Source : the age
The former head of the NSW Education Department’s school building unit allegedly instructed a data expert to manipulate demographic data to “make it a higher number”, an instruction she told a corruption inquiry she understood to be about securing more budget funding.
The Independent Commission Against Corruption heard evidence on Thursday that the former head of School Infrastructure NSW, Anthony Manning, told an employee to change the data prepared for a pre-budget submission to the then-Coalition government.
NSW Education director Jannatun Haque gives evidence to the ICAC on Thursday.
“He was quite direct, he said change it to be higher,” she said.
The state’s corruption watchdog is holding a public inquiry into the conduct of Manning, the chief executive of the department’s school infrastructure unit from 2017 until last year.
Jannatun Haque, a senior data expert in the department who worked under Manning, described her former boss as “very Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde”.
“If you were on his good side [he was] very positive and if it was something he disagreed with you, it was brutal,” she said.
She described a meeting with Manning in 2021 in which they discussed the agency’s projections on school-age population in which he was unhappy with falling population data. She said Manning told her to “change” the figures before a pre-budget submission.
When she refused to change the data, telling Manning “we can’t just amend those numbers”, he told her “we will find someone who can do what we want them to do”.
Schools Infrastructure then commissioned an outside consultancy firm to provide “upside” data, she said. Those projections were based on “highly unlikely” assumptions including increasing birth rates and major changes to migration.
Haque told the commission Manning “didn’t have to explain” why he was unhappy with the smaller population growth.
“It was well understood by myself and him … a lower figure would mean it would be much more difficult to get funding from Treasury in terms of the capital works [budget],” she said.
Part of the tension, she said, was she wanted to provide more granular data. Despite a statewide fall in the population, there had been “huge growth” in north and south-west Sydney.
Haque said that Manning wanted statewide data that she said was “misleading and incorrect” and “would do a disservice to where we need to spend money”.
“We have lots of schools in areas where there aren’t people because people can’t afford to live there, very affluent suburbs or suburbs that have aged out [but there is] huge growth in the south-west and north-west of Sydney,” she said.
Manning was “dismissive” to that argument, she said.
ICAC is hearing allegations Manning gave friends high-paying contractor jobs, improperly awarded contracts and misallocated funds. Manning is due to appear towards the end of the six-week inquiry.
One friend, Stuart Suthern-Brunt, was employed in a consultancy role and was paid $2800 a day, or the equivalent of $644,000 a year.
Haque told ICAC she was aware Manning and Suthern-Brunt had been “friends for a long time” and “knew each other from their time in Europe”.
The Herald has previously revealed that ICAC was investigating the awarding of a $39 million “Manufacturing for Schools” contract to build pre-fabricated classrooms.
The ICAC has previously heard that after he left School Infrastructure, Suthern-Brunt was involved in a consortium with construction firm APP, which won the contract.
Haque told the hearing she met with APP before the contract was awarded, and thought they were “very knowledgeable” about School Infrastructure’s “technology and systems” including “some of our shortcomings and challenges”.
Asked by Commissioner Paul Lakatos SC whether it was an “unusual level of knowledge”, she said: “Yes.”
The contract has since been cancelled, and the Herald has previously revealed the head of another firm, manufacturing software company PT Blink, Murray Ellen, had raised concerns about it due to its similarity to his own technology.
Haque told the hearing she had attended a meeting with Ellen in 2020 at which she was briefed on their technology, which she understood to be commercial in confidence.
She said she briefed Suthern-Brunt after the meeting.
“He was very interested. He made notes, but I just gave him my view of what I thought it was, and he didn’t disagree or provide any commentary; he just said thank you,” she said.
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