New payroll office shifts jobs

The creation of a civil servant payroll centre in New Brunswick would provide employment for federal workers who face layoffs if the long-gun registry is abolished, Canadian prime minister Stephen Harper says, reports Ottawa CTV.

Harper said the establishment of the facility in Miramichi would more than make up for any job cuts at the Canadian Firearms Centre, which administers the registry and employs about 200 people in the city.

"Let me assure you, the jobs we're creating at this announcement today will absorb any job losses in the firearms centre many times over," Harper told a news conference.

The Ministry of Defence (MoD) plans to conduct a "major data cleansing exercise" to improve its payroll software, the Joint Personnel Administration system (JPA) following "significant" errors in the payment of allowances and expenses to service personnel, writes Computerweekly.

In the MoD's 2009/10 Consolidated Departmental Resource Accounts report, permanent under-secretary Sir Bill Jeffrey raised concern over the management and quality of data in JPA. For allowances and expenses payments for service personnel in 2009/10, the report found "a significant number of errors".

"In particular, there are still concerns over the quality of elements of the underlying data set. This has meant that we still have a number of unresolved issues to do with payments and visibility of data on the numbers of Army reservists. As part of plans to address these, the Army will be undertaking a major data cleansing exercise," said Jeffrey in the report.

Legic's 'contactless' ID cards have been put into use by more than 100 employees at crane manufacturer The Wilbert Group, says Info4Security.

The Group, which specialises in the manufacture, sale, lease, assembly and servicing of tower cranes, had both an access control system and a time and attendance system integrated into an existing payroll software solution.

Security solutions provider Kaba provided a mechatronic locking system for the company's 12 000 square meter site. More than 60 Kaba components were fitted and some doors equipped with self-locking anti-panic locks.