Whanau Ora cash for vouchers

A Pacific Trust Canterbury’s (PTC) use of Whanau Ora funding for shopping vouchers and immigration issues has fuelled employment tensions at the Christchurchbased agency.

PTC is the largest provider of Pacific health and social services in the South Island, where it is the main agency delivering Whanau Ora services. Fairfax Media has learned of major ructions within the organisation which employs about 40 staff and receives about $4.8 million in public funding (not all from Whanau Ora) each year.

PTC began a drive to recruit Pacific Island families for the Whanau Ora programme in March, using private contractors and employees to sign up families. High needs families qualify for about $3500 funding and PTC is funded for about 200 South Island families.

Whanau Ora is designed to help families develop healthy, sustainable lifestyles with long-term plans to improve cultural connections, education, health and work skills.

A March letter to the PTC board signed by 20 staff members mentioned five examples of a ‘‘toxic culture’’ at the trust including workplace bullying and mismanagement. ‘‘Whanau Ora, for example, has turned out to be a band-aid service providing handouts as opposed to enabling families,’’ the letter says.

Further inquiries by Fairfax Media reveal PTC has used its Whanau Ora funding to pay bonds for families looking for accommodation and also funded car registrations, school uniforms, medical expenses and family immigration issues. The Warehouse and Pak ’N Save vouchers also are part of the assistance programme.

Families in the South Island on work permits are also being helped under the programme.

‘‘Whanau Ora has become a beast that no one can control any more. It is basically being thrown at people and there is no system in place to create sustainability or long-term solutions,’’ said a Pacific leader familiar with PTC issues.

Questions have also been raised about the financial viability of the trust which recently opened its new health clinic in Christchurch. It had operational losses for the year to June 2014 of $261,000 and the year before it lost $118,000.

In a statement provided by chief executive Tony Fakahau, PTC said families were treated according to need and ‘‘services in kind are matched with a fanau’s need. Fanau do not receive cash payments’’.

Asked if PTC was helping overstaying families under Whanau Ora, he said: ‘‘Our core purpose is to help Pacific fanau in need. Yes, [the spending] includes items on the list you provided and much more. This is designed to address their short-term and long-term needs.’’

He would not reveal how much Whanau Ora funding PTC received for the current financial year, nor how many families were registered. Nor would he say what private consultants were paid .

Fakahau said staff complaints had been independently investi- gated ‘‘with resolutions recommended to the board which are being acted on’’.

Fairfax understands about eight staff have left the organisation in the last six weeks and staff and management were in mediation in the past week.

Fakatau said losses in 2013 and 2014 were expected due to the earthquakes and the costs of rebuilding the organisation from scratch again. ‘‘For the current financial year, we are on track to make a profit and have a strong level of equity.’’

Debbie Sorensen, chief executive of Pasifika Futures, the commissioning agency which distributes Whanau Ora funding to PTC, said she was aware of employment issues at the trust but no allegations had been proved and disruption was to be expected as people adjusted to new ways of working.

Her organisation had confidence in PTC’s financial processes and viability. It was a longstanding organisation.

Sorensen said spending on car registration and shopping vouchers was justified if it would improve a family’s lot and the poorest families sometimes needed fundamental issues addressed first. ‘‘Those might be housing, emergency benefits, food . . . If that is what a family needs then quite possibly that is an appropriate use of funding.’’

Whether it was appropriate for Whanau Ora funding to be spent on immigration problems depended on each case, she said. ‘‘In the context of a whole family . . . it might be right. It is very complex. Whanua Ora funding should not be used on ineligible families but if a person is in a family collective that is a different matter.’’

A spokeswoman for Whanau Ora minister Te Ururoa Flavell said he had been briefed about issues at PTC.

Whanau Ora . . . has turned out to be a band-aid service providing handouts as opposed to enabling families. PTC staff members in a letter to Pacific Trust Canterbury board