JPA

[skatewithwings]

Like it or not, it's coming.
RAF is currently trying valiantly to make it work and you'll have to deal with it very soon.
My question is regarding LSSB/LSSA and the new catchall - LSA.

Can anyone please tell me what the RN's policy is regarding transferring LSSB qualifying service over to LSA?

As I understand it LSSB service counts towards LSA at a rate of 60%. But has anyone been told that only service after 1997 (which is apparently when LSSA started) will be taken into account? Or does all your service count?

If anyone has references I'd be most grateful. Need all the ammo I can get.

Many thanks.

 

[TheCommunicator]

If I remember correctly 1 years LSSB will give 300 days LSA. LSSA is 1 for 1 with LSA. Not heard the one about only time after 1997 qualifying myself.

If you've access to the MOD Intranet there's an excel spreadsheet on there somewhere with a LSA Calculator where you put in your LSSB and LSSA days and it works out what your LSA rate will be. I've got 8.5 years LSSB and 100 days LSSA and my LSA daily rate will be double my LSSB.

 

[skatewithwings]

Thanks Communicator

That's my understanding, and I'll have a look for the calculator. If it turns out that that is indeed the case, then Their Airships can stand by to stand by.
Anyone else shed anymore light?
The more documentary proof and references I can get hold of the better.

Cheers,

Skatewithwings

 

[geoffrey]

skatewithwings - the brand new JSP 752 has all the details in. I don't have it at home (I'm not a sad pusser!) but when I checked the LSSB/LSSA rules last week out of (albeit selfish) curiosity, I seem to recall they mentioned the transfer in exactly the way Communicator said. I also can't recall any 1997 date mentioned.

 

[PompeySailor]

Heads up. JPA rules affect us in different ways from 1 Apr. The UPOs are not being particularly proactive in getting the information out. It will pay you (especially those that are DOs or DSRs) to get a copy of the JSP and have a good look through it. Some of your people (and you!) will be entitled to things that you may not have been entitled to before (off the top of my head, HTDs have changed, especially for Portsmouth/Gosport travellers, plus many other things).

The DINs carry some good info - hassle your UPO Staff for a briefing before it all comes in.

 

[mariner]

Heads up. JPA rules affect us in different ways from 1 Apr. The UPOs are not being particularly proactive in getting the information out. It will pay you (especially those that are DOs or DSRs) to get a copy of the JSP and have a good look through it. Some of your people (and you!) will be entitled to things that you may not have been entitled to before (off the top of my head, HTDs have changed, especially for Portsmouth/Gosport travellers, plus many other things).

The DINs carry some good info - hassle your UPO Staff for a briefing before it all comes in.

How to wind up the pusser!!
Just for info, JPA introduction into the RAF hasn't gone as well as expected, which has resulted in a few MAJOR problems with the data transfere.
Anyway, with regards to the JSP 752 and the UPOs not giving out info: when the UPOs do get info they find it changes by the time they release it, more than once we have been informed of different implementation dates for HTD, ie when we get JPA or when RAF get it. They are just waiting for the definitive answer from fleet.
When / if JPA comes in to force for the RN it will be mostly up to the individual to run their account and the JSPs will be available to all. It is in your interest to take a look, they are very friendly to read. The WTRs job will be to audit, and action certain claims (DAs, REs and BSA), hence about 300 billets going through out the RN.

Just remember, its a major change for the way we all get paid. if you get pissed off just imagine how the writers feel. Its not them who want the changes.

 

[crabtastic]

The JPA introduction within the RAF is, as PompeySailor says, full of MAJOR problems, the only good thing I can see is that being a matelot at a crab base I get to watch the chaos and spot the pitfalls before it's introduced to the Navy. However, if we can't get it right when there are Writers involved there's no way a computerised system will be without flaws... :?

 

[geoffrey]

I heard today that the whole crappy system has been delayed a year for the RN because it's yet another New Labour IT f**kup (ie give the contract to EDS and forget about all their other f**kups). So another year of lovely LSSB when alongside...

 

[SILVER_FOX]

Definitely been delayed, although not sure exactly what the revised timescale is.

The RAF did a trial a few months back and the result was that about a third of their people wouldn't have been paid had it been for real. I suppose thats the whole point of doing trials.

As for the Writer staff, well I understand a select few of the SR's are getting the initial training to make them the trainers for their own units. JPA will have a huge emphasis on self-help from the customer perspective. Things like travelling expenses will be input by the claimant with the requirement to retain receipts for 12 months thereafter; the auditors may call you to account for the monies being claimed.

I gather that despite the wide-ranging changes that it will bring, there are no plans for uplifts in UPO staff numbers to help us when we can't figure it out. We'll all get some training - but the potential for disaster seems pretty high. The really incredible thing is that the limited information (not contained in a JSP) is thin and broad-brush. The detail is just not sufficient to tell the average Matlot enough about it yet.

