Quit Group Trust media statement

The Quit Group Trust is dedicated to reducing smoking rates in New Zealand. Key aims stated in our Trust deed include:

• A reduction in smoking rates
• Working towards achieving smoking rates that are no greater for Maori than for the rest of the community, and
• Providing leadership in the area of smoking cessation.

While the Trust stopped running the QuitLine telephone counselling service in 2015 we continue to work in service of our stated aims.

In October 2016 the Trust wrote to the Ministry of Health asking it to audit the Trust’s reserves to identify any public health surpluses from its operation.

The Ministry completed the audit in April 2017 and the Trust and Ministry agreed that $435,700 were public health surpluses from total reserves of $3.16M.

The Trust sought advice from the Ministry on how they would like these surpluses spent, including if the Ministry wanted the money refunded. The Ministry identified an initial project concerning Māori Women and Smoking Cessation which the Trust funded.

The Trust has funded a number of projects from its own reserves, including research into commercialising a smoking cessation therapeutic aid, commissioning the ‘Achieving a Smokefree Aoteoroa 2025’ report produced by Otago University in 2017, funding attendance at the Oceania Tobacco Control conference by frontline cessation advisors in 2017 and again in 2019; supporting ASH through a major grant in 2018 and supporting the ASH Vaping Symposium held in Parliament in 2019.

The Trust had a meeting with the Director-General of Health in late 2018 to again identify how the Ministry would like the surpluses spent, and also to identify if the Ministry had other projects the Quit Group Trust might fund from the Trust’s own reserves, acknowledging that both the Ministry and the Trust supported the Smokefree Aotearoa 2025 strategy.

The Director-General wrote to the Trust in February 2019 specifying a number of possible projects for consideration which remained unfunded by the health sector.

As a result, in 2019 the Trust sought a major proposal from the Health Promotion Agency on the interface between vaping and smoking cessation. While the Trust agreed to fund this major proposal in principle, the project was delayed as the government sought to clarify vaping legislation.

The Trust sought a revised proposal from the HPA in late 2019, and again approved $1.8M funding for this revised project.

The project is currently being finalised by the HPA and will be implemented from June 2020. Announcements will be made by the HPA.

The Trust has also agreed a number of other grants for the balance of its reserves which will be announced shortly.

The Trust has met all of the reporting and expenditure agreements made with the Ministry of Health. $2.3M of the Trust’s current reserves belong to the Trust and will be spent in a manner consistent with the Trust deed.

The Trust has no staff (since 2016) and Trustees undertake all of the Trust’s work. Trustees receive reduced fees for their governance responsibilities.

The Trust will wind up in June 2020 having dispersed all of its reserves in pursuit of its Trust objectives.

We are confident that the work we are undertaking in service of the Trust’s stated aims is delivering tangible benefits to smoking cessation in New Zealand.