Eleventh report from the Select Committee on Estimates : together with the minutes of evidence taken before sub-committee E and appendices, session 1950-1951: regional hospital boards and hospital management committees.
- Great Britain. Parliament. House of Commons. Select Committee on Estimates
- Date:
- [1951]
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Eleventh report from the Select Committee on Estimates : together with the minutes of evidence taken before sub-committee E and appendices, session 1950-1951: regional hospital boards and hospital management committees. Source: Wellcome Collection.
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![15 February, 1951.] (Continued. scheme for expenditure sometime or other? —Yes, we call it a proposal. 690. That is approved as a proposal in general terms?—Yes. 691. Is not the approval an approval for expenditure within a given twelve months? —Yes, within the allocation which they give to us. 692. It covers a period of twelve months? —That is correct. 693. Your suggestion is that wherever you have a scheme under £10,000 approved for expenditure within that fiscal year and you are unable for any reason to expend your money, you would like to be able to withdraw from the cupboard, as you put it, an under £10,000 scheme which has been generally approved but not approved for payment within that year?—That is correct, in order to spend our capital allocation. 694. Irrespective of the fact, as you pointed out, Sir, whether the first scheme approved for payment during the year mainly related to materials such as bricks and the second scheme mainly related to materials such as copper or non-ferrous metals? —-We should select a scheme where the materials were available, or else we yet not be able to go on with that at all. Miss Ward. 695. How would you know that?—We Know generally with what we can proceed. Mr. Turton. 696. Might I just put this question? For these scarce materials do you have any other system of obtaining licences?—We ae to get a starting date from the Ministry itself. Mr. Diamond. 697. That is the very question to which I was coming. At what stage are you directly or indirectly, that is to say by the direct authority of the ‘Ministry of Works or indirectly by that authority being given through the Ministry of Health, made aware of the fact that a scheme is approved for the purpose of using all the materials contained in it?—Only when we get a starting date. 698. The starting date is given to you at the time approval is given to the year’s expenditure ?—No. 699. That is a further one. There are in fact three stages?—There are three hurdles. 700. When in your evidence you refer to the main difficulty being the delay in getting approval, you refer to the delay in getting a starting date for a scheme which has been approved in principle but neither approved for payment within that particular year nor for which a starting date has been given? — Yes. Mr. Turton. 701. You do not have to apply to the Ministry of Works or the Ministry of Supply for a licence to use scarce materials? —We do not go to either ‘Ministry at all. 702. The Ministry of Health twould have to do that?—Yes, we do not go to the Ministry of Works but to the Ministry of Health. 703. If you are then switching from an item in your proposals in order to bring it into your current year’s programme, how would you suggest that the application be made for the use of the scarce materials? — I have not even thought about it. 704. It does seem to be a difficulty in your plan?—I agree. What I want to put before the Sub-Committee is this, and this only: we get an allocation of capital which we are unable to expend during a year. It may be that one particular scheme or even two schemes are held up for some special reason, and then we cannot use that alloca- tion for some other scheme. That is what we want to be able to do. Chairman. 705. You want to do that for the purpose of being able to spend the full amount of capital, and not merely on the ground that it is very inconvenient to have schemes held up?—You can take it that all the schemes which are approved in principle are more or less urgent; I should say they are all urgent, but some are more urgent than others. 706. It is not simply a matter, although no doubt it ‘weighs with you, that a delay of a month or two is a bad thing?—No. 707. It is that you lose the whole of this amount, if it cannot be completed within the year?—-Yes. Not only do we lose it but we have to take it out of our next allocation of capital monies. 708. That is the same thing?—-Yes. Well, remember that the allocation for one year may not be any greater than the allocation for the preceding year, in which event we have got to take something which we had in for the preceding year out of the next ae whereas we did want to put something ClSe <i Mr. Diamond. 709. You would only lose it once?—I agree. Miss Ward. 710. When you are. discussing your schemes in order of priority before applying to the Ministry, is there a tendency to dis- cuss them from the point of view of whether you think it ‘will be possible to get approval having regard to the position of materials and so on or is that absolutely out of your mind?—That is out of our minds be- cause that is a matter which must be dealt](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b32182478_0101.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