Hell - this time in twelve months, we'll all be Writers!

 

[PompeySailor]

Update time then. The RAF have been royally effed up with pay - underpayments and overpayments everywhere, wrong rates of pay, missing allowance. Which begs the question why no comparison run has been made to check that people were within at least 5% tolerance of their previous pay amount? Simple things are not being done, and personally I would like to see a journo pick this up (I know the RAF have been emailing the story to the press). JPA is such a cock up that I fully expect the bloke at the top to get a gong in the next round of Honours.....

Take a look at this (http://www.pprune.org/forums/showthread.php?t=219026&page=19) from the coal face, and bear in mind that the RN have dissolved their rollout teams and there is a rumbling that SAMA (RAF System) is going into contract discussions. It's a bad, bad mess.

 

[drwibble]

A couple of crab medics I know have had their pay totally messed up. One has been paid nothing and the other has been paid £154.

 

[PompeySailor]

On a Bank Holiday weekend as well... no action until Tuesday. What a mess. It seems that non-flyers have been given flying pay, flying bods have got ground-crew pay, and generally it's not worked at all. I can't understand the accountability for this, or the lack of dry-run testing and confidence testing at the end of the run. It's a total joke, but it's starting to reflect the constraints under which we now work.

It's not really funny anymore.

 

[skatewithwings]

Can confirm most of contents of previous posts. Right Royal arse up. RAF PSFs (UPOs) have already lost a large proportion of their personnel due to the fact that JPA was meant to cut down on admin. Nobody seems to have any idea what is going on. As it stands, on 3rd April when the thing went live, nobody could access it until late in the afternoon. It took me 40 minutes to change NOK Phone number, and that's all the system would allow me to do. As of this Friday, access to JPA is barred to all personnel until at least mid-May, possibly longer. It's unbelieveably slow, inaccurate, and causing enormous trouble and worry for EVERYONE concerned. People in flying jobs have not been in receipt of flying pay. Imagine the sun-dodgers not getting their submarine pay........dirty protests all round. I'm lucky in that my pay wasn't too wildly inaccurate (it was wrong though) , but the fact remains - IT DOES NOT WORK, and considering that this is supposed to be a COTS package that's a damn poor showing.
Still, no doubt the millions spent on it, and the jobs cut because of it were completely justified and absolutely vital . To somebody's career. No doubt that despite the fact that senior heads should roll, somebody somewhere will be on the receiving end of a well deserved honour and/or a nice fat directorship/consultancy before long.

 

[Navy1]

I seem to have been out of the loop over the last few days - can anyone answer two specific questions.

1. I hear that JPA has left huge numbers of crabs without pay - is this actually true or just scuttlebuck?
2. Has JPA roll out for RN been delayed and if so for how long ?

Apologies if these are idiot questions ?

Ta

 

[PompeySailor]

1. True. Has also under and overpaid them massively in some areas. Some ground crew now in receipt of flying pay, some pilots being paid spanner monkey rates.

2. Not official yet, but I have seen the draft orders taking the JPA Rollout teams back to their parent units, and I know that they are looking at running the rollout teams to at least Feb next year when they reform.

3. No such thing as an idiot question!

 

[come_the_day]

Interesting isn't it? Industry has generally cracked electronic record keeping and pay and firms like Tesco, BT and large-scale employers get it right by tasking the right people.

MOD tasks numpties, with no previous experience other than passing Civil Service exams, to appropriate systems from civvy-side, then fiddle with perfectly good systems until they break.

Microsoft build in obsolescence on purpose. MOD's approach is that it'll never be obsolete if it doesn't work in the first place!

 

[MightyCrash]

HAHAHAHAHA - I hope this really falls on it's arse and us writers don't have to face our redundancy pay.

 

[PompeySailor]

JPA not going well with the RAF. The tabloids are circling, ARRSE, PPRUNE and other sites are making this fubar very public. There is much disquiet from those who are weighed down with layers of gold on their hats and shoulders.....

I don't mind them cocking with my leave, I don't really mind them messing up my drafts, but I don't think I will be very chuffed if they mess with my pay...

 

[Yard_Dog]

Royal Marines have been allowed to convert Histroical LSSB 'Qualifying Time' at 60% prior to introduction of LSSA.

This is also likely to be available to RN personnel such as WAFU's in squadrons accumulating such unpaid 'Qualifying Time'. Good news for a lot of booties with time in who will be paid LSA at a much higher rate than LSSA.

 

[skatewithwings]

Sorry, can you please confirm how I just read that? That the Booties have been allowed to count (at 60%) ALL previous LSSB qualifying time, regardless of wether it was prior to the introduction of LSSA in 1998?

Only my LSSB post 1998 has been counted towards LSA for fear of "putting the rest of the RAF at a financial disadvantage".

Thanks