‘Grievous errors of judgment’
Ex-NZSO boss quit after allowance ‘mistake’, but blames stress from unfounded investigation
Former NZ Symphony Orchestra chief executive Peter Biggs – who earned more than $300,000 – quit after claiming an accommodation allowance to stay at the exclusive Wellington Club while renting out his own city apartment, The Post can reveal.
In April this year, Biggs resigned suddenly after admitting “grievous errors of judgment” to orchestra board member Claire Szabó – namely, that while he rented out his property between June 17 and August 29, 2022, he claimed $5295 in allowance to stay at the Wellington Club on numerous occasions.
The orchestra wasn’t aware of the apartment being rented out until it received a protected disclosure – essentially from a whistleblower – through the Office of the Ombudsman. Szabó then investigated.
On April 23 this year, an email sent to media explaining Biggs’ resignation cited “a number of reasons, including his health”.
Biggs, in statement released through a close friend yesterday, maintained he had already made the decision to resign due to ill health, from a bout of pneumonia at the end of 2023.
This was the result of having to endure more than “11 months of prolonged and intense stress” from a separate, unrelated investigation from which he was “unequivocally exonerated” by the independent investigator.
He said he accepted he made an error in the allowance case, took accountability for it, remedied it by paying back the money “plus interest”, but there was a “wider context to this, I’m not going to get into this at this point in time”.
In an email released under the Official Information Act, Biggs told Szabó he’d lived in the Wellington apartment
during the week since 2015. However, after traces of asbestos were discovered and renovation work began to remove it in 2021, he moved to his farmhouse in Featherston, Wairarapa – about an hour’s drive from the orchestra’s Wellington headquarters.
A previous chairperson of the orchestra, Laurence Kubiak, had approved the orchestra paying for his occasional stays at the Wellington Club for work commitments, Biggs told Szabó. The arrangement was that he could stay on approved occasions, rather than make a long drive over the Remutaka Hill late night or early morning.
In June 2022, furniture was removed from his apartment so renovation work could begin. That same month, Biggs became aware of at least one person who “urgently needed accommodation” in Wellington.
Biggs agreed to a short-term rental of the apartment at a significantly reduced rate, due to the inconvenience of the remediation work and the fact the apartment was semi-furnished. Biggs received rent while the tenants lived there.
“Because we were looking at a period of time (which was uncertain) when the apartment would be exposed to the weather and literally a building site, we felt that it would be difficult for me to live full-time in the apartment and also deal with the pressures of a stressful job at a very turbulent time (the country and the NZSO were dealing with the effects of the Omicron wave of Covid-19),” Biggs told Szabó in a released email.
While he lived in Featherston and commuted, Biggs said Kubiak agreed to reinstate the Wellington Club arrangement. The chairperson who replaced Kubiak in July 2022, Ainsley Walter, also agreed to continue the arrangement, he said.
The apartment’s tenants moved out on August 29, 2022. The remediation work was complete in late September and the apartment then became “fully habitable”, Biggs said. As per the agreement, Biggs then stopped staying at the Wellington Club.
He said he never stayed or requested to stay full-time at the Wellington Club, nor did he continue to stay there at the orchestra’s expense beyond the date when the apartment became fully habitable.
Biggs said it was a highly stressful time for him and he was working long days, but acknowledged he made an error of judgment. He apologised to Szabó and resigned. He paid back the $5295 claimed.
Biggs was paid an annual salary of $316,800. The orchestra, a Crown entity, receives millions of dollars in funding from the Government each year.
Walter left her role as board chairperson in March this year.
Second investigation
In the second investigation unrelated to the allowance case – complaints were made about Biggs while he was chief executive and a report was subsequently compiled by an independent investigator.
That investigation exonerated Biggs, according to an email former orchestra board chairperson Walter sent to Arts Minister Paul Goldsmith’s office in March this year, released to The Post under the Official Information Act. However, what the complaints regard will remain a secret for now. Goldsmith declined to release the investigation report to The Post, saying he felt public interest considerations did not outweigh the need to withhold the information. The orchestra’s acting chief executive, Kirsten Mason, also declined to release the report, or detail what the complaints were regarding.
Biggs, in his statement, said the orchestra’s board “believed the word of an obvious fantasist without undertaking the preliminary investigation or doing any basic diary or fact checking” and this “incompetence” cost taxpayers a “six-figure sum and cost me and my family over $30,000 in legal fees”.
“I and two colleagues who were also subject to the complaint were completely and unequivocally exonerated by the independent investigator.
“At no point has the board offered restitution to cover the cost, not to mention the severe emotional harm inflicted on each of us by virtue of this reckless mismanaged inquiry.”