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Speaker 1: Now do you remember the wellbeing fund that the Ardu

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Speaker 1: and Hipkins government gave Principles where they have six thousand

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Speaker 1: dollars to spend on sometimes I don't know, training courses

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Speaker 1: at the Hilton and Fiji. Turns out that's still causing

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Speaker 1: some trouble. According to the Auditor General's Office, Jane Rogers

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Speaker 1: is the secretor manager for schools at the office. Hi Jane, Hi,

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Speaker 1: So what's going on with the spending?

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Speaker 2: We just this year our auditors did identify more concerns

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Speaker 2: about sensitive expenditure than in the normal years, and most

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Speaker 2: of those concerns did relate to how schools spent the

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Speaker 2: funding for the professional coaching and well being provided to Principles.

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Speaker 2: In twenty twenty three and twenty four. About third of

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Speaker 2: those concerns related to travel, including schools paying for personal

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Speaker 2: travel for staff and sometimes companions. Some of that was

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Speaker 2: travel that was actually incorporated into a business trip. And

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Speaker 2: one of the expectations for spending public money is that

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Speaker 2: it has a just a viable business purpose. So we

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Speaker 2: wouldn't normally expect a school or any public organization to

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Speaker 2: pay for personal travel of their staff.

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Speaker 1: So is this Jane, is this person is the school

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Speaker 1: spending that is on top of that six thousand dollar

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Speaker 1: fund or is it within the six thousand dollar fund?

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Speaker 2: Mainly it's it is the six thousand dollars, but Principles

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Speaker 2: were allowed to use additional funding for professional development, so

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Speaker 2: it didn't they didn't have to just spend the six

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Speaker 2: thousand dollars, right, So are.

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Speaker 1: You telling me that the six thousand dollars that was

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Speaker 1: sold to us as being for development was actually being

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Speaker 1: spent on personal.

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Speaker 2: Stuff in some cases? Yes?

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Speaker 1: Are we talking about well?

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Speaker 2: We well, we we identified I think, which is in

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Speaker 2: our report one hundred and seventy eight where we actually

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Speaker 2: drew attention to it in the in the management letter

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Speaker 2: or the audit report of the school. So that's where

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Speaker 2: we had some concern over the spending. Obviously, some of

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Speaker 2: that was relatively small amounts, so it could be GIN memberships,

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Speaker 2: that sort of thing, quite small.

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Speaker 1: Am.

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Speaker 2: Are the ones that we actually referred to, not audit

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Speaker 2: reports were those which were more significant, and a lot

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Speaker 2: of those were around overseas travels draw.

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Speaker 1: Attention to it. Jane, do you think this is going

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Speaker 1: to get tidied up or is this just going to

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Speaker 1: be an ongoing problem?

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Speaker 2: Well, the funding was only provided for twenty twenty three

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Speaker 2: and twenty twenty four. Obviously they've just redone the collective agreements,

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Speaker 2: and I don't know whether obviously that spending is being

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Speaker 2: being you know, really I can't think of the word

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Speaker 2: rolled over say yeah, so, so, I mean we would

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Speaker 2: expect that that there would be I guess maybe better guidance.

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Speaker 2: The Ministry did provide guidance for this last lot of funding,

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Speaker 2: but if they were to do it again, I think

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Speaker 2: we would maybe expect sort of better guidance and more

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Speaker 2: rules around what the schools can actually spend it on

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Speaker 2: fair point.

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Speaker 1: Listen, Jane, thanks very much appreciated. That's Jane Rodgers, Seeker

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Speaker 1: Manager for Schools at the Office of the Order to General.

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Speaker 1: It is actually a very good question to ask because

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Speaker 1: that thing just got signed last week or those the

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Speaker 1: principles don't know. Actually, it's a good question to ask

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Speaker 1: what the dealers with the principles, whether they got the

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Speaker 1: six thousand dollars again and one hundred there's two thy

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Speaker 1: four hundred schools right, so one hundred and seventy eight

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Speaker 1: of them is what that's like seven eight percent or

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Speaker 1: something like that. Where this I mean, it's not earth shattering,

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Speaker 1: but it's probably big enough to explain why we all

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Speaker 1: knew that this fund was being gamed by some principles.

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