Govt ministry spends $100k on new website - then scraps it

Associate Minister of Education Jan Tinetti said she was frustrated by the development. Photo / Sylvie Whinray

A Ministry of Education U-turn has irked one of its ministers after officials spent more than $100,000 on a new website before deciding it wasn't necessary.

Newstalk ZB can reveal the funds were used on a curriculum wellbeing website, while a link to the page still shows up as blank.

That's because plans for the separate platform have been canned, ahead of an online curriculum hub going live next year.

Associate Education Minister Jan Tinetti accepts money was lost as a result, but claims "that's [in the] minority" and much of the funding went to content development, which is "still there."

"There are always things that frustrate us as ministers, and this would be one of them," she said.

National baulked at the price tag, and said it's "another example of wastage of taxpayers' money by the Ministry of Education".

"It shows the disarray the whole curriculum refresh is in ... complete train-wreck," education spokeswoman Erica Stanford said.

Responding to written questions from National, Tinetti said the Ministry of Education spent a total of $102,540 on the curriculum wellbeing website.

Of that, $96,270 went towards analysis, design, development, testing, technical maintenance and security. The cost of the hosting platform itself came in at $6270.

Speaking to Newstalk ZB, Tinetti said after they had decided to create the website, they also launched a wider curriculum review.

She says the overhaul threw up changes to their plans, with experts advising that rolling out the stand-alone wellbeing platform "was the wrong move".

"One of these got ahead of the other, and that was making the website ... now we're bringing them back into alignment," she said.

"All the content that has been developed is now in the refreshed older website, in a holding pattern, until the new curriculum hub [is] launched early next year ... nothing's been lost."

Tinetti, who's also a former principal, said she's in "constant conversations" with the Ministry of Education but maintains she had no role in signing off the initial website spend.

"I certainly prefer that we had thought about health and wellbeing in terms of the wider curriculum right from the word go," she said.

"[But] I am delighted that we are having the conversations about where it does sit in the curriculum.

"The rationale for a separate website came from the fact that we needed to have better resources."

Stanford said Tinetti's been "dumped" with important delegations, because Education Minister Chris Hipkins is "MIA [missing in action] ... he's been busy doing Covid, now he's busy doing Police."

"The processes that the Ministry of Education are going through ... all cart before horse, which is why you get these mistakes, and you will get more of them," she claimed.

In a statement, the Ministry of Education said it tested the "web presence" with teachers and experts, who advised the agency to make the content "immediately impactful", and keep it on a refreshed health education website.

"We agreed with this approach, and much of the work we had done on the new web presence was used to refresh Health and Physical Education Online, including the design and content", said Pauline Cleaver, associate deputy secretary for curriculum pathways and progress.

But Stanford doesn't buy it, saying there are "huge costs they'll never get back".

"Look, it's $100,000 that should not have been spent," she said.