DEPARTMENTAL ACCOUNTS.

Taranaki Daily News, 21 August 1922, Page 5

DEPARTMENTAL ACCOUNTS.

(To the Editor.) Sir,—There is a very interesting little note tn the Budget, which everyone concerned for the financial welfare of the country and for the clarity and accuracy of its account keepI ing will welcome. "I stated last year," the Prime Minister says, “that the preparation of | Departmental accounts in such a form as to > express their operations on a commercial basis was well in hand, and a number of complete balance sheets were duly laid before Parliament. Further progress has been made and the accounts to be presented this season will, with few exceptions, cover all activities of the State. The importance and value of balance sheets, setting out on commercial lines the activities of every branch of the Government service, have been reported to tne from -many quarters and the reform effected in thus requiring each Department to disclose the results of its administration in this manner must be of lasting effect, both in the interests of economy as well ns organisation.” This is admirable—so far as it goes. But the financial year closed on March 31 and this is August 17. Surely four months and a half are not required by the Departments for the production of balance sheets which any business firm would have produced in a week at most. Unless the account keeping has been vastly improved, of course the balance sheets must he a very tedious process, but surely after two years’ notice the Departments are' not continuing their old laborious and insecure methods. Someone in authority will have seen to that. The balance sheets certainly should have been available to members of Parliament before they were asked to discuss the Budget. Without them they will remain as much in the dark in regard to many items of expenditure as they have been in the past. It will be time enough to express an opinion as to the value of the balance sheets when we see them, and it is in no carping spirit I say that most of those issued last year served very poorly the purposes for which Mr. Massey intended them. However, one may hope for better results this year, and it is not premature to congratulate the Prime Minister upon the reform he is striving to institute. It will not be the last of the signal services he has rendered to the country.—l am, etc., G.H. Wellington, August 17.