Multiple cases of sexual offenders getting jobs in schools have added to concerns about the body responsible for registering and vetting teachers, writes Catherine McGregor in today’s excerpt from The Bulletin.

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Leadership exit after ‘most serious’ findings

Teaching Council chief executive Lesley Hoskin has resigned after the release of two scathing reports into the Crown agency, with education minister Erica Stanford describing the findings as “some of the most serious that I have seen”.

The NZ Herald’s Lane Nichols reports that the resignation follows a Public Service Commission investigation into procurement and conflicts of interest, and an independent review by consultant Debbie Francis into the council’s child-protection focus. Two further probes have since been ordered – an urgent King’s Counsel investigation into past safeguarding decisions, and a Ministry of Education analysis of the council’s legal framework to identify possible loopholes.

The Teaching Council is responsible for registering and certifying teachers, maintaining the profession’s code and standards, and investigating serious misconduct. Its statutory purpose centres on ensuring safe, high-quality teaching and protecting learners.

Conflict of interest and procurement failures

The Public Service Commission report released earlier this month found the council “did not appropriately manage all aspects” of a conflict of interest when awarding about $1.1 million in contracts to Clemenger UnLtd, a firm run by Hoskin’s husband, between 2018 and 2025.

While the report said Hoskin consistently declared the conflict and was not involved in awarding contracts, it found her husband’s shareholding was not appropriately documented and that simply excluding her from parts of procurement processes did not sufficiently manage perception risks. Competitive procurement processes did not occur in some cases, and oversight fell “well short” of public-sector expectations, Nichols reports.

Public Service Commissioner Sir Brian Roche described “serious and repeated failures” and a “concerning picture” around the use of public money. The investigation was triggered by a whistleblower’s protected disclosure to Stanford last year. The council’s board has accepted the findings and says significant improvement is required.

Safeguarding failures 

The Francis review focused on the council’s core regulatory role – protecting children. It concluded the organisation had lost focus on safeguarding and at times acted more like an advocacy body than a regulator. Stanford said the findings were “deeply shocking”.

The review was commissioned after reporting by Nichols and his colleague Katie Harris on Timothy Fisher, a registered teacher who had historical indecency convictions and a 2014 police warning that he should not have unsupervised access to children. Despite this, he was granted registration and later recertified. Fisher went on to abuse nine young girls at an after-school tutoring company in 2023 and 2024. He is now in prison.

The council has maintained it did nothing wrong under the rules as they stand, arguing it was constrained by information restrictions and the Clean Slate Act. Stanford has disputed that interpretation, saying relevant convictions should have been disclosed through core-worker police vetting.

Fresh cases fuel concern

Recent cases have added to questions about how effectively the system protects children. Over the weekend, the Herald’s Katie Harris reported that a former New Zealand athlete who admitted sexually abusing a 15-year-old girl is now working with children at a North Island primary school, despite police sharing information about his offending when the school sought a check. In 2023, the judge in the case found that the gravity of the offending was “relatively low”, granting the man a discharge without conviction and permanent name suppression. Now police minister Mark Mitchell says the public should be told if the school knowingly hired an admitted sex offender.

Separately, RNZ’s Sam Sherwood has reported that the Teaching Council will examine whether mandatory reporting obligations were met in relation to Fr Rowan Donoghue, now convicted of sexually abusing boys at St Bede’s College in Christchurch between 1996 and 2000. The council says its disciplinary process will look into the actions of “everyone involved” once the criminal process concludes.

Taken together, the cases have intensified scrutiny of the council’s culture, governance and legal powers. With multiple investigations under way, the question now is whether the organisation can restore public trust in its role as the guardian of professional standards in New Zealand classrooms.