Sixth report from the Select Committee on Estimates : together with the minutes of evidence taken before sub-committee D and appendices, session 1956-1957: Running costs of hospitals.
- Great Britain. Parliament. House of Commons. Select Committee on Estimates
- Date:
- [1957]
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Sixth report from the Select Committee on Estimates : together with the minutes of evidence taken before sub-committee D and appendices, session 1956-1957: Running costs of hospitals. Source: Wellcome Collection.
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![and not upon their representative func- tion, if I may put it that way: not because they are members of this, that or the other, or have been proposed by this, that or the other body. But I would suggest that in some cases the Minister may well decide to choose and appoint A rather than B becuase of A’s financial ability through his experience in business or financial management. 89. Was that all, in fact, you meant when you replied to an earlier question that you knew of one or two cases that had been made? That is what I was thinking of. Mr. Holt.] So that you did not mean to imply that such a person was put on a Board by the Minister with the idea of carrying out an economy drive on the Board? Chairman. 90. I think we are going a little far from the Memorandum. I think it 1s quite clearly understood that the idea is to have a balanced form of committee, and in your view that is being achieved? ——Yes. Vice-Admiral Hughes Hallett. 91. One question about which I am a little confused: who is what I would call the accounting officer at each level of this—who actually has the financial responsibility to see that the money is spent? (Mr. Marre.) That is the Board’s or Committee’s responsibility. 92. But you have got to have an indi- vidual responsible for a thing like that, have you not?——They have, of course, a staff working subject to their directions. They have a secretary, a senior adminis- trative medical officer, and a treasurer —JI am talking of the Regional Hospital Boards at the moment. Chairman. 93. They are whole-time people? Whole-time officers, yes. Mrs. Hill. 94. There is usually a finance officer, and deputy finance officer on Regional Boards, and Hospital Management Com- mittees have a finance officer as one of their officers, generally speaking? Generally speaking, that is so. Some- times the duties of finance officers are combined with those of the secretary. Chairman. 95. Are the auditors independent firms or Ministry auditors? The auditors are appointed by the Minister; they are officers of the Ministry, civil servants. 96. Who are continually going round doing that work ?———-That is so. 97. Are they connected in any way with the Comptroller and Auditor General?——_No, they are quite a separate audit service whose function is solely to undertake the audit of the accounts of hospital authorities and other National Health Service bodies. When I said they had no connection, that perhaps was going a bit too far. All their reports are made available to the Comptroller and Auditor-General and the Comptroller and Auditor-General can in addition. and does sometimes, undertake local test examinations of his own. 98. Are their auditors mainly to check the correctness of the book- keeping and finance, or are they advisory in their function as well, and critical? The audits are as much concerned with waste and extravagance as with the accuracy of the figures. 99. To whom do the criticisms go? ———Those criticisms are submitted in a report to the Minister. The Minister then sends a copy of the report, if it is a non-teaching hospital, to the Hospital Management Committee, and to the Regional Hospital Board whose function it is to follow up a criticism with the Committee. 100. Is it exceptional or usual for every auditor’s report to contain a good many items of constructive criticism? It varies enormously. There will be some reports which have no criticism of any kind. There will be reports which have one or two criticisms, which may be quite minor or may be major. At the other extreme you get a report which contains quite a. large number of criticisms. 101. You have not quite answered my question. Do you normally expect in a report to find criticism, or do you normally expect to find no criticism: is it exceptional for there to be many criticisms ? (Mr. Hunt.) I would not say it would be exceptional to find con- structive criticism in an auditor’s report. I think possibly in rather less than half of the auditors’ reports received there](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b32182466_0040.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
