The Swamp Report: Situation Report

Showing posts with label Situation Report. Show all posts

23 March 2012

Pullar: ACC complaint to police false

An article from the Dominion Post by Phil Kitchin

ACC has been accused of making a false complaint to police over its allegations about a meeting between senior ACC managers and whistleblower Bronwyn Pullar.
Ms Pullar said yesterday: "Given the false assertions and the contradictory evidence, I have solid grounds to make a complaint to police over ACC's false accusations lodged against me in an attempt to defame me."
She said she was considering taking a complaint to police.
Last week she revealed that ACC had wrongly sent her private details of 6500 ACC clients, almost certainly including incest and sexual abuse victims, from the corporation's sensitive claims unit.
In response to the unfolding scandal, the corporation was ordered to provide a report to ACC Minister Judith Collins. Before publishing the report, ACC did not speak to Ms Pullar or to her advocate – former National Party president Michelle Boag – who was at the critical December 1 meeting they held with ACC managers Philip Murch and Hans Verberne.
ACC's report said Ms Pullar threatened to withhold the data at the centre of the breach and go to the media if she was not given a guaranteed two-year benefit. ACC said it had referred the issue to police.
Ms Pullar said she was shocked by the report because ACC had thanked her for the meeting and described it as productive at the time.
"This new response from the ACC managers was a shock to me as it totally contradicted their initial response. It also contradicted their subsequent correspondence. I never threatened to use the file containing sensitive date at the meeting. I never threatened to use the file in any way at this meeting, or any other time.
"I would never dream of divulging the names in the file to anyone. ACC were fully aware of my concerns over privacy with an extensive history of communications relating to ACCs privacy rights.
"In fact, a lot of the meeting focused on my concerns around ACC's mishandling of privacy, medical records, collection of medical records and the inadequacy of ACC systems to protect these as confidential files."
Ms Pullar said ACC had deliberately tried to destroy her credibility and confidence to speak out about her concerns over systemic privacy breaches. It had also failed to act on 45 issues of systemic failures that she provided to the corporation at the crucial meeting.
"ACC has deliberately leaked my name to the media and has set out to intentionally destroy my privacy and reputation. It shows how ACC treats claimants with disdain," she said. "It shows how ACC will smash anybody who dares speak out. It is simply not good enough that sensitive claimants' names are published every month in ACC reports.
"How come not one of 50 managers at ACC ever thought about this being a serious breach of their privacy?"
She said she raised the issue in the media to make "damn sure that ACC took claimants' privacy very seriously. It was about making ACC accountable".
ACC did not respond to Dominion Post requests for a comment before deadline yesterday.

19 March 2012

ACC whistleblower strikes back

An article from Stuff by Phil Kitchin and Danya Levy

The whistleblower at the centre of an ACC privacy scandal has broken her silence to accuse the corporation of lying to its minister about its account of a key meeting she and former National Party president Michelle Boag held with two senior managers in December.
An ACC report to Minister Judith Collins released on Friday claimed an ACC client, Bronwyn Pullar, threatened to go public with a mass privacy breach and withhold the huge file containing names of sexual abuse victims if the corporation did not give her a "guaranteed benefit payment for two years". The report was complied without ACC speaking to the client or her advocate at the meeting, Boag, and ACC has said it has referred the matter to police.
Pullar today slammed the report as "false". "I made no threats and no demands of ACC. I never mentioned the words 'payment, guaranteed, benefit'. I made no threats and no demands for the return of the information.
"I did not threaten that I would inform the media of the alleged privacy issue. I did not threaten ACC to get my own way in any way. The purpose of the meeting was to discuss how ACC could most effectively help my rehabilitation and return to work," she said.
Puller said at the end of the meeting a document was tabled identifying 45 privacy and protocol breaches by ACC and the two senior ACC managers at the meeting, Philip Murch and Hans Verberne, were asked to address those issues with their chief executive Ralph Stewart, their board and Collins as a matter of good corporate governance.
After the meeting ACC sent a letter thanking the client for the meeting and outlining a proposed agreement "to move forward with the management of your claim".
"I believe the meeting was productive and gave ACC the opportunity to understand the issues you have with the management and progress of your claim. As discussed at this meeting ACC would like to find a way forward with your rehabilitation and relationship with you," ACC said.
Pullar has also ridiculed a report today saying she threatened former ACC Minister Nick Smith to go public in an email saying "ACC is rotten to the core and I have numerous examples that could seriously embarrass you over and above this".
Pullar said that email could not be construed as a threat to go public because the same email was copied and sent to five reporters.

PM SAYS NO TO INQUIRY
Prime Minister John Key says he doesn't see the need for an independent inquiry into an ACC privacy breach and the police investigation into alleged demands from a client who was sent the personal information. "All the relevant parties are looking very closely at that, including ACC themselves," he told Newstalk ZB. "I think that is good enough in the way it has been handled internally."
Key said he had met the woman who had been emailed the ACC files, "many years ago". She had raised the issue of ACC compensation with him. The woman was good friends with Michelle Boag and he was unsurprised by the involvement of the former National Party president.
Either ACC or Collins' office appears to have compounded the breach of privacy. Details about Pullar were leaked from an email Boag sent to Collins. The leak was likely to be another breach of the client's privacy because it is understood ACC had no authority to disclose any aspect of the woman's ACC claim to the media.
Media and privacy specialist lawyer Stephen Price said last night that, if the breach came from the minister's office or ACC, there would be good grounds for a complaint to be made to the privacy commissioner.

17 March 2012

Leak recipient tried to blackmail ACC

An article from the National Business Review

A woman mistakenly emailed the personal details of 6752 ACC clients tried to blackmail senior managers, the agency says.
An ACC "Situation Report", made public today, says the woman was mistakenly sent an email, with sensitive claimant detail in an attached file, on August 5.
ACC first learned of the privacy breach on December 1, when two senior managers met with the woman on December 1. At the meeting, "the client proposed that in relation to her own individual case, she would like to negotiate a guaranteed benefit payment for two years," according to the situation report.
"She made threats that if her demands were not met she would not return the information and she would inform the media of the alleged privacy issue."
It appears that, earlier this week, the client did just that, with the first article on the affair appearing on Tuesday this week.
The Situation Report was written for ACC Minister Judith Collins, who has demanded answers from the agency over how the breach occurred. ACC has also laid a complaint with police.
The two senior managers did not take the woman's threat to higher management. The woman erroneously claimed the email was sent to her by one of the two senior managers she met with. In fact, it was sent by a more junior staff member, whose account was not included in an email sweep that followed the December meeting.
The report released today did have one positive for ACC. It said no personal claim details or personal claim history in the file - although it did include a person's name, the category of their claim and whether it was accepted or not.

RAW DATA: The Situation Report (PDF)