Evidence that Carenne Support defrauded DET surfaces

Documents released under the Freedom of Information Act reveal that the controversial school-based charity associated with Carenne Special School - Carenne Support Limited has made fraudulent claims for payment under the Special Needs Transport Service. These fraudulent claims are made for a service carried out by one of the two buses the Bathurst community purchased for the school but which are owned by Carenne Support.

Documents used by the Department of Education and Training to figure out how much to pay each SNTS operator reveal that even when students were absent or roads were closed, Carenne Support would still declare the full number of kilometres traveled. As the SNTS pays per loaded kilometre, this allowed them to be overpaid for work which was never carried out. Former Carenne Support bus driver Brian Carter questioned this practice and the response was "Wollongong (who administers the SNTS) doesn't like the kilometres to change", this is supported by paragraph 68 of his statement.

It is claimed that in each of Carenne Support's buses they had a sheet telling drivers how much they had to declare and to ignore the actual kilometres travelled.

For the month of May 2008 alone (the month shown in the document below), some 1,088 kilometres were overdeclared. For the period August 2007 to December 2007, Carenne Support overdeclared a massive 11,563 kilometres as it was unloaded between Bathurst and Lithgow, yet they still declared the full kilometres. Disturbingly, school principals or their delegates are who approve payment to each operator.

Terry Mahony, who was the principal at the time and a director of Carenne Support would from time to time approve payment to Carenne Support.

When this was raised with Gail Vasic, Manager Special Transport, Mrs Vasic said she would confine her answers to what happened in 2009 despite the issue clearly involving a principal which had retired.