The Auditor General has declined to investigate Health NZ’s decision to downsize the team of audit and fraud experts that monitors the $12 billion of health funding distributed every year.

But the office has referred the PSA’s concerns to Audit NZ.

This move follows the PSA writing to the Auditor-General in May urging it to investigate the restructure of the Audit Assurance and Risk team. Health NZ Te Whatu Ora is proposing to remove 23 roles from the team, a cut of 28% of the workforce.

This is a critical unit focused on ensuring some $12 billion of annual funding of the primary health care sector is paid out correctly and not subject to fraud.

In its response to the PSA the Auditor-General said this was outside its scope of its mandate but agreed to raise its concerns with Audit NZ, the government office which carries out annual audits of agencies to ensure public money is being spent responsibly.

"We thank the Auditor-General for carefully considering our concerns and while it’s disappointing the office is unable to investigate, the issues remain. We hope Audit NZ will now take a close look," said Fleur Fitzsimons, National Secretary for the Public Service Association Te Pūkenga Here Tikanga Mahi.

"But it would be much simpler if Health NZ came to its senses and stopped these damaging cuts before it loses such experienced auditors and fraud investigators.

"Millions of precious health dollars could be lost if the restructure goes ahead. Any money saved from the cuts will be lost through the failure to detect overpayments and fraud.

"We are therefore pleased the Auditor-General has placed the issues that concern us on the radar of Audit NZ.

"The Government’s underfunding of health to pay for tax cuts has put the health system under enormous pressure and now more than ever taxpayers need assurance health dollars are being spent wisely. We look forward to Audit NZ looking into this."

Previous statements

5 May Auditor-General urged to investigate cuts to experts stopping health fraud

9 April Cuts to fraud & audit jobs mean millions of health dollars overpaid or stolen will be lost

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