New Evidence Immigration Minister Was Kept In Dark About Major Budget Blowout

Jo Moir
Political editor

Immigration
Minister Erica Stanford has fresh concerns her senior
officials may have deliberately withheld information, with
new evidence suggesting she was kept in the dark about a
significant budget blowout.

Stanford has released
information to RNZ that includes two reports summarising the
state of play of the now-canned biometric capability upgrade
(BCU) that gave markedly different accounts of what was
going on with the project.

One report was delivered to
then-Immigration Minister Andrew Little in 2023 and another
– covering the same period of time, with no mention of
ballooning costs – was handed to Stanford a year
later.

Stanford’s concerns prompted her to pass the
two conflicting reports onto the inquiry into Immigration
NZ, led by Michael Heron KC.

Senior immigration
officials repeatedly ignored requests from the minister’s
office and progressed
work on the project, despite Stanford never agreeing to
extra funding.

The now-abandoned BCU wasted at least
$40 million of taxpayers’ money, before being scrapped by
Immigration NZ.

Public Service Commissioner Sir Brian
Roche tasked Heron with looking into “integrity concerns”
within the department, after Stanford revealed officials
“deliberately withheld” information from both her and the
previous government.

Last week, the chief executive of
the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment, which
immigration sits within, fronted
the Privileges Committee to explain to MPs why he hadn’t
alerted parliament sooner that the project had been
canned.

The issue was raised as a matter of privilege
by Labour’s Phil Twyford, after chief executive Nic Blakely
fronted the Education and Workforce committee in March, and
was asked about the key risks and milestones in the
project’s implementation, but at no point told MPs it had
been terminated.

Speaking
at the privileges committee last Tuesday evening, Blakely
admitted “we got it wrong – I accept that – and we should
have said differently”.

Blakely said he had a
“genuinely held belief” there were budget and commercial
sensitivities limiting what he could say
publicly.

That appearance and some of his answers
caught the attention of Stanford’s office, and led to her
telling media the following day that it was now clear at
least another $6 million had been wasted
on the project, bringing the total to more than
$40m.

Stanford referred that new information to Heron
to consider as part of his inquiry, after Blakely confirmed
to the minister “he cannot be confident this further $6
million represents the full extent of expenditure… and he
has made the decision to commission an independent financial
audit”.

In addition to concerns about the ministry’s
financial controls, Stanford has now alerted Heron to
another instance where it appears officials were trying to
withhold further information from the minister.

Two
differing accounts

One of the two weekly reports in
question appears to have been summarised in a more positive
light, without any mention of cost blowouts, when provided
to Stanford.

In March 2024, Stanford’s office had
started asking questions about the project and requested
additional information about BCU, including any advice
provided previously to Little.

Among other things,
Stanford received an update on BCU’s progress covering the
week 2-8 August of the previous year – before she was
minister.

The update was signed off by immigration
risk and border general manager Richard Owen, and noted the
project reached a “major milestone” on 24 July, “following
satisfactory security assurance testing”.

While the
current go-live date was set down for mid-November 2023, the
update said “this remains at risk” and depended on tests,
finalisation of commercial negotiations and visa processing
peaks.

“Further updates will be provided, as each of
these aspects is completed and worked through – with a
back-up go-live date in early 2024, if required”, but a
later report received by Stanford painted a different
picture.

Last month, when the ministry sent Stanford’s
office a package of documents it was planning to
pro-actively release, the original weekly report sent to
Little and his associate minister, Rachel Brooking,
surfaced.

That report was put together by deputy chief
operating officer Simon Sanders, and deputy secretary Alison
McDonald and general manager Jivan Grewal were also included
in the correspondence.

In that 2023 update, it also
said BCU had passed a “major project milestone”, but noted
delivery in mid-November 2023 looked unlikely and “it has
now become evident that this date is no longer feasible nor
possible, and a new go-live date of March 2024 is
proposed”.

It noted, as the project duration had
extended, both the vendor and ministry had suffered
increased costs.

“These delays and also a review of
the whole of life cost of the project has meant that the
budget will now exceed the previously agreed cost of $35m
that the Minister of Immigration recently approved. It is
evident that the whole-of-life costs will now more likely be
in the region of $45m.

“Given the new cost exceeds
ministerial delegation, this will now require cabinet
approval to proceed.”

The update went on to say the
ministry was “in the process of preparing a paper for the
minister to summarise the current state of the project and
in parallel, will prepare a paper for the minister to take
to cabinet as well, if the minister is supportive of this
approach”.

None of the information about the cost
blowouts had been passed onto Stanford, when her office
requested all advice and documents related to the
project.

Both reports have now been passed onto Heron
to investigate further and determine whether the information
had been deliberately kept from Stanford.

Stanford had
nothing further to say about the matter, when RNZ asked
whether this had further shaken her confidence in both her
ministry officials and the chief executive.

Likewise,
the ministry would not comment, while the inquiry was
underway.

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