RENEWED CRITICISM OF THE PUBLIC ACCOUNTS

Press, Volume XCIX, Issue 29179, 13 April 1960, Page 9

RENEWED CRITICISM OF THE PUBLIC ACCOUNTS

"The Press” Special Service WELLINGTON, April 12. The retiring Controller and Auditor-General (Mr C. J. Atkin) has not found one Government which was very interested in what the Public Accounts contained, he said in a renewed criticism of the presentation of the accounts. ‘‘The Public Accounts should show some details of revenue received from taxation.” he said. ‘‘As I said last year, surely the public is entitled to know how much the extra Is a gallon on petrol produced. ‘‘lf all taxation appeared in one account, the Consolidated Fund, a clearer picture would be available to the public. ‘‘l have served under several Governments in the Treasury and in the Audit Office,” said Mr Atkin, who will retire on April 29, “but while those two offices have tried to improve matters, I have not found one Government which was very interested in what the Public Accounts contained.

“We have in New Zealand a select committee of Parliament called the Public Accounts Committee. In the United Kingdom that committee deals exhaustively with the accounts. In New Zealand the Public Accounts are not even referred to it by Parliament for examination.” Not Considered

The Public Accounts Committee did not report to the House of Representatives on anything. And a serious weakness was that Supplementary Estimates—for more than £4 million last year —were not considered by the committee.

Speaking of expenditure, Mr Atkin said that as considerable detail on past expenditure was submitted to Parliament in estimates of expenditure for the year, it should not be necessary to duplicate that detail in the Public Accounts. “A bad feature is the National Roads Fund,” he said. "Although Parliament levies the taxation in that case, it does not control the expenditure. No information whatsoever is Included in the

Estimates, and what is supplied in the Public Accounts is so meagre as to be practically useless.” Mr Atkin handled a copy of the Canadian Public Accounts—three times as thick as a telephone book—against the 00-page octavo-size New Zealand equivalent.

“Compared with overseas publications, our accounts contain a minimum of detail,” he said. Recommendations

Mr Atkin said recommendations had been made almost every year by the Audit Office. While they were the considered .opinions of the office, they might not be perfect, and should not be subject to automatic adoption.

"They are worthy of consideration, however,” he said, “and this could be achieved by Parliament’s referring them to the Public Accounts Committee. Mh Atkin was asked had any progress been made. He replied that considerable progress, especially since 1945, had been made in the setting out of Pub-

lic Accounts. In 1946, three Parliamentary papers were brought together in one volume. Almost every year since then some improvements had been effected. Fourteen recommendations were summarised in Mr Atkin’s first, 1952, report. Although it bad taken eight years, the last of them was implemented from March 31 this year.