Minister of Internal Affairs Jan Tinetti has asked the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care to be more transparent about its spending.
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It comes just months after Treasury was roped in to help the inquiry manage its money because it blew a $56 million operational budget meant to last another two years.
RNZ revealed in April the Royal Commission's operational spending had increased by more than 80 percent in this financial year.
Three emergency funding requests - totalling more than $20m - were made to Minister of Finance Grant Robertson but he rejected them all and instead allocated an unknown amount from an $8m contingency fund.
He later allocated a further $90m to the Royal Commission over the next two years in Budget 2021.
Robertson got Treasury involved, too, and tasked it with looking at the Royal Commission's spending and improving its financial management.
Treasury has since told RNZ it has completed its work with the inquiry.
Tinetti made major changes to the inquiry in order to keep spending down and to ensure it reported back to the government on time.
The Royal Commission was also asked to fully justify its spending in its March quarterly report.
Tinetti has since asked the inquiry to change the way it reports its finances and to be more transparent when doing so.
In a letter sent to the inquiry's chairperson, Judge Coral Shaw, on 21 June, Tinetti said she would be "grateful to see progress made by the Royal Commission conveyed more clearly in the next quarterly report".
Tinetti told RNZ the inquiry had been reporting on its finances retrospectively and she wanted the information to be more "forward looking".
Jan Tinetti. Photo: RNZ
"To be assured that we're staying within budget and we're going to deliver on time," Tinetti said.
Asked if she was concerned about the inquiry's reporting, considering it had previously blown one of its budgets, Tinetti said "no".
"We're starting from a new point," she added.
The Royal Commission has declined multiple requests for an interview with RNZ since April.
In a statement, Shaw said financial transparency was a priority for the Royal Commission.
"While the commission was, on establishment, required to provide a financial report to the Department of Internal Affairs every six months we have proactively increased this to every three months to ensure there is regular and ongoing reporting on our financial position.
"The quarterly reports are posted on the Abuse in Care website and they include reporting on financial and year to date actual to budgeted expenditure."
The March quarterly report showed the inquiry had underspent across all appropriations by $2.695m, Shaw said.
That report was only published on the inquiry's website in June after inquiries were made by RNZ.
The Royal Commission regularly met with the Department of Internal Affairs and discussions with officials could include the inquiry's financial position and any fiscal risks, Shaw said.
Opposition parties respond
National's acting Internal Affairs spokesperson Simon O'Connor supported the minister's request for transparency but said it should have been made sooner.
"It's a little disappointing that a Royal Commission isn't already open and transparent. There's a sort of paradox in play, commission's are rightly set up to shed light on details, in this case, a really important issue of historic abuse... I think New Zealanders and would expect the commission to be very transparent about what it's doing and how it's spending money."
The inquiry's operational budget blow-out could have been avoided if the government had set clearer expectations for financial reporting when it established the inquiry, O'Connor added.
"I expect commission's of inquiry of this nature will often see increased spending. But, you know, a little bit of transparency, expectations set clearly at the start probably would have limited what became quite a sizeable blow out of the budget."
The National Party came under intense pressure when it was in power to establish a Royal Commission into abuse in care but repeatedly refused, saying it was not needed.
ACT MP Damien Smith said the government needed to guarantee it would not be providing the inquiry any further funding.
"Everybody around New Zealand has to manage their own household budget, why wouldn't a government be the same?"
Investigations hampered by budget blow-out
The March quarterly report also revealed the top five risks the Royal Commission was facing.
According to the report, the newly-developed list was updated monthly and shared with commissioners so they could "monitor existing controls and their relative effectiveness in managing risk over time".
The risks listed included not being able to complete its job on time, failing to get enough government funding to complete its work and facing a possible Judicial Review on the grounds it had acted unlawfully, unfairly or unreasonably.
The report also stated the inquiry's current investigations into redress, Lake Alice and Pacific people's experience in care were all hampered by its operation budget blow-out. It did not explain how the investigations were hampered but did state plans were in place to limit risk.
Half the number of survivors expected had come forward to the inquiry, the report also explained.
"We had forecast that approximately 2000 survivors would be registered with the Inquiry in the 2020/21 financial year. This will not now be met."
The inquiry hoped public hearings, community outreach and word of mouth would have generated more interest but only between 900 to 1000 survivors had registered.
