Gambling funding mistakes defended as 'human errors'

The Salvation Army is expected to pick up most of PGF's loss. Photo / APN

Arithmetic mistakes which lowered the scores for problem gambling services applying for funding have been defended as "human errors".

The Problem Gambling Foundation is applying for a judicial review after losing most of its funding to the Salvation Army in March.

The High Court in Auckland today heard its second day of submissions.

The foundation was left only with a specialist contract for Asian problem gamblers as a result of the Ministry of Health tender process in which 32 bids were made.

The foundation was told it would lose more than 70 per cent of its funding, closing its 10 offices and 11 outreach clinics by February next year.

Yesterday, the High Court in Auckland heard how the chairman of a panel appointed by the Ministry of Health to assess the proposals made arithmetic errors when averaging the raw scores from each of the providers.

Lawyer Mai Chen, acting on behalf of the Problem Gambling Foundation, said this included replacing some scores with zeroes, artificially lowering the scores for that provider.

She also pointed out one of the panel members had a family connection to one of the contenders.

Lawyer for the Attorney-General Matthew Andrews said today the family connection was a "potential" conflict of interest rather than an actual one, because the family member was contracted to the competing organisation's board of trustees, rather than on the board itself.

Mr Andrews didn't deny the mistakes, but said they had been addressed.

"It was a human process. While there were mistakes and gaps along the way, they were corrected."

He also defended some of the panel members' credibility after they were accused of being inexperienced and "asleep at the wheel".

Day three of the hearing will continue tomorrow.