Helsinki Mayor Juhana Vartiainen on Wednesday apologised to city employees for the extensive salary payment problems they have faced over the past year.
He made the comments at a press conference on Wednesday morning called for the publication of an external report about the causes of the extensive payment mistakes.
The problems began last spring, as the City upgraded its personnel salary database system, causing many city employees to be underpaid or sometimes not get paid at all. The issues continued for months.
The number of payment errors have since decreased, according to the City, but the Mayor said there were still too many mistakes each month.
"It's clear that the implementation of the new salary system failed miserably, and the human consequences are enormous," Vartiainen said.
Mistakes in 5% of City salaries
According to the City, payroll errors have declined, but they still do occur. In June of last year, the system caused miscalculations in more than 12 percent of salary payments, but in December 2022, as well as February and March of this year, a targeted maximum error level of less than five percent was achieved.
"I clearly state that this level of error must be clearly brought down," Vartiainen said, adding that the City was continuing to work on the problems.
With around 38,000 employees, the City of Helsinki is Finland's largest employer, according to the City.
No single mistake was pinpointed however, according to the findings of the external assessment team, issued by the consulting company Valor.
Four main issues
The team's report identified four key problems in the new salary payment system's rollout. One of the issues was that no single party had the responsibility, authority and necessary tools to carry out the upgrade.
The report said that going forward, there needs to be more accountability in carrying out major projects and those in charge should be clearly held accountable and manage the efforts in a more straightforward manner.
Another problem the probe found was that the database itself, provided by IT firm Sarastia, was being tested to its technical limitations, relative to the City's requirements.
Other problems included a failure to properly manage the upgrade and the fact that Helsinki's Financial Management Services public enterprise (Talpa) was not involved in the effort at the level required.
The report said that the payroll system was not ready to be implemented last spring, but noted its rollout could not be postponed, either.
The City said that in the short term it will continue to use Sarastia's system but that it will continue to monitor its development and consider other possible options in the future.
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