KEY POINTS:
Work and Income staff have committed $1 million worth of fraud in the past five years - with many now repaying the stolen money from their benefits.
Figures released to the Herald on Sunday under the Official Information Act show 45 public servants employed by Work and Income were dismissed for fraud between 2001 and 2006. Of those 45 staff, 43 were prosecuted and 31 have been convicted for fraud. The remaining 12 cases are still to get to court.
Work and Income confirmed that 12 former staff had fully repaid the money they had stolen, while a further 21 ex-employees had since gone on to claim a benefit. Fifteen of those had arranged for regular deductions to be made from their benefits to repay what they had misappropriated.
Most of the fraud related to staff claiming benefits they were not entitled to.
This is not the first time there have been questions over the actions of Work and Income staff.
Two years ago former Social Development Ministry internal auditor Graeme Wislang told of concerns from Work and Income employees about the apparent manipulation of databases to qualify for pay rises and bonuses. The thresholds for the rewards were set by key performance indicators (KPIs).
Scams included creating vacancies and claiming clients had filled them when they had, in fact, found their own work, changing the ethnicity of clients to Maori or Pacific Islander to gain extra KPI credits, and retrospectively offering grants or subsidies to employers to enable a vacancy to be added to the database.
Ministry of Social Development chief executive Peter Hughes told the Herald on Sunday it had a comprehensive code of conduct and a zero tolerance policy when it came to staff fraud. One of the key corporate functions of the ministry was to detect, investigate and report on internal staff fraud, he said.
In every case where a staff member was caught defrauding the system, they were dismissed, and the matter referred to police for prosecution. Full restitution was also sought. Hughes said that in the past four years the "average value" of staff fraud had fallen, as had the time taken to identify fraudsters.
"In practice this means that offenders are being identified earlier, getting away with less fraudulent money and committing fraud for a shorter length of time," he said.
He added every effort was made to recover the stolen money, with the ministry going to such lengths as seizing and selling an individual's assets, or taking a caveat on their property. For those staff who went on to claim a benefit, they were forced to make regular repayments to the ministry.
At a glance
* Total fraud: $1 million
* Staff dismissed: 45
* Staff prosecuted: 43
* Number of former workers now claiming a benefit: 21
