A NEW payroll system designed to make Worcestershire County Council more efficient has descended into chaos with some social care and school staff in Bromsgrove and Redditch left underpaid.

The authority and its partner Liberata introduced the new Mercury HR and Finance processes in April and will see 16,000 county, school and academy staff transferred from paper-based systems to automated ones.

But the move has encountered some problems, which public sector union Unison branded a “raft of disasters”, including more than 150 people not getting fully paid and possible breaches in data protection.

They added some of the lowest paid staff had received up to £500 less in last month’s pay packets.

A council spokesman described the issues as “teething problems” but added they were working to resolve them as soon as possible.

The council refused to comment on how much taxpayer’s money was spent on the new system and how much the blunder would cost to put right.

But, in a joint email sent to all schools - seen by the Advertiser – Dr Peter Bishop, the council’s director of commercial and change, and Liberata managing director Gerwyn Baker, admitted “clearly there are things we could have done better".

They apologised to staff and added an action plan to remedy the situation had been agreed while confirming an independent review would be carried out.

A Unison spokesman said: “Members have been contacting us to notify us of a whole raft of disasters.

“A significant number of employees have been given log-in details which are ineffective, others have been given log-ins which allow them to view other people’s personal data. This potentially places the Mercury system in breach of data protection legislation.

“Other members, many of whom are amongst the council’s lowest paid workers, are reporting distressing underpayments of salary leading to severe financial hardship.

“Some employees have been underpaid to the tune of £500 causing problems with regular direct debits and household bills."

A spokesman from Worcestershire County Council said: "The systems have been live since April. As with any change of this scale there have been some teething problems.

“With our partner Liberata, who we chose to deliver the new system because of their experience in this field, we are working through these issues and resolving them as quickly as we can.

"We have a large support team in place to provide technical support and advice."