Contracts, pay caps gone AWOL: Schools boss Anthony Manning pressed on hiring mates

The ex-chief executive of the NSW Education Department’s school infrastructure arm has been forced to defend spending more than $3 million hiring a former workmate. Here’s what he said.

The one-time chief executive of the NSW Education Department’s school infrastructure arm (SINSW) has been forced to defend spending more than $3m hiring a former workmate without first testing the market.

Ex-School Infrastructure NSW CEO Anthony Manning is being investigated by the NSW Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) over his hiring practices, which saw several of his friends, acquaintances and ex-colleagues employed by SINSW on contracts worth tens of millions of dollars.

Central to the inquiry is Mr Manning’s relationship with Martin Berry, whom he had worked with at various times since the pair were both employed by consultancy firm Turner and Townsend in 2006.

Mr Berry, sole director of Heathwest Advisory, would be engaged nine times at SINSW between 2018 and 2022, at a total cost of $3,007,272.

In July 2019, Mr Manning notified his boss, then-Secretary of the Education Department Mark Scott, that his father in London had become unwell.

Former School Infrastructure NSW CEO Anthony Manning appears at ICAC on Friday. Picture: Independent Commission Against Corruption

“My father had collapsed, he’d been admitted to hospital,” Mr Manning told the inquiry.

“We didn’t think it was too big a drama and then at the last minute – my father was a king of understatement – it ended up being a very serious issue and they were basically going to … send him home to die.”

Deciding he needed to return the UK “within a couple of days”, Mr Manning asked his then-Chief Operating Officer Erik Maranik to fill his shoes while he was gone, and bring on Mr Berry to take on Mr Maranik’s duties – including dealing with “property issues” such as the acquisition of a site for a new school at Sydney Olympic Park.

Counsel assisting the ICAC Jamie Darams SC put to Mr Manning that “there really wasn’t any real process of procuring the services of Heathwest and Mr Berry”.

“There was no document plan, no strategy, there was no real negotiation of the fees, there was no testing of the market,” Mr Darams queried.

“There was no formal exchange of information, in that sense,” Mr Manning admitted.

“My recollection of it was that it was something we needed to move on quickly.”

Heathwest Advisory director Martin Berry previously appeared before the inquiry. Picture: ICAC

ICAC Commissioner Paul Lakatos, who is presiding over the inquiry, pressed the former schools boss on the legal implications for the department if, sans contract, Mr Berry had brought the organisation into disrepute.

“If something went wrong, there was no legal framework for School Infrastructure to come back and extract some sort of compensation … for any damage that Mr Berry might have done,” the commissioner suggested.

“For example, in the second week that he was there, if he went out and spoke to The Sydney Morning Herald and The Daily Telegraph and said ‘I’ve got here at School Infrastructure and I’ve found out that all the top executives are hopeless, and I’m trying to fix it all’, (that would cause) reputational damage.

“If he had done that, there was no contractual comeback.”

“I appreciate that,” Mr Manning responded.

ICAC Commissioner Paul Lakatos questions former School Infrastructure NSW CEO Anthony Manning. Picture: Independent Commission Against Corruption

Mr Darams also suggested that the hiring of Mr Berry was “even looser” than another contract under the spotlight, the hiring of “procurement adviser” Lily Wong, whose title would later be changed by Mr Manning amid pushback from other employees but her $1920-per-day pay rate not renegotiated.

The inquiry had earlier been shown two versions of Ms Wong’s contract.

In an undated version Ms Wong’s pay was capped at $136,500 excluding GST, however in the final version signed by Mr Manning on the 9th of November 2017, there was no cap in the contract conditions.

Mr Manning could not explain how the cap came to be removed from the signed document.

The ICAC inquiry will continue next Monday, with the ex-chief executive scheduled to appear three more times before his former HR manager Wendy O’Brien, who is alleged to have taken reprisal action against public servants who raised concerns about Mr Manning’s hiring practices, takes the stand.

Originally published as Contracts, pay caps gone AWOL: Schools boss Anthony Manning pressed on hiring mates