The Ministry of Defence (MoD) says installing an online help programme has resulted in a 30 per cent drop in calls to a help centre supporting its £100m human resources (HR) system.

The Joint Personnel Administration (JPA) system had previously come under fire from servicemen and women concerned about delayed and inaccurate pay (Computing, 25 October 2007).

But the MoD said it has seen a higher level of user satisfaction with the system since the Business Advice Guide (BAG) was launched last December.

“JPA is more than an IT system, it involved cultural changes and we learned from the original rollout we needed to pay greater attention to addressing these changes,”
said Ali Sansome, Service Personnel and Veterans Agency (SPVA) change director at the MoD.

Rolled out to the RAF, the Navy and the Army in 2006 and 2007, JPA has saved £100m and cut HR staff numbers by 20 per cent, said the MoD.

Unlike previous HR systems, it gave staff control over their own information such as bank, personal and next of kin details.

Staff access the system from secure terminals across the MoD’s Defence Information Infrastructure secure network.

But this change caused many of the system’s problems, as the input of inaccurate data led to delayed and incorrect payments.

After monitoring feedback through blogs and surveys the MoD introduced BAG ­ an online help function that sits on the JPA homepage.

BAG has helped reduce calls to JPAC - ­ the system’s help centre ­ - from a peak of 6,000 per day shortly after the army system went live last year to 3,000 a day. The combined service average over the year was 4,500 a day.

And the number of official complaints about the system has fallen to 100 a month, said the MoD.

“The number is freephone, the average call pick-up time in JPAC is 10 seconds, and 85 per cent of problems are resolved on the first call,” said Commander Angus Ross, SPVA director, military services.