THE company behind a new Worcestershire County Council payroll system that resulted in almost 150 staff being left underpaid has apologised for the blunder.

Earlier this week, The Shuttle revealed how the new automated Mercury system HR and Finance systems brought in by the authority and its partner Liberata to around 16,000 employees and school staff had hit a series of problems.

These included the underpayment and overpayment of wages and potential data protection breaches which saw employees given log-ins allowing them to see other employee’s personal data.

Public sector union Unison branded the issues a “raft of disasters”, adding that some of the lowest paid staff received up £500 less in their monthly pay packet.

But a spokesman for Liberata said all mistakes with wages had been addressed within 48 hours and confirmed that they will co-operate with an independent review into the episode.

At the end of April, 147 people reported underpayments to Liberata on the first live payment run of the new Mercury system.

A council spokesman said a “handful” of people were overpaid in April but declined to comment on any possible data breaches.

A spokesman for Liberata said: "We would like to sincerely apologise to all staff affected by these errors and have been working extensively with schools and Worcestershire County Council to make sure all staff have been supported and given the help they need as well as to ensure that these errors do not re-occur in the next pay run.

“We will be delighted to co-operate fully with the independent review commissioned by Worcestershire County Council."

A spokesman for Worcestershire County Council added: "We are in the process of rolling out new systems for HR and Finance to around 16,000 Worcestershire County Council employees, maintained schools and academies.

"The long-awaited new systems will be more efficient and help us to move away from traditional paper-based processes.

"The systems have been live since April. As with any change of this scale there have been some issues.

“With our partner Liberata, who we chose to deliver the new system because of their experience in this field, we are working through these issues and resolving them as quickly as we can.

"We have a large support team in place to provide technical support and advice. We will be reviewing the roll out of new systems and making sure that lessons are learnt."