§ Mr. JAMES PARKER (on behalf of Mr. William Thorne)asked the President of the Local Government Board whether he is aware that the Local Government Board auditor to the West Ham Union surcharged the clerk to the board of guardians 5s. for 10 sixpences given to 10 persons ordered by the several relief committees, acting under regulations ordered by the board of guardians in meeting assembled, and sanctioned by the Local Government Board itself, to appear before the house committee, and kept waiting there from 10 a.m. to as late as 2.30 p.m. without food; that the resolution to pay the 6d. for food to such persons was carried at a duly summoned meeting of the board where, by 4 and 5 Will., c. 76, s. 38. it is enacted that no guardian has any power to act in virtue of his office except as a member at a meeting of the board; and will he say where the auditor gets the power to override decisions of boards of guardians at board meeting assembled, and where the Local Government Board auditors get their right to interfere in cases of relief, as is done in this same Union, by telling the relieving officers they will be surcharged with the amount of relief ordered, when the Local Government Board have admitted that they have no power to interfere in individual cases of relief, as no Act of Parliament give the Board such power?
§ Mr. BURNSI am aware that the auditor disallowed the 5s. referred to. The guardians appear to have had no legal authority to direct the clerk to pay this sum, and hence the payment was illegal The auditor has, under the Poor Law Acts and the Orders made under them, full power to disallow payments not authorised by law, and it was in exercise of this power that the disallowance was made. I do not know under what circumstances the statements attributed to the auditors in the last part of the question were made, but I presume that they consisted of a warning to the relieving officers that they would be liable to be surcharged with the amount of any relief given by them, if it was illegal. This would be the case. The Local Government Board are precluded by the proviso to section 15 of the Poor Law Amendment Act from interfering in any individual case "for the purpose of order- 1009 ing relief," but the present matter does not seem to be affected by this enactment.