THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUERpresented a Bill to consolidate the duties of the Exchequer and Audit Departments, to regulate the receipt, custody, and issue of public monies, and to provide for the audit of the accounts thereof. He said, the course he proposed to take with regard to the Bill was to introduce it that night, and in consideration of its importance to allow a fortnight to elapse before he moved the second reading. He should next propose to refer it to the Select Committee on Public Accounts; and, as it was a Bill almost entirely relating to public accounts, it would receive a more impartial, authoritative, and searching examination before that Committee than it would in any other way. The object of the Bill was, first of all, to consolidate the departments of Exchequer and Audit, while the personal functions of the Controller of the Exchequer would not be interfered with. The next object of the Bill was to apply to what was called the Exchequer check the principles of modifications recommended by the very important Committee on Public Monies which sat some years ago, so as to preserve 276 the constitutional form of the Exchequer check, but to introduce harmony into all proceedings subsequent to that operation so as to get rid of a great deal of unnecessary and expensive book-keeping now carried on. The third and most important object was this. During the discussion which arose last year out of Mr. Edmunds' case, it became known to Parliament much more fully than had formerly been the case, that there were many branches of public receipt and expenditure that were not subjected to audit, and that the whole system of audit was in a most unsatisfactory state. Some of the expenditure was audited by the Audit Board, which was quite right; some of it by the Treasury, which was quite wrong, for the Treasury was a department for controlling, and not auditing, the expenditure; and, lastly, a good deal of it was not audited at all. The Government proposed to substitute for that threefold irregular and anomalous method of proceeding an uniform method, by which the whole of the expenditure should be audited by the proper department appointed for the purpose—namely, the Audit Board. The appropriation audit would therefore be carried throughout the whole of the public expenditure.
§ MR. BOUVERIEsaid, that the system of audit had hitherto not been satisfactory. The ancient system had become obsolete, and lately had, in fact, been no check at all. Under these circumstances, he believed that the Bill now introduced would effect a very great improvement.
§ Motion agreed to.
§ Bill to consolidate the duties of the Exchequer and Audit Departments, to regulate the receipt, custody, and issue of Public Monies, and to provide for the audit of the accounts thereof, ordered to be brought in by Mr. CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER and Mr. CHILDERS.
§ Bill presented, and read the first time. [Bill 3.]