LOCAL BODY REFORM

Evening Post, Volume CXXII, Issue 133, 2 December 1936, Page 10

LOCAL BODY REFORM

HELPFUL INVESTIGATIONS

The expectation of the New Zealand Society of Accountants that the result of its thesis competition on the finances, accounts costing, and statistics of local authorities would be helpful to the Government is fully supported by the judges—Mr. A. E. Mansford (Mayor of Palmerston North), Mr. G. A. Lewin (who was for many years Town Clerk of Dunedin), and Mr. C. G. Collins (supervisor of local bodies A main purpose of the competition was to show the scope for reform m the local body system (municipal corporations, county councils, and electric power boards), and to elicit constructive suggestions for the improvement of the financial and accounting methods and the administrative organisation of local authorities. The wide range of investigation is indicated by the following extracts from the prescription:—Methods of budgeting; purchasing systems; stores control; methods of depreciation; cost-account-ing systems; distribution of overhead expenses; accounting of trading undertakings; internal checks and internal audit; balance day adjustments; use of mechanical aids; illustrations of the forms and books of account; the use of statistics, and the graphical presentation of facts and statistics; office organisation; arguments for ana against the statutory methods of local authority finance and of keeping and presenting local authority accounts suggested improvements; the need ioi a standardised system of clarifying receipts and payments and/or income and expenditure as a basis for the compilation of a combined annual state ment of accounts for all local autiwnties or otherwise; the need foi long ranee planning of civic works and improvliS? and of the financial provision therefor; generally any suggestions for the improvement of the financial and administrative methods O nn^r rel AHrAu LSdT,°^o Cfd kf first place. Mr. Bishop's treatise of 600 pages of typed foolscap would fill 150 columns of average newspaper print, and Mr. Leese's would fill about 100 columns. , ~ The -judges' opinion that a valuable text-book could Pbe evolved from the winners' papers has been emphatically confirmed by the society's executive whkh has decided to offer financial assistance towards the publication. It was mentioned at a recent meeting of the executive that such a book would be welcomed in other countries of the British Commonwealth, as it was understood that there was not yet a standard text-book for the guidance oC local authorities.

The air mail dispatched from Wellington on November 4 arrived in London on November 30.