A "couple of issues" had been raised which it was found did not require further action, he said.
No concerns raised since the introduction of the fraud policy had been serious enough for people to lose jobs or for outside authorities to be involved.
Mr Mackway-Jones said he was not prepared to be specific about the sorts of concerns raised, because if staff thought such issues would be made public it would deter them from reporting them.
Board chairman Richard Thomson, responding this week to a question about whether the atmosphere was conducive to reporting concerns, given reports of workplace bullying at Dunedin Hospital in recent times, said much work was being done to ensure staff felt comfortable speaking out.
This applied not only to any issues of possible fraud, but to clinical safety and ideas about how things could be done differently.
This work, led by chief operating officer Vivian Blake, involved the establishment of a workplace culture development group. Its work so far has included drawing up a proposed set of staff rights outlining both the rights and expectations of all staff.
Consultation on this initial draft closed in October and feedback is being used to produce a final draft.
Information from a survey by trainee interns and extra focus groups will be used to see what staff's key concerns are about workplace culture and their prevalence and what measures could be needed to improve the culture.
The fraud policy, which applies to both Otago and Southland boards, says there is zero tolerance to fraud.
The policy replaced two existing policies and was designed to give clear responsibilities and notification processes and clearer definitions and examples of matters which constituted fraud.
The policy covers staff, board members, volunteers and contractors, setting out to whom they should report and who would investigate.
The fraud hot line set up with the audit and compliance section of the Ministry of Health means anyone with concerns can use an independent reporting mechanism if required.
Staff responsibilities under the policy include an obligation to report suspected fraud and/or breakdowns in internal control systems to their managers or other parties specified.
Under the policy, fraud includes deliberate claiming of payment for amounts outside the terms and conditions of a contract, or services claimed to be delivered when they have not.
Mr Mackway-Jones said since the fraud policy was introduced, about 60 staff from both boards had undertaken fraud awareness training.
These included the executive team and a range of departmental managers who held budgets. The policy formed part of information issued to new staff at the time of their orientation.
Auditors KPMG and Audit New Zealand had given positive feedback about the new policy, although some minor alterations would be made to standardise wording which would be incorporated when the policy was reviewed once it had been in place for a year.
These were not seen as serious enough to warrant earlier alteration.
Fraud prevention policies
• Key risk areas
> Services provided by the boards which make up half the boards' costs
> Staff, which account for 65% of the services' costs
> Contracts the boards have with suppliers of goods and services which make up 35% of the cost of services
> Contracts where the boards are funding community health services which comprise the other half of the boards' total costs
• Actions specified
> Electronic hierarchy approvals systems
> Undertaking of employee and vendor bank account checks
> Use of data mining for irregular and suspicious transactions through an annual internal audit
> Maintaining a centralised contracts database
> Reporting and checking high level vendor expenditure
> Undertaking fraud risk assessment
> Maintaining fraud awareness training
