CEO expenses

The Herald reports:

The chairman in charge of authorising Dr Nigel Murray’s expenses has admitted Waikato District Health Board failed to undertake proper checks on his spending.

On the day a board member released a damning Audit NZ review of the management of expenses claimed by Murray – who spent $218,000 of taxpayers money in three years – board chairman Bob Simcock said the situation was “at heart quite simple”.

“Unknown to the board or me, Nigel Murray charged expenses to the DHB which were neither authorised nor justified,” he said.

“Unfortunately, the organisation paid those expenses without checking if they had been authorised.

I don’t quite understand how this happened. An organisation should have a clear policy about who can approve the CEO’s expenses – almost invariably the Chair.

The accounts staff should be aware of these policies, and automatically refer all expense claims to the Chair. They should not be able to be instructed not to do so, as you can’t be instructed to ignore a policy.

The Weekend Herald last week revealed Murray was out of the office for half of his last year in the job, on domestic and overseas trips.

Climo said he could not understand how Simcock was unaware of Murray’s absenteeism.

“I don’t know how the chief executive could be away that long and the chairman not be aware of that just through the ordinary course of communication between chair and chief executive.”

Again any travel of the CEO would normally be subject to the approval of the Chair unless it is for a regular meeting where you have a policy to attend.