PUBLIC EXPENDITURE

Taranaki Daily News, 6 August 1930, Page 7

PUBLIC EXPENDITURE

CONTROL BY PARLIAMENT, . AUDITOR-GENERAL’S COMMENT. Comment on the fact that a large proportion of the annual expenditure of Parliament is governed by permanent appropriations and is thus freed from the annual control of Parliament is made by the Controller and AuditorGeneral (Colonel G. F. C. Campbell) in his annual report to Parliament. It is pointed out that an®ainendnient made last year has the effect of bringing expenditure amounting to several millions within the direct control of Parliament,, and remedies the more important instances in which such control had not previously been provided. “There will, however,” says Colonel Campbell, “still remain a large amount of expenditure not subject to annual appropriation, and, though it may not be considered desirable to bring the whole of such expenditure into the annual Appropriation Act, it would appear advisable in the interests of proper control that an estimate of all expenditure to be made front the various separate accounts under permanent appropriations should be submitted to Parliament in order that the full programme of Government expenditure for the year may be brought under review, instead of portion only of such - expenditure. Such an estimate is at present submitted in the case of expenditure under permanent appropriations from the .or-dinary-revenue account, blit not, in the case of such expenditure from other ac-

counts.. . '' '; ’ " ’■ • “Apart from the question of obtaining effective control of expenditure, the system of providing,for expenditure by permanent appropriation rather than by annual votes has serious disadvantages. The statutory provisions regulating the expenditure require to bo of a very de.tailcd nature if control is to be effec-.. tive, and. as a consequence, the amount of detailed financial legislation in New Zealand is probably without parallel in any other British country.. There is always the possibility that, in the’ course of the administration of an Act, “unforeseen changes in the circumstances governing expenditure or slight variations of Government policy relating to receipts and expenditure may involve conflict with the permanent appropriation provisions of the Act. The financial legislation is now becoming so complex that it is a ma tter of serious ’ difficulty - at times for the audit'to ensure that statutory financial provisions are properly complied with. \ “The position is rightly viewed with disfavour by these responsible for drafting financial legislation, and also Jby those whose duty it is to carry it into effect. The position should not, however, be remedied by admitting or abrogating the regulative provisions in financial statutes without providing other measures to take their place; as the result of such onvssibn would be to weaken. if not to nullify, Parliamentary control of public finance. The remedy ‘ suggested is to provide for the detailed control of expenditure of each separate account by means of the annual appropriations (which are embodied in the annual Appropriation Act and thus giving sta tuory force) instead of by permanent detailed financial provisions in the Statutes themselves. If the system followed in other parts of the Empire were adopted and the functions of each separate account were regulated in the governing Act by comparatively broad statutory provisions, the details .of expenditure from each account being regulated by means of the annual-appro-priations, the necessity for detailed regulative provisions in the Statutes would to a huge extent be obviated, and the financial legislation would be much simplified, while at the same time the effective Parliamentary control over expenditure would not be in any way impaired, but, on the contrary, would be strengthened.”