Department of Education spending more than €2 million a year posting payslips

The Department of Education is spending more than €2 million per year posting payslips to teachers, retirees and non-teaching staff, new figures reveal.

Some 130,000 department staff are paid fortnightly and a payslip is issued for each payment. Posting payslips makes up the large majority - more than four fifths - of the overall postage costs incurred annually by the department.

Figures released to The Irish Times show that in 2019, the department’s total annual postage bill was €2,513,885.60, of which €2,109,902.37 - or about 84 per cent - was spent posting payslips.

More than three million payslips were generated for department staff in 2019. Primary school teachers account for the majority; in 2019, there were 1,145,150 payslips generated for primary school teachers, at a postage cost of €784,483.54.

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Retirees were the second largest cohort by volume and cost: 827,682 payslips/ €566,363.28, followed by post-primary teachers (628,349 payslips/ €433,453.50) and non-teaching staff (475,765 payslips/ €325,602.05).

Last year’s numbers represent an increase in volume of payslips, but slight decrease in postage cost, compared with 2018. This is due to the fluctuating cost of postage per payslip. There can also be slight deviation between the number of payslips and the postage cost, owing to cases where the document is generated and, for various reasons, not posted.

In 2018, payslips made up about 83 per cent of the department’s total postage cost, or €2,121,397.81 of the €2,550,416.41 spent. There were a total of 2,932,888 payslips generated that year.

Primary teachers were again the largest group by volume and cost (1,109,070 payslips/ €802,725.23), followed by retirees (796,264 payslips/ €576,528.82), post-primary teachers (584,663 payslips/ €421,426.75) and non-teaching staff (442,891/ €320,717.01)

Not all civil servants receive payslips in the post. The method of distributing the documents varies across departments and also includes collection from work and digital access.

Asked why the Department of Education chooses to post individual physical payslips to employees, a spokesperson told The Irish Times that its priority was ensuring the correct and timely processing of payments.

“There are 130,000 staff paid on a fortnightly basis on the payrolls operated by the department. The primary objective is to ensure that the staff are paid on time and correctly,” said the spokesperson.

The department also said it would explore options regarding online payslips following an ongoing update to its payroll software.

“An interim upgrade of the payroll system is currently under way and is due to be completed in the latter part of 2021,” said the spokesperson.

“The primary purpose of this upgrade is to receive continued support from the Department’s vendor. On completion of this upgrade it is intended to explore the introduction of an online payslip solution.”

Between January and March 2018, the cost per payslip posted was 67c. That cost increased to 74c between April 2018 and May 2019, and reduced to 65c between May and December 2019.