Ministry of Defence upgrades Oracle HR and payroll system

The Service Personnel and Veterans Agency (SPVA) at the Ministry of Defence (MoD) has upgraded its human resources (HR) and payroll system.

The SPVA IT upgrade followed 12 separate projects covering infrastructure and applications, as well as the core Oracle Joint Personnel Administration (JPA) system.

SPVA has one of Europe’s largest Oracle HR and payroll systems, serving 900,000 UK Armed Forces’ personnel and veterans. 

It processes £10bn in payments and issues 3.8 million items of correspondence each year to armed forces personnel. 

In August 2013 it was shut down for just over a week to enable work to be done.

IT services supplier CSC implemented the upgrade, which involved moving datacentres, upgrading extensive infrastructure and business applications.

The MoD migrated the SPVA to Oracle’s E-Business Suite R12. SPVA and CSC services support pay, pensions and all other HR functions to the UK’s armed forces.

The upgrade, which was run in parallel with a project to meet HMRC Real Time, was completed on time and budget.

“What has happened over the last month – from closing the Joint Personnel Administration system down on 22 August 2013 through to it coming back online on 3 September - has been many months in the planning and de-risking,” said SPVA CEO air vice-marshal Ross Paterson.

“The fact that, from a user’s perspective, it was available when they had been told it would be back on line and that it continues to deliver the service they expect is a huge achievement by our Staff.”