<P> At the end of February a survey of principals found 23 admin staff have already resigned, and as many as 50 may have quit over the ongoing problems with Novopay . The survey also found the proportion of schools experiencing difficulties had gone up from 86% in October to 96% . President of the PPTA Angela Roberts said schools were yet to receive any financial assistance from the Government for all the extra hours staff spent sorting out the problems . Also in February, the Post Primary Teachers Association surveyed 4500 teachers and found 36% had not bothered to report mistakes in their pay because they were either "too embarrassed or feared putting school administrators under more pressure". </P> <P> In March, further concerns arose when it was reported that Novopay had called in debt collectors to get back overpayments made to teachers, even for as little as $22 . A new glitch also appeared in the system, with 100 teachers having their contracts wrongly' terminated' by Novopay at the end of the first school term . </P> <P> In January 2013, as part of a Cabinet reshuffle, Prime Minister John Key announced Economic Development Minister Steven Joyce--who the media began referring to as' Mr Fixit'--would take over the handling of Novopay . Mr Joyce was initially reluctant to discuss the various options being considered by the Government but indicated that scrapping Talent2's contract was possible but unlikely . Two weeks later, after talking to the stakeholders including Talent2 chief executive, John Rawlinson, Mr Joyce changed his tune and said the system might be scrapped . Before making a decision, he said a ministerial inquiry and a technical audit of Novopay would be conducted . The technical review is expected to cost $200,000 and should be completed by the end of February; the ministerial inquiry will cost $500,000 and should be finished by the end of May . </P> <P> In early February, Mr Joyce released hundreds of documents which showed the Ministry and Talent2 had a testy relationship prior to the national rollout of Novopay . The documents show the Ministers who gave the go ahead to roll out Novopay were aware of its deficiencies and the Ministry of Education almost abandoned the system four months before it became operational . In fact the Ministry of Education had been trying to get Talent2 to meet operational milestones for two years . One of the documents released was a memo written by Lesley Longstone and her deputy Anne Jackson stating four deadlines had been missed by Talent2 and they warned the company it was in breach of its contract . No action was taken because Talent2 threatened legal action against the Ministry if they were hit with a breach . Steven Joyce and acting Education Secretary Peter Hughes also began a dialogue with Datacom, the previous payroll provider about creating a contingency plan in case Novopay had to be scrapped . </P>

When did the novopay project management accept that it had failed