Background to JPA

The Armed Forces currently use a number of single-Service IT systems for personnel and pay administration, some dating back to the 1960s.  These systems are old, inflexible, costly to maintain and inadequate to support operations.

They do not allow changes to UK legislation or MOD policy to be implemented in either a timely or cost-effective way.  Nor will they be able adequately to meet government targets on e-business.  The administrative processes linked to these systems are equally old and largely paper-based.

In late 2000 a Strategy Study was set up to modernize the way the Services carry out personnel and pay administration, to exploit the advantages of modern commercial software, and to deliver the solution on a tri-Service basis.

JPA is a joint project between the MOD and EDS.  It is one of the MOD's top five modernisation programmes and one of the biggest IT projects in Europe/UK/Govt.  The Oracle HRMS system has been chosen as the preferred IT solution that will deliver JPA.

JPA Principles

The key principles upon which Joint Personnel Administration is based are:

• Adoption of a commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) package
• Design of new, modern, tri-Service processes automated wherever possible and compatible with the package
• Harmonisation & simplification of the underlying policy and regulations
• Use of the web-based communications infrastructure being developed by the Defence Information (DII) Programme to deliver the processes and data
• Direct access by individuals to the system
• Organisational change to administrative staff across the three Services to support JPA and reflect the benefits of this new way of working

JPA Timetable

JPA will go live to each single Service in turn, starting with the RAF in Spring 2006, RN in mid 2006 and the Army late in 2006.

A Taste of JPA

AFPAA have prepared a JPA Demonstrator (Acrobat 1.7Mb) which shows a vision of what JPA may look like.

If you require the information in a different format, please contact General Enquiries on the Contact us page.

Joint Personnel Administration Centre (JPAC)

To maximise the benefits JPA the Services are creating the JPAC.  This entails:

From June 2004 the harmonisation and consolidation of pensions administration at AFPAA Glasgow and Service ID card production at AFPAA Centurion.

Establishment, at AFPAA Innsworth, of the MOD Medal Office (MMO) on 31 March 2005 and the stand alone Joint Casualty & Compassionate Cell (JCCC) on 11 April 2005.

This will be followed by the addition of more functions as JPA is rolled out to the Services.

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Last Updated: 12 Sep 05