In a press release early last month, Minister Responsible for Novopay Steven Joyce said school staff who were overpaid by Novopay and had not responded to efforts to recover the money would be referred to a debt collection agency.
More than 80% of overpayments had already been fully repaid ($22.7 million) or were in arrangements for repayment ($1.9 million).
"But there's still $1.8 million owed by 1960 people from when Novopay started up until June 30, 2014, where no arrangement to repay the money has yet been made.‘‘We need to make every effort to recover taxpayer money that has been made in error.''
The Otago Daily Times asked the Ministry of Education how many people on the list were working in Otago at the time they were overpaid, but ministry infrastructure service head Kim Shannon declined to give the figure, saying it would be too time-consuming to find the information.
"I am refusing your request in full under section 18(f) of the Act because the information requested cannot be made available without substantial collation and research.
"The information required to form a response would need to be drawn from two sources, including one external to the ministry, and require a substantial amount of verification and collation.''
A ministry media team spokeswoman also said meeting the ODT's request would mean "a great deal of work for our staff, which would take them away from their normal duties, which they need to be available to carry out''.
Otago Secondary Principals' Association secretary Gordon Wilson was bemused by the response.
He said if the ministry could provide a press release saying 1960 education staff owed money from Novopay overpayments, they should know how many of those were overpaid while working in Otago schools.
He believed the Novopay debt management unit was struggling to provide the information because many of the people overpaid had left the education system at a time when Novopay was not robust enough to identify that they owed money.
"The Novopay debacle didn't allow schools to sort that, and the ministry seemed unable to do that as well.
"We believe it [concerns about the system] wasn't sorted as urgently as it should have been at the beginning.
"And maybe if they had followed that through at the beginning, they wouldn't have this reasonable list of defaultees - if they are defaultees.''
In response to Mr Wilson's comments, Ms Shannon said the ministry wanted to help the ODT with its request, but "the information we hold to recover overpayments is held by individual, not by region''.
"Putting the information together in regional form in a way that doesn't breach any individual's privacy would have involved a great deal of staff time, diverting them from their usual duties.''
Mr Joyce said the referral process would involve the Novopay debt management unit contacting schools and affected school staff advising how the overpayment occurred, and the options available for repayment.
Those staff would have reasonable time to decide how they wanted to respond, or to raise any questions.
