Electronic time and attendance sheets are to replace paper time sheets at Northland DHB after a national review of Holidays Act breaches highlighted potential problems with the current processes.

Northland has volunteered to be one of the first DHBs to set up a steering group of unions, independent auditors and DHB project team members to oversee a process of sampling time sheets and looking at the payroll system to identify potential breaches of the Holidays Act. The review will take three months.

Around 3000 current employees of the DHB and a further 3000 former employees are potentially affected by issues that have already been identified.

Fixing problems identified in the review could take another nine months, and any under-payment remediation may not be resolved until 2020.

Calculation of arrears for all current and past employees will go back to 1 May 2010.