The Government is set to appoint an interim chair to its big health agency, but now must find additional budget to pay them
The Health Minister decided the job of chair of Te Whatu Ora could be done in 50 days – or about one day a week spread across the year. Ousted chair Rob Campbell says that was an enormous under-estimate.
Campbell reckons he put in 60 hours a week – and as a result, he blew the $125,000 budget for board chair fees in just two or three months.
From October, he says, he's been working for free. He says that's not a problem for him – but may be for the next chair.
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Te Whatu Ora says the fees for the board chair, set by the Minister of Health on the advice of the Remuneration Authority, were a daily rate of $2500, up to 50 days a year. The chair could go to the minister and ask for an extra 10 days ($25,000), at her discretion.
Other board members were paid a fee of $1750 a day, up to 30 days per year.
Te Whatu Ora communications advisor Julia Goode says Te Whatu Ora pays its board members consistent with the terms of their appointment. "Under the terms and conditions of appointment, the chair may also request an additional 10 days per year for each board member from the minister."
"I was not keen on pursuing more money while we had substantive pay issues with staff. I worked an average of around 60 hours a week in the role." – Rob Campbell, sacked chair
Last week, new Health Minister Ayesha Verrall dismissed Rob Campbell as chair because of comments he made on social media network LinkedIn, describing National Party leader Christopher Luxon's Three Waters reform policy as a "thinly disguised dog whistle on co-governance".
The Public Service Act 2020 requires public servants – including Crown entity board members – to act in a politically neutral manner.
Campbell says that's been interpreted too restrictively, that he's been denied due process, and that his sacking is really the culmination of a series of disagreements with ministers over public health priorities like clamping down on alcohol harm, and the need to embed co-governance in healthcare.
A spokesperson for Verrall says a process is underway with an interim Te Whatu Ora Board chair set to be appointed shortly. "The interim chair will be paid to fulfil this role," he tells Newsroom.
That will mean assigning new budget, either from Te Whatu Ora's existing baseline or from Government coffers.
"The initial fee structure for directors was set on an assumption about hours required which was far too low, and we told the minister that," Campbell tells Newsroom.
"I used up my allocation in the first two or three months. I was not keen on pursuing more money while we had substantive pay issues with staff. I worked an average of around 60 hours a week in the role."
Campbell resigned from the boards of SkyCity Entertainment Group and the south Auckland fitness and food sharing not-for-profit BBM, to take up the chairmanship of Te Whatu Ora. As SkyCity chair he earned $280,000 in fees a year, and another $185,000 at the helm of Tourism Holdings. He earned $48,000 a year as chair of the Environmental Protection Authority, until his dismissal last week. As NZ Rural Land Co chair he still earns $97,500 a year and, as chancellor of AUT University, an estimated $40,000.
Whether there is a budget to pay his successor is, he says, a question for the remaining board and minister to decide.
He doesn't miss the money, he says; he does miss the work. "Mostly my engagements with the people and using the services. I quite literally loved it."
