holidays had all applied to do so, and said they were ready.

While the State Opposition has compared OneSchool problems to the payroll disaster, Ms Grantham has vehemently denied it.

She said OneSchool had nothing to do with the staff payroll. "The system itself as a whole is a very good system, but yes, there have been some processing functions that haven't gone as smoothly as they could."

Mr Dick said OneSchool was a good program that was well supported. "School staff want more support and training and that is what I have directed the director-general to do to."