Minister pleads for "patience" as system switch reveals raft of overdue invoices

Wednesday 01 March 2023

The government has discovered "a number of overdue invoices from previous years" while doing battle with IT issues relating to a new payments system.

Treasury Minister Ian Gorst this afternoon asked suppliers for "patience" while the government works to resolve the technical issues, but revealed that not all of the payment delays were "directly related" to the new system, 'Connect'.

He said that 14 staff had been "redeployed" to help tackle the backlog.

Express this afternoon asked how many overdue invoices were discovered and the total value of the payments and has not yet received a response.

The IT issues affecting financial transactions have caused a variety of problems, including a small number of operations in the General Hospital being postponed because of difficulties over the supply of crucial equipment.

They also resulted in the summonsing of Environment Minister Jonathan Renouf to the Petty Debts court earlier this month - something that the Director of Natural Environment blamed on "the move to new financial software" and "a technical error in the formatting of the invoice on the new system".

Deputy Gorst said the government was continuing to have issues with the transition to the new payments system and was "working hard to resolve them".

Pictured: Treasury Minister Ian Gorst said that "not all the delays to payments are directly related to Connect [the new system]".

"It is not acceptable that suppliers are not being paid on a timely basis, and we have put in place urgent measures to address this.

"We have increased the team working on paying invoices from nine to 23 by redeploying existing staff to tackle the backlog, and we are making daily payment runs," he added.

However, he revealed that not all of the payment delays were "directly related" to the new system.

"The changeover has also brought to our attention a number of overdue invoices from previous years. This is clearly unacceptable and falls short of the standards we set ourselves as a government, and that suppliers rightly expect of us.

"There will be inevitable issues in the transition to any new payments system, but I am confident that these are now being addressed," he continued.

"Whilst the recent delays are not acceptable, I ask suppliers for their patience while we work to resolve them as swiftly as possible."

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