RBA the latest employer caught underpaying staff

The Reserve Bank of Australia underpaid 1173 of its staff a total of $1.15 million over seven years.

Giant consulting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers was paid almost $400,000 to audit the RBA payroll to determine exactly how much the central bank had ripped off its staff, many of whom have left since its employ.

The bank has apologised to the former and current members of staff adversely affected.

In a letter sent to the underpaid staff this week, the RBA’s head of human resources, Karlee Hughes, apologised for the oversight.

“We take paying our people correctly very seriously, and it is important that any error is rectified,” she said.

“We are genuinely sorry that these issues have occurred.”

The Finance Sector Union first raised the issue, which was revealed in Australian Financial Review.

The error came to light when former employees received the cash equivalent of their entitlements when they left the RBA and when some current employees cashed out annual leave.

The bank has put the underpayments down to the “complicated nature” of its industrial arrangements and how they are interpreted.

A review is underway to determine how internal processes can be simplified.

Meanwhile, embattled PwC is navigating yet another scandal involving its own professional standards, with reports of it buying a $5.5 million stake in a tertiary college business immediately upon securing a contract with the government regulator of the college sector.

The investment in Top Education Group was made just 24 hours after PwC secured a high-level consulting contract with Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency in 2016.

Eight senior PwC partners also personally invested another $2.5 million in Top Education Group while the firm continued to receive more contractual work with TEQSA.

PwC’s former chief executive Tom Seymour was on Top Education Group’s board until last year.

The $8 million worth of investments in Top Education Group were made directly before the company was floated on the Hong Kong stock exchange in May 2018.

According to an ABC report, PwC has accepted over 90 contracts with TEQSA and the Commonwealth Department of Education worth more than $57 million since its first investment in Top Education Group in April 2016.

PwC even seconded some of its own staff to TEQSA while advising on management and pricing strategies.

A spokesman for TEQSA told the ABC the agency “has been unable to find any documents that show PwC disclosed to TEQSA any conflicts of interest during contracts with the agency in 2016 and 2017”.

“We are continuing to review historical materials to determine if any such declarations were made.

“Relevant contracts used by TEQSA appropriately require the declaration of conflicts of interests.”

But TEQSA also added, “At no time did PwC’s work involve TEQSA’s regulatory decisions.”

PwC states that it fulfilled its disclosure requirements and that none of its work with the Education Department involved Top Education Group.

While there is no suggestion of unlawful conduct by any of the parties involved, the revelation is not a good look for PwC, which is in massive crisis control over the leaking of confidential Treasury information for its own commercial benefit.