Wananga's woes prompt closer eye on public sector

Ministry of Education failed to pick up problems. Picture / Mark Mitchell

The Auditor-General's Office is to increase its scrutiny of all public-sector agencies after expressing concerns about the Education Ministry's ability to monitor its Crown entities.

Auditor-General Kevin Brady told a parliamentary committee yesterday that auditors would ask an expanded range of questions in order to pick up problems in other Crown entities - a role that ministries should fulfil.

Mr Brady appeared before the committee to answer questions about his inquiry into Te Wananga o Aotearoa but instead the session ended up analysing the Education Ministry's failure to pick up problems.

He told the committee his wananga inquiry had cast light on another area.

"The spotlight that has been applied to the wananga by my organisation, this select committee and other public agencies in the last two years has caused many to question the effectiveness of the monitoring systems in place in the TEI [Tertiary Education Institute] sector."

Mr Brady said his investigation did not look at the role and effectiveness of central Government agencies such as the Ministry of Education.

"More broadly, though, I am determined to work with the other public-sector agencies to prevent a recurrence of this type of situation in the wider public sector."

There was a failure of parties with knowledge about the wananga to see the bigger picture and "join the dots".

National Party education spokesman Bill English said the comments sounded like a criticism of the Tertiary Advisory Monitoring Unit.

"It raises the direct quest of the competency of the officials in the [unit] and the competency of the Ministry of Education," he said.

Mr Brady: "I think there is a question to be asked there. I'm not sure we're the ones to ask [it]."

The parliamentary group sector manager for the Office of the Auditor-General, Pania Gray, said that in previous confidential hearings at financial reviews of the ministry the office had "expressed concerns" about its effectiveness at monitoring.

The committee was told officials had raised concerns about the wananga since 2002 - something Mr English said made the situation worse.

"This committee is aware now, it wasn't before, that since 2002, there were effectively busloads of officials going through that place," he said.

"What you could have told us is that officials were monitoring this place ... but nothing was ever done."

Mr Brady said the wananga had "turned to custard" in 2004 after rapid growth where governance structures had not kept up, but no one had an overview.

"We haven't gone through and reviewed the whole monitoring process but to suggest there's got to be some criticism of monitoring people is totally fair," Mr Brady said.

"I'm not too sure who the finger should be pointed at but yes, it is a fair suggestion."

Mr English suggested other tertiary education institutes could be in a similar position.

Assistant Auditor-General Wendy Venter said the committee could ask education-sector agencies what they were doing to ensure they were able to identify at-risk agencies.

Mr Brady said his office was expanding the range of questions its auditors asked so "basket cases" or "entities at risk" could be spotted.

Information would be gathered on leadership, culture, relationship reputation, process and internal structures.

"Aren't those questions that officials should be asking?" Mr English asked. "You are now having to extend your range of involvement to cover territory which officials should be covering."

Mr Brady said the important thing was to ensure people that make decisions had access to information.

"I hopefully don't expect a lot of entities to come forward. I would imagine there would be a couple of handfuls of entities we were really worried about." 
 

Audit report

* An Audit Office investigation into Te Wananga o Aotearoa criticised contracts worth tens of millions of dollars given to companies owned by or employing 17 close relatives of chief executive Rongo Wetere.
* It found the institution lacked sufficient checks on international travel and credit card use.
* But it concluded there had "been no misappropriation of money, nor fraud and no nepotism".

- NZPA