South Canterbury health staff paid almost $4m in remediation payments

First published by Rachael Comer for The Timaru Herald

Millions of dollars in back pay has been distributed to Health New Zealand Te Whatu Ora staff in South Canterbury under the Holidays Act remediation project, with more to be paid out in the future.

Almost $4 million in payments were processed this week for 919 staff employed in South Canterbury, an important milestone, project lead Stacey Scott said.

“I’ve been on this project for four-and-a-half years and the intensity of the project grew in the past two years.

“It’s been a massive job to rectify the payroll system.’’

She said it was an exciting day for staff and came just in time for Christmas.

“It’s really exciting, and a relief to hear that staff have received the pay.’’

South Canterbury is the ninth payroll nationally to pay staff out, with Auckland, Counties Manukau, Waitematā, Hawke’s Bay and four former shared services (HealthAlliance, Health Partnerships, Health Source and Northern Region Alliance) also completed.

The former South Canterbury District Health Board became aware of the issue in 2019, when it learnt its payroll system over the previous nine years was not compliant with the Holidays Act.

The New Zealand-wide problem with the interpretation of the Act went on for several years and those caught included several government departments, Police, Bunnings, Stuff, along with former district health boards with some claiming their total cost was around $45m.

The Holidays Act 2003 incorporates remuneration and entitlements around leave and public holidays for employees in New Zealand, but employers had found interpretation of the act to be complicated, especially for those on shift work, variable days and hours, or those with flexible work patterns, resulting in having to pay back years of holiday pay to their staff.

Now that staff, presently employed at Te Whatu Ora South Canterbury, had been paid, Scott said next year’s focus would be on working out payments for former employees.

She anticipated this would be a simpler task.

It was not yet known how much those payments would total, she said.

Te Whatu Ora Te Waipounamu deputy chief executive Martin Keogh said staff receiving payments worked across the health system and include nurses, doctors, allied health staff, health care assistants, cleaners and administrators.

“We are very pleased for our staff that payments have been processed and our South Canterbury staff are receiving the money they are owed,’’ he said.

He said resolving remediation payments had been extremely complex and time-consuming work requiring a large amount of manual processing and specialist skills.

“Nationally we have about 90,000 current employees plus 130,000 former employees covered by the Holidays Act remediation project, for the period from 1 May 2010 to the present day.’’

The payment to South Canterbury staff took the total amount paid so far nationally to more than $257m across 35,200 employees.

“We aim to complete the Holidays Act remediation payments to all current employees by July 2025,’’ he said.

“The first payments to former employees will start in early 2025.’’