Source: Office of the Ombudsman
The Chief Ombudsman John Allen has released his findings into a whistle-blower’s claim that senior managers at the Accident Compensation Corporation manipulated figures in official information responses to avoid negative repercussions.
“We found that the way ACC approached its response to this was wrong. It was not the approach that I would expect from a key government agency subject to this important Act,” says Mr Allen.
In August 2023, ACC received two Official Information Act requests from journalists for details of any events that cost more than $10,000. Around the same time, ACC was preparing advice for the then ACC Minister to respond to a written parliamentary question for similar information from ACT leader David Seymour.
ACC advised the requesters that it hadn’t identified any events that were in scope and refused to provide the information on the basis that it didn’t exist.
However, the whistle-blower alleged ACC deliberately left out relevant information to bring the cost below $10,000 and reduce the chance of the agency being criticised.
When ACC’s documentation was reviewed by the Office of the Ombudsman, it showed there was one event where ACC spent around $18,000 to fly staff to Wellington for a farewell function for a Deputy Chief Executive.
“ACC told me that some of those staff members were also there for other work and, on that basis, decided not to include their travel costs when they prepared the response to the requests,” Mr Allen says.
“This took the final figure for the farewell to under $10,000 which meant ACC could tell the requesters that they had not identified any events in scope of the requests.
“I asked ACC for evidence that those staff members were there for other work, but ACC couldn’t show that approximately $9,000 of the farewell costs could be attributed to work they would have done in Wellington anyway if the farewell hadn’t been held.
“My opinion is that ACC was wrong not to include the full amount in its response and as a consequence I found that ACC has acted unreasonably in the way it responded to the requests.”
The investigation also uncovered messages in TEAMS chats that showed some staff members dealing with the information requests had concerns.
One wrote: “other work…this is wrong. Fundamentally wrong”.
Mr Allen says he is satisfied that ACC has learned from its mistakes and has committed to dealing with official information requests more appropriately in future.
“The whistleblower’s actions brought a serious issue to light and will hopefully act as a deterrent to other agencies which may be considering ‘gaming’ the OIA. My message is ‘just don’t do it’.”
Mr Allen says that given the improvements ACC has already made including placing strict controls around spending and improving its record keeping, his only recommendation was that ACC apologised to the requesters and corrected the information that was provided which he understands has now been done.
“This is a case where the actions of a whistle-blower have sharpened up practice for everyone in the Corporation,” Mr Allen says.
The Ombudsman has an independent role under the Protected Disclosures (Protection of Whistleblowers) Act.
