Polytech defends travel spending

Otago Polytechnic is defending spending nearly $8 million on travel in five years in the wake of criticism from the auditor-general.

Former Otago Polytechnic chief executive Phil Ker racked up $187,584 in travel costs over the same period, from 2015 to 2019, including $53,715 in his final full year at the helm.

The Otago Daily Times requested the polytechnic’s travel spending after a December report by Auditor-general John Ryan questioned an April 2019 Japanese study tour.

When Mr Ker and former chairwoman Kathy Grant travelled to the International College of Technology Kanazawa to sign a renewal of a memorandum of understanding, the contingent included 21 people, Mr Ryan said.

Many of these people worked in support roles, such as administration and finance, and the business case for the trip lacked a strong reason for including so many staff, he said.

Most of the activities were things like sightseeing and cultural experience tours.

"We understand that the polytechnic had previously run similar trips under similar arrangements," Mr Ryan said.

"After our review, we expected the polytechnic to reconsider its policy on overseas travel expenditure, particularly from the perspective of its reasonableness in the public sector."

The Tertiary Education Commission also wrote to the current chief executive Megan Gibbons asking her to investigate and review how fit-for-purpose the polytechnic’s sensitive expenditure and business travel policies were, Mr Ryan said.

The polytechnic told the office of the auditor-general it was important for staff to understand the culture of international students attending the institution.

It also pointed to its employee satisfaction ratings.

On average, staff paid for about half of the costs, but a small number of staff were deemed to be working fulltime on the trip and did not pay, Mr Ryan said.

In an official response this week, the polytechnic said "at the time" the trip was justified.

The staff who went to Japan visited other industries and learned about working with Japanese students, the polytechnic said.

Each year, pre-Covid, 20 students came from the International College of Technology Kanazawa to study at the polytechnic, it said.

It said all travel detailed in the five years worth of travel spending it provided was justified.

Otago Polytechnic provided a range of programmes throughout New Zealand which led to "significant travel".

And across the board, about 45% of travel was related to "teaching quality and compliance", about 40% was for research and conferences, and the remaining 15% was estimated to be for other reasons.

The polytechnic has since come under the umbrella of Te Pukenga - New Zealand Institute of Skills and Technology (NZIST) and has a new board.

It had a new policy on travel spending, the polytechnic said.

The main reason for the change in policy was the alignment with the "policy and operating expectations" for NZIST, it said.

But the polytechnic acknowledged there was also a request from the auditor-general to make its policy "tighter for practice".

NZIST and the new board had jointly decided that study tours were not a strategic priority.

"Attracting international students to Otago will remain a priority because of the significant educational, cultural and economic benefits to Otago," the polytech said.

"However, Covid-19 has shown us there are effective alternative ways of communicating with the international community."

Yesterday, Mr Ker said he questioned the auditor-general’s focus on the polytechnic’s international spending.

While the spending was high, it provided value for money and it was spent in a transparent and accountable way, he said.

In a global context, Dunedin was a remote place and Otago Polytechnic during his tenure strove to be the highest performing and most innovative polytechnic in New Zealand.

It succeeded because it remained "connected", he said.

On his own personal travel spending, he estimated the bill to be about 20% higher than it would have been for a chief executive based in Wellington or Auckland.

But he said he did not know of a benchmark for his position.

During the creation of NZIST there had been increasing attention on what had been considered sensitive expenditure.

But in his tenure he had cultivated international partnerships for Otago Polytechnic in China, Japan, the United States, Canada and Denmark.

"My own personal expenditure related to a person who contributed very widely, and was very active nationally and internationally on behalf of vocational education in New Zealand," Mr Ker said.

"I wasn’t running out on jaunts, these were working trips."

hamish.maclean@odt.co.nz