Entertaining costs tagged ‘appalling’

Government agency Callaghan Innovation spent more than

$300,000 on entertainment in one year.

Taxpayers’ Union executive director Jordan Williams said figures released to his Right-wing lobby group under the Official Information Act showed Callaghan Innovation spent $304,675.22 on client and staff entertainment during the 2015/16 financial year.

The expenses included a night out at Auckland drag venue Caluzzi, where the bill totalled

$1968, according to receipts provided by Callaghan Innovation. The night’s bill included 11 bottles of wine and dinner for 30 people.

The government agency, which is in charge of giving grants to support science and innovation, had paid a further $400 ahead of the night out as a deposit.

The team dinner and drinks followed a ‘‘Business Innovation Group team day’’, the agency said.

Williams said this was an example of ‘‘abuse of taxpayer money’’.

‘‘We’ve got nothing against drag queens but this was an event for staff, funded by taxpayers. It’s an appalling display of largesse from an agency the average taxpayer hasn’t even heard of.’’

The Taxpayers’ Union had also received details of costs relating to Callaghan Innovation’s transport and accommodation costs for the year, but the lobby group refused to release the details at this stage.

Callaghan Innovation said the entertainment costs referred to by the Taxpayers’ Union were accurate and the overall $300,000 was not unusual for a client-facing organisation.

However, it did say a few of the costs were not appropriate.

‘‘Callaghan Innovation’s ‘entertainment’ expenses in 2015/16 relate to a wide variety of activities that are essential to our work. These include meetings with customers and strategic partners, scientific briefings, hosting local and overseas delegations, and attendance at conferences and industry dinners,’’ a spokesperson said.

‘‘The spending referred to is historical being in 2015/16 and the total spend is not unreasonable for a client-facing organisation of our size. However, there were a few cases of spending in that financial year which were not appropriate. Since then, we have tightened relevant policies to ensure workrelated spending by staff is modest and appropriate for the public sector.’’

Minister in charge Megan Woods said once she was made aware of the spending, she expressed her concern to Callaghan Innovation.

‘‘I made clear my expectations that public money be well spent. I had concern about the high amount of spending on internal events,’’ Woods said.

‘‘While there is a place for entertainment, especially when completing commercial deals, I made clear to Callaghan the level of internal spending was not up to the standards I expected.’’