IOG Meeting Overview - June 2009

    Milestone Status Update

    There was no Milestone Status Report for this meeting as the first quarter 2009 milestones were considered by the 1 May 2009 meeting.

    Schedule 1 16.1C DSTN

    The IOG received a final report on DSTN. The IOG noted the contents of the report and resolved that:

    • DSTN circuits remaining in service and used internally and/or for infrastructure are not considered to breach the requirements of S1 16.1.
    • The DSTN circuits used to provide paging services (not a relevant service) are considered infrastructure and thus the failure to withdraw these DSTN circuits is not a breach of the undertakings. 
    • As already assessed, the failure to withdraw DSTN circuits for one customer by the required date of 31 December 2008 is a trivial breach of the Undertakings.  These circuits have now been withdrawn.

    Audit and Assurance Reviews

    There were no separate Audit and Assurance reviews completed for the period. Telecom Internal Audit have a number of reviews underway which will be provided to the IOG when completed.

    Complaints and Honesty Box Summary

    Honesty Box (Whistleblowing)
    The IOG Support Office did not identify any non-trivial breaches from the Honesty Box submissions during the reporting period.

    Investigations - Overview
    There were 516 Honesty Box submissions in April, the second highest month since the inception of the Honesty Box in July 2008. This was due to Short-lead related submissions, and in particular Telecom Retail's audit of Short-lead events back to September 2008. A "short-lead" being defined as an order processed ahead of defined timeframes. Short-lead submissions are the subject of an investigation by the IOG Support office.

    Honesty Box Submissions

    The distribution of submissions across business units continues to be very constant with Retail accounting for 87.3% of the submissions for the nine months (following July 2008), August 2008 to April 2009; followed by Wholesale 5.2%, Chorus 2.2% with the remaining Business Units under 2% each.  Telecom Retail's percentage in April rose to 93% owing to the short-lead influx.

    The percentage of submissions that are compliant versus trivial or de minimis continues to favour the compliant side at 64% (1 July to 30 April 2009), versus 10% being adjudged trivial or de minimis.  The remaining percentage is Short-leads which are yet to be categorised (21%) and other misc items (5%).

    Industry Perspective

    Mr George Reedy of Actrix joined the meeting.  There was a general discussion on industry matters and the role of the Undertakings.

    Key Performance Indicators (KPI’s)

    Telecom has supplied KPI reporting for the period 1 January to 31 March 2009, covering five aspects of Customer Surveys, Employee questions, Staff Training in the Undertakings, PSTN Migration and Product Equivalence.

    Of note:
    • Chorus and Wholesale Customer Surveys were completed by less than half of the contacts, however no non-compliant behaviour was identified following investigation of the responses.
    • The percentage of new employees who had undergone Undertakings training improved from 39% to 49% between the quarters; however this low percentage is still an area of concern.

    Other Matters Considered

    Auditors

    KPMG, the IOG auditors, presented their audit plan and discussed the scope of their audit report, timing and high level audit procedures.  The IOG noted the audit plan.

    Assurance Plan

    Mr Murray Chandler from Ernst & Young presented and updated assurance plan covering the six months to 31 December 2009.  The IOG approved the updated assurance plan.

    Education

    After the meeting the IOG visited the Telecom Lab in Tory Street for an educational session.

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