Department of Education spent almost €3m posting wage slips last year
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The Department of Education spent almost €3m posting wage slips last year despite saying in 2021 that postage costs must be addressed “as a matter of urgency”.
The department provides a payroll service to over 150,000 school staff across the country, with postage costs almost doubling since 2021.
The issue first arose in 2021 at a Public Accounts Committee (PAC) meeting after it emerged the department had spent €10.2m in six years, or €1.7m annually, posting payslips.
At the time, the Department of Education agreed that it must develop a new electronic payroll system “as a matter of urgency”.
However, this has now become an “opt-in” service while the cost of postage has almost doubled to €2.99m.
Education Minister Norma Foley said the department offered school staff the option to receive their payslip electronically in April and May of last year, with 27,500 now no longer receiving their payslip by post.
“Since the introduction of the new digital payslip service in 2023 there has been a positive response to its adoption and the take-up by school staff has been progressing steadily since the launch of the service,” she said.
Ms Foley said it is expected that as more new school staff are onboarded and, as more payees choose to receive digital payslips, the overall annual costs for posting payslips will decrease in future years.
The figure was provided through a parliamentary question to Public Accounts Committee member Paul McAuliffe TD, who described the sum as “completely unacceptable” and believes the electronic distribution should be “opt-out only”.
“The objective should be to get as many as possible on an electronic system. It’s a consistent waste of public money,” he said.
He noted that the €2.99m sum does not include printing and other associated costs while most employees across all sectors now receive payslips electronically.
“It’s a complete failure by the department at an administrative level to put in place a very basic provision that would save public money."
A spokesperson for the Department of Education said the increase in postage costs is largely due to an increase in the number of payees.
“In 2023, the payroll service was extended to school secretaries and there are now approximately 2,800 school secretaries who avail of the payroll service."