Health NZ Commissioner Lester Levy wouldn’t request gag orders for senior staff

Health czar Lester Levy says he personally wouldn’t request senior staff be subject to non-disclosure agreements (NDAs), something his agency asked of some employees earlier this year.

The Health New Zealand Commissioner’s comments at a parliamentary select committee on Wednesday come despite the agency’s chief executive Margie Apa saying the use of NDAs was “normal”. However, she is reviewing them.

Asked by the Herald afterwards if he was comfortable with Apa’s response, Levy said: “I have made my position clear, it is not something I would do.”

“Margie is thinking about it. We will talk about it and we will come to a conclusion,” he said.

Labour earlier this month said 67 staff at Te Whatu Ora had signed NDAs since June. This concerned the political party, which believed it blocked scrutiny as the agency looks to find $1.4 billion to return to budget.

Verrall, the former Health Minister, told the Health Select Committee the NDAs were “highly unusual”, “North Korean” and the commissioner should “get rid” of them. She said some of the NDAs she had viewed asked officials “not to discuss their ideas”.

Levy said he hadn’t been aware of them “when I first came”.

Health NZ Commissioner Lester Levy. Photo / Mark Mitchell

“I was just relying on the normal provisions that we have,” he said. “I do not request anyone to sign an NDA and I don’t intend to.”

Apa called them a “normal part of our organisation”, used in a number of practices like procurement practices.

“I did ask for NDAs among senior managers who were involved in budgets. Again, that’s not unusual,” Apa said.

She said she left the process of developing the NDAs to management to ensure “we were able to get people working on the budget process and be reassured that we were able to exchange ideas freely and frankly”.

Apa repeated after the select committee session that NDAs were “normal” and the relatively young organisation didn’t yet have “the same kinds of structures around security of how we treat information”.

“I will review the NDA policy because the templates I had did not ask staff to constrain ideas. That is absolutely part of what we want to encourage, free and frank exchange of ideas. But being able to do that in an environment that leadership can debate that among themselves and not worry that people are sharing that ahead of what is appropriate.”

Health NZ chief executive Margie Apa. Photo / Mark Mitchell

But Verrall said Apa had an “absolutely unjustifiable position”.

“Every government department in New Zealand writes a budget and none of them have this level of non-disclosure agreements.”

She said the agency may be using NDAs to “hide the scale of the cuts they are planning”.

Potential cuts to Health NZ were one of the main topics of the highly anticipated select committee session.

Levy was appointed to the commissioner role, replacing the board, in July after the Government said it had “serious concerns” around Health NZ’s financial position.

Health Minister Shane Reti said at the time that Health NZ was overspending at a rate of about $130 million a month, meaning there could be a deficit of $1.4b by the end of the 2024/25 year. Levy was instructed to implement a turnaround plan to balance the books.

Levy on Wednesday said that while this process had been “cast as cost savings”, he saw it as “just trying to get back to budget”.

There was a “cocktail of issues” at the recently amalgamated agency, he said, including waiting times that were “excessively long” and a “precarious” financial position.

He said the “main show in town” was getting waiting times down and ensuring services were safe and high quality.

“A lot of attention has been focused on financial issues. That is not the main show in town as far as we’re concerned,” Levy said.

“The main show in town is actually getting these waiting times down, ensuring the services are safe and of high quality and creating an environment within the organisation that is a rewarding environment for staff to work and we’ve got challenges across all these domains.”

One of the frustrations Verrall has expressed about the Government’s $1.4b savings drive is that there has been little information released about the projections or assumptions that form the basis for that figure.

She asked Levy whether Health NZ would release monthly financial statements, as district health boards (DHBs) previously did before being merged, and if it would publish minutes about his meetings (in lieu of board meeting minutes now there is no longer a board).

On both matters, Levy was open to publishing the information. He said the financial statements should be released soon and he would give “strong consideration” to publishing the minutes.

Verrall later said that was a positive development.

“If those assurances are followed through on, I would consider that a positive day’s work for an opposition MP. However, we also need to see Health NZ makes good on its indications about continuing to provide improved care for New Zealanders.”

Levy also faced questions from journalists about his level of commitment to the commissioner role after The Post reported he was still teaching at Auckland University of Technology two days a week.

He said he was working 10-12 hours a day in the commissioner role.

“I would propose to you if you are working 10-12 hours a day on a particular job, that is quite a lot.”

Prime Minister Christopher Luxon didn’t have any issue with Levy splitting his time.

Jamie Ensor is a political reporter in the NZ Herald Press Gallery team based at Parliament. He was previously a TV reporter and digital producer in the Newshub Press Gallery office.