JPA Downtime in March - Current RN Users

I don't think this is breaching any security or confidentiality stuff, but a heads-up for those of you currently serving, and don't already know.

JPA will be unavailable during most of March to put the Army on and to upgrade JPA.

According to the JPA bulletin that I've just read, the dates are:

From 1700 Tue 13 Mar - JPA will be unavailable to all users
am Mon 26 Mar - HR (ie UPO) get access
am Tue 27 Mar - Self Service Managers get access
am Thu 29 Mar - Self service users (ie most of us) get access

From Mon 26 Mar JPA will only be accessible 0700 - 1900
From Mon 2 Apr for 2 weeks, JPA only accessible from 0730 - 1700

During the downtime, HR will not have access, so don't bother calling them as they have enough to do.
JPAC Enquiries will be open but will have no access to the system. You can call them, but they won't be able to do anything. Unless you're in need of a chat.

Basically, get your claims in now! :shock:

Edited for grammar

 

Cut off date in March for final entries to make pay at the end of March is March 2nd!!

 

So that's one complete month with no access for reservists. Maybe it's an attempt to keep us placated about the constant deduction of tax and NI from our non-taxable, non-NI weekly travel expenses.

I've given up complaining now. I understand the same issue affects the regulars. I'm not taking the piss with this question - how often do regulars submit expense claims and travel expense claims? Obviously we have travel expenses every week.

 

Depends where you are, at the moment about six or eight a month, in my last job generally five a week!

 

I was down my unit on wednesday and tried to phone JPAC at 1920hrs to be told on the phone that the office closed at 1900hrs. Not a lot of good if we don't start till 1930hrs.

 

So a daily claim for concrete ships is common? Presumably being drafted to an actual ship would reduce the frequency.

 

Depends what the ship is doing. If it's alongside, then you may still have HDTs and GYH.

It's not just the expenses though. You have to consider all the other allowances that JPA may not be able to cope with such as LSA, Op Allowance payments, CEAs etc; if the system is down, then HR/UPO cannot take any action to correct them, nor can JPAC.

Edited to add the following:

Bloody Hell - I think I've become addicted to TLAs!

HDT - Home to Duty allowance
GYH - Basically weekend warrants
LSA - Longer Separation Allowance
CEA - Used to be Boarding School allowance
HR/UPO - Go figure
JPAC - JPA Call Centre, Glasgow (I think?). Not quite Delhi or Karachi, but still abroad.

 

In my last job I was working for another government department which made a difference.

Other than that it really depends where you are and what you're doing, I spend a lot of time meeting with the other services, OGDs etc. In a training establishment there's not much need for extensive travel, when I was on the staff in one I rarely had to travel, Bristol now and again.

 

What is this illustrious JPA i hear so much about?

Apparently we have it in our unit but something called DII does't work yet so we have no PC's and no JPA.

All i want is my f*cking money. Yes i am only :wink: a reservist but by recconing i'm owed over £1000.00 to date. A fair chunk of that is expenses such as petrol which has obviously come out of my pocket in the first place.

I can feel a strike coming on!

"Cam on Bruvvers, everybody out"!