Health staff fear spending

Health staff are scared to spend in the wake of the Nigel Murray scandal, Waikato DHB interim chief executive Derek Wright says.

The former health boss chalked up

$218,166 in expenses during his threeyear stint at the health board, including

$71,811 in unauthorised spending. Wright’s noticed DHB staff have stopped claiming for legitimate expenses.

‘‘People are really cautious about their expenses at the moment,’’ Wright said in a health board meeting on Wednesday.

‘‘I think we’ve actually moved to the other extreme, where people don’t claim.’’

Extreme scrutiny means some staff are using their own cars and not filing claims for business expenses.

And some were wary about attending work functions requiring travel, Wright said after the meeting.

‘‘It makes you wary of what I’m going to claim back from the DHB.

‘‘I think people do look at, well, I’d like to go to this conference, but how’s it going to be viewed?

‘‘And that’s natural, I think.

‘‘It’s kind of that pendulum swing.

‘‘I think people under-claim, probably. I know I do.

‘‘As an organisation, we were kind of shattered last year,’’ he said.

‘‘I want to wake up one day and go, oh, it was just a dream.

‘‘But clearly it wasn’t,’’ Wright said. ‘‘We had one bad employee, but we employ 7000 people.

‘‘I want to make sure that people are not missing out on opportunities that they should be taking.’’

It was revealed on Tuesday that the health board paid $106,000 to a recruitment agency to hire Murray.

Murray resigned in October last year, which was soon followed by the resignation of health board chair Bob Simcock.

A formal complaint about Murray’s spending has been laid with the SFO.

But the public might not be told if a full-blown investigation is launched.

On January 17, a spokesperson said the SFO hadn’t made any decisions about public statements on the case.

‘‘It is not our usual course to announce that a matter has progressed from an inquiry to a full investigation, but each matter is considered on a caseby-case basis.’’

On Thursday, the SFO declined to comment on whether there had been any developments in the inquiry.

An internal employment investigation found Murray – who was paid a $560,000 annual salary – had misspent on numerous trips both abroad and in New Zealand.

A further investigation by Audit New Zealand found he had spent taxpayer dollars without authorisation.

Murray sought approval for some of the spending after the fact.

The issue of general expense claims was raised at the meeting on Wednesday in response to board member Dave Macpherson’s questioning why some of Murray’s travel expenses had been approved in an executive travel expenses report.

A bill of $1433.59 was signed off for three nights of accommodation in Kaitaia for one meeting with Northland GP Lance O’Sullivan.

‘‘How is it we say these are OK and we haven’t charged them.

‘‘We’ve approved them and we haven’t charged them back?’’ Macpherson said.

‘‘Why did he go to Kaitaia to meet Lance O’Sullivan?

‘‘I’ve met Lance over at the lake and it cost us a coffee.

‘‘I think we need another look at how the expenses that were approved . . .

‘‘If they’ve been approved by our policy, then there’s an issue, I think.’’

Acting chair Sally Webb said she was happy to discuss his concerns more thoroughly in the next meeting.

‘‘While some of these may have been approved retrospectively, they were approved as per our policies.’’