Out of the blue

Lance
Have you ever thought....of acquainting Judith Collins with your experience. She likes sound-bites
ahead of general elections.
It seems your case represents a failure in the application of natural justice by a government
organisation. Probably just what she is looking for about now. Though don't expect much from her.

I have been speaking to someone else about your case. Here's what I said:
I see MSD had to back down finally because they had failed to establish fraud. In the meantime, of
course, they had put Lance through hell.
The question is how to stop this sort of nonsense as early as possible. I see he did the sensible thing
in getting BEST involved. However, I would have thought he could have made more of the fact that
WINZ denied him a benefit while the fraud allegation remained unproven. That's a denial of natural
justice.
If this represents a substantial dimension of WINZ practice, my inclination would be to make a
complaint to the Ombudsmen - not about official information under the OI Act but about administrative
competence under the Ombudsmens' Act. If nothing else that would stir WINZ up. It would also be
amusing to ask MSD what processes it has in place to prevent behaviour like that of the LH WINZ
staff, how they implement them, what results they show, and what MSD does to correct behaviours.
That would piss MSD off no end. I think the media might also make a small meal of the natural justice
angle. All sorts of possibilities come to mind. Lance might pass his experience onto Judith Collins, for
example. She might like another sound-bite opportunity ahead of the election.
Unfortunately, protest is (as we were saying on the phone) fragmented. And advocates are tamed. If
there was a way of showing Lance's experience was not just a one-off, government control agencies
like the Ombudsmen's Office, Office of the Auditor-General, SSC and Treasury would find it more
difficult to turn blind eyes. MSD gets something of an easy ride because there are usually no forums
for clients to share experiences. The Ruka enquiry, however, was triggered by one person acting more
or less alone - so it can be done.
You may want to know why I have an interest. I was an auditor in WINZ/MSD until 2003, and prior to
that audit manager in the New Zealand Employment Service. I resigned and tried to make WINZ
accountability from the outside. A record of my efforts are described here:
Regards

This is the above here message.

Work and Income staff 'in scams to gain bonuses'
15 September 2005
By PAUL GORMAN

Frontline Work and Income staff took part in widespread, targeted fraud to secure pay rises and bonuses, a former staff member alleges.

The accusations are being levelled by former Ministry of Social Development (MSD) internal auditor and now whistleblower Graeme Wislang, who left the ministry in October 2003.

Documents released to Wislang under the Official Information Act (OIA) through the Ombudsmen's Office support his claims and reveal 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.

Wislang said that as an internal auditor he had talked to many frontline employees who participated in, or at least knew of, KPI fraud. "Hundreds" of staff members were involved in the scams, he said.

One of the documents released under the OIA is a May 2003 email from a staff trainer, who says KPI fraud "is an ongoing problem".

AdvertisementAdvertisement"In many instances, staff create a vacancy to place that client into work rather than self-place and receive no credit or KPI – this is widespread and not at the lower end of occurrence," the trainer said.

"Other issues revolve around changing client records to obtain KPIs, such as changing ethnicity to gain KPIs for Maori and Pacific Island clients when the client is not either.

"Lastly, I am concerned that we often purchase KPIs by paying taxpayer money in the form of subsidies and grants.

"I see all above examples as fraud, as the main reason staff do this is to obtain a pay rise or bonus, and many staff feel trapped into doing these things as their performance is measured against those that cheat to obtain their outcomes."

Another email, from July 2003, said: "Brokers have been setting up false vacancies, with several agencies stating approval has been given by region to create false vacancies for previous referrals.

"I think this in itself is suspect, unless we have a clear process in place. This practice also puts me at unfair disadvantage when measuring my performance.

"There have been lots of these non-vacancies filled this month by referring suspended clients. If I could do that here ... I too would achieve great results."

Work and Income is brushing off the allegations of staff fraud, saying it investigated them about two years ago and found no evidence to support claims by concerned staff.

Work and Income head Ray Smith told The Press the inquiry found problems with the computer system were to blame for the apparent creation of extra job placements and changes in ethnicity.

"We found no evidence to substantiate the claims. We honestly haven't. What we did find was that there were some issues with the system," he said.

"If they (staff) entered something in error, they couldn't go back and change it. On the face of it, what might look like someone doing something deliberately, wasn't. We did rectify it.

"If they were (changing the database), I'd be really disappointed and would want to take the appropriate action."

Smith said job placement had been only one of about 16 key staff measures and was not used now.

National welfare spokeswoman Judith Collins last night called for an external inquiry into the allegations, saying "another internal inquiry from Winz to investigate Winz" was not needed.

The allegations should be referred to the police or the Serious Fraud Office, she said.

"If National leads the government after Saturday, I can promise the first thing on my agenda will be to get to the bottom of this," Collins said.

A spokeswoman for Social Development Minister Steve Maharey said the matter was operational and not an issue for Maharey to comment on.

About 3000 Work and Income staff shared $6 million of performance bonuses last year. The total was 8 per cent more than amounts paid the previous year.