Dear Accident Compensation Corporation,

Kia ora,

I am making this request under the Official Information Act 1982.

Context

In or around 2023, Andy Milne was appointed Deputy Chief Executive with responsibility for Injury Prevention at ACC. Since that time, ACC has publicly announced a number of reductions in injury-prevention funding and the cessation or scaling back of several prevention programmes.

Given the scale of levy funding invested in Injury Prevention, and ACC’s statutory obligation to deliver value for money for levy payers and taxpayers, there is strong public interest in understanding how Injury Prevention investment has performed during this period.

Information requested

For the period from the date of Andy Milne’s appointment as Deputy Chief Executive responsible for Injury Prevention to the most recently completed reporting quarter, please provide the following information:

1. Overall Injury Prevention ROI

- ACC’s calculated return on investment (ROI) for all Injury Prevention programmes combined during this period.
- The methodology used to calculate this ROI, including:
- How “investment” is defined.
- How “injury prevention benefit” or “injury cost avoided” is measured.
- Any assumptions or discounting applied.

2. 'Programme-level ROI' for each individual Injury Prevention programme operating at any point during this period, please provide:
- Programme name.
- Dates active during the period.
- Total investment during the period (actual spend incurred during the period, not lifetime spend).
- Total quantified injury cost avoided during the same period.
- Resulting ROI for the period.
- The methodology used to attribute injury prevention benefits to the programme.

Please note: I am not seeking whole-of-life or lifetime ROI figures for programmes where those extend beyond the requested period, as these can mask recent performance and obscure current value for money.

3. Negative or underperforming programmes
- A list of all Injury Prevention programmes during this period that:
- Delivered a negative ROI, or
- Delivered an ROI below ACC’s internal investment thresholds (if such thresholds exist).
- For each such programme, please provide:
- The ROI achieved during the period.
- Any internal assessment, review, or recommendation relating to continuation, modification, or cessation of the programme.

4. Decision-making and assurance
- Any internal papers, dashboards, or reports provided to the Executive Leadership Team or Board during this period that summarise Injury Prevention performance, ROI, or value-for-money assessments.
- Any changes to Injury Prevention investment frameworks, ROI methodologies, or performance thresholds introduced during this period.

Availability of information and timeliness

Given the scale of public funds invested in Injury Prevention, I would expect information on investment performance and ROI to be readily available as part of routine financial and performance management.

If such information is not held or cannot be readily produced, this would raise serious questions about the management and oversight of hundreds of millions of dollars of Injury Prevention expenditure without basic ROI reporting.

Accordingly, I do not expect that an extension under section 15A of the Act will be required to respond to this request.

Public interest

This request is made in the public interest to understand whether Injury Prevention investment during this period has delivered demonstrable value for New Zealanders, and to enable informed scrutiny of ACC’s stewardship of levy funds.

If any part of this request is likely to be refused, I ask that ACC:
- Clearly identify the specific grounds for refusal under the Act, and
- Release any information that can reasonably be provided with redactions.

If the request is too large and you are considering extensions, like your previous behaviour, please treat each question as its own request to break it down.

Ngā mihi,

Yours faithfully,

E Parks