NZQA pinged over job agency

The Qualifications Authority has been reprimanded by the State Services Commission over an apparent conflict of interest in appointing a senior executive officer, but no further action has been taken.

State Services Commissioner Mark Prebble said it was "a serious matter" but he was limited in what he could do.

He said the matter had been brought to the attention of NZQA chief executive Karen Van Rooyen and chairman Professor Graeme Fraser and it did not warrant an inquiry because the facts were not in dispute.

Dr Prebble was responding to criticism from National state services spokesman Murray McCully, who believes Dr Prebble's response was inadequate.

The issue involves the appointment to the authority of a new chief financial officer, who was recommended by recruitment firm Powerhouse People.

One of the company's directors, Warren Tocker, is Ms Van Rooyen's partner. She did not sit on the panel to interview the short-listed applicants but was brought in for the final interview of the preferred applicant.

Ms Van Rooyen had last year declared a possible conflict of interest involving her partner's work.

That led to a statement by Professor Fraser last September saying Mr Tocker would not carry out work for NZQA, that Ms Van Rooyen would not advocate or require the use of Powerhouse, and she would not use Powerhouse for any recruitment process in which she selected the recruitment provider.

The memo appears not to cover the actual situation that occurred but the Public Service code of conduct requires that public servants avoid not only conflicts of interest but "those circumstances in which [there] could be the appearance of such conflict".

Mr McCully asked Dr Prebble to investigate after the issue was disclosed in the National Business Review.

Dr Prebble said that after a discussion with deputy commissioner Tony Hartevelt, the chairman and chief executive "have acknowledged its seriousness, and undertaken to review the authority's handling of conflict of interest, and of this one in particular".

Mr McCully said Dr Prebble should be ashamed to collect his salary this week. The MP said he had written to the Auditor-General about the matter.

"I'm rather hopeful that the Auditor General will do what the State Services Commissioner has failed to do and lay down some clear guidelines."

But Dr Prebble said he did not have the authority to take the matter further since "I'm not the employer".

He has only recently acquired statutory oversight for entities such as NZQA and he said he was engaging with them about "what should or shouldn't be in a code of conduct".

"I don't intend to rush on that."

Professor Fraser said last night that NZQA would no longer be using the services of Powerhouse People.

After Ms Van Rooyen had advised him last August of a conflict of interest over her partner, NZQA asked it lawyers to draw up an addendum to its existing staff policy on conflicts of interest "which we honestly believed covered those circumstances."

A subsequent anonymous letter to NBR about the appointment had "heightened sensitivity to perceived conflicts of interest."

Professor Fraser said that following a discussion with Mr Hartevelt on March 29, he immediately changed the addendum to say that under no circumstances would the authority make any further use of the services offered by Powerhouse People.

He said Ms Van Rooyen joined the final interview panel with the cognisance of the board and she had acted responsibly in relation to the addendum to the policy.

Experienced board-member Graeme McNally was mainly responsible for interviewing the candidate.