The completion of a new government payroll system has been delayed by almost two years.

’Unavoidable operational reasons’ have been blamed for the delays to the £1.6m People Information Programme.

The single human relations and payroll informational technology system can be accessed by HR professionals, managers and employees.

A contract with the system supplier was signed in March 2017.

Implementation of payroll and HR information was initially planned to begin in April the following year with delivery due to be complete by March 2019.

But roll-out only began in September 2018 and is now due to be complete in December this year.

In a response to a Freedom of Information request, the Cabinet Office said there were a number of reasons for the delay.

It said the supplier initially underestimated the complexity of government terms and conditions.

This led to late or incomplete delivery of the bespoke configuration of the system.

It was also a contributing factor to the payroll parallel run process being lengthier than planned as many terms and conditions variations had to be checked.

Initial self service system performance was slow, which delayed the roll-out of this function. This has now been addressed.

GDPR also caused delays to ensure full compliance.

The Covid lockdown also delayed the roll-out of the full self service function.

Costs from the beginning of the programme to the end of September this year totalled £1,620,115.48.