15 Mar 2023
“Creative New Zealand has entered into a partnership agreement with Toi Hourua, owned by We Are Indigo, to supply digital services to the arts sector.
Helping the arts sector to develop its digital capability has been identified as critical to the sustainability of the arts sector. Toi Hourua will deliver a raft of services over the next four years; this partnership is the result of an RFP process that considered many aspects required to deliver this specialist work for the sector.
Creative New Zealand completed an extensive, formal, two-stage procurement process, consistent with Government Procurement Rules and overseen by its governing board, the Arts Council, to ensure fairness and transparency for all parties.
Detailed proposals were assessed by an independent industry panel. The process included due diligence. More details of the process can be found in this summary document (Pdf. 2.74MB) shared on our website.
This rigorous procurement process and our recent experience working with We Are Indigo through the Pacific Creative Enterprise programme gave us confidence in our decision to partner with them.
Creative New Zealand was made aware by We Are Indigo that they were in a disagreement regarding a potential conflict of interest during their due diligence process with Callaghan Innovation.
This dispute is entirely separate to Creative New Zealand’s engagement with We Are Indigo as a provider.
Creative New Zealand’s summary document, published in December 2022, outlined the procurement process and shared information provided to Creative New Zealand by We Are Indigo; this stated its view that Callaghan Innovation accepted there was a conflict. We have now annotated the document to reflect Callaghan Innovation’s position that it did not/does not accept that there was a conflict of interest.
Creative New Zealand is aware that there is now an investigation by the Office of the Auditor General into the difference of views between Callaghan Innovation and We Are Indigo. If the OAG report surfaces any material new information, then we would consider its relevance to our partnership with We Are Indigo.
We will actively monitor the delivery of the new service, as we would for any contract of this value.”
22 March - further clarification:
When we published our summary document in December 2022, it stated the information We Are Indigo Ltd had shared with us: that they believed Callaghan Innovation accepted there was a conflict of interest in their due diligence process. Since then, it has been clarified that Callaghan Innovation has a different view and that the matter of a conflict of interest is disputed.
For clarity, Creative New Zealand does not believe that We Are Indigo Ltd intentionally shared incorrect information.
It is worth noting that whether or not there was a conflict of interest in the due diligence process between Callaghan Innovation and We Are Indigo had no bearing on Creative New Zealand’s decision making – it is not material to our process.
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