Our recommendations

We recommend that the Ministry of Education:

1. actively monitor schools’ compliance with the legislative requirement to publish their annual reports online;
2. ensure that changes to the Novopay system include adding appropriate controls for schools, where possible, to help prevent fraud and error and ensure that all transactions are approved within the school’s delegations;
3. follow up unusual transactions or anomalies identified as part of the payroll audit so they do not reoccur, including giving boards additional support and guidance on payroll matters if necessary;
4. monitor how effectively kura follow the Ministry of Education’s guidance and, if necessary, provide more targeted guidance;
5. continue to work with those kura that have audits outstanding to help facilitate the completion of those audits;
6. provide additional guidance to schools on how to budget effectively, including how to prepare a budgeted balance sheet and cash flow budget;
7. improve its guidance on what good controls look like; and
8. continue to encourage schools to have fraud policies and report suspected fraud to the appropriate authority.