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Foote said a centre in the National Capital Region can more easily work with the human resources staff of departments, which are mostly headquartered here. HR staff are key players in feeding the information that Phoenix needs. The centre will be housed in the Place du Portage office complex where the department is located.

The new automated pay system has created major headaches for the department, which has dealt with a deluge of complaints from an untold numbers of public servants across the country who were either not paid, paid too much or paid too little.

The rollout began in February with the first round of 34 federal departments, followed by the second phase of 67 departments.

Until now, the department has said the system is working because most people are being paid and the glitches haven’t been out of line for a project of such scale and complexity. The department has also encouraged those who aren’t paid to seek emergency or advance payments from their departments.

The system seemingly functions well enough for anyone who works nine-to-five and gets a regular paycheque with no extra-payments, such as overtime or leave.

The glitches have revolved around changes, adjustments and supplementary payments such as overtime, acting pay, increments or leave. There have been problems with casual and term contracts, new hires and terminations and students.

Creating the new centre is a major step in response to those concerns. Foote said she recognizes the new system is complex but decided further measures had to be taken, particularly to handle the backlog of files that Miramichi has been unable to reduce since the rollout.