H.—34

72

fund or account, before countersigning debentures or scrip. We need not detail further the duties of the Controller in connection with the issue, renewal, redemption, or conversion of debenture loans, or the creation and issue of inscribed stock. Audit. The powers and duties of the Controller and Auditor-General as to the audit of revenue and expenditure are set forth in the Public Revenues Act, 1910, Parts II and IX. The method adopted as regards revenue is, briefly, that the Audit Office receives daily from the Bank of New Zealand, Wellington, a summary of the operations on, and balances of, all the various Government accounts. Receivers of public moneys throughout the Dominion send weekly statements to the Treasury, from wdiich a Revenue Account is compiled and sent to the Audit Office accompanied by the various Receivers' accounts. These accounts are all examined and the allocations of revenue checked. Separate staffs are intrusted with the duties of auditing the revenue of the Railways and Customs Departments, and land, gold, and stamp revenues are each the care of individual officers. In the audit of expenditure both the pre-audit and post-audit systems, to which we shall refer again later, are in operation. Pre-audit is applied to payments on the Civil List, interest, civil and military pensions, subsidies to local authorities, purchase of estates, salaries (including Railway Head Office), permanent charges, and all expenditure out of separate accounts. Post-audit is applied to all payments out of departmental appropriations, Imprest Accounts, Old-age Pensions, Post and Telegraph expenditure, and Railway wages and salaries outside of Head Office. As regards the trading Departments, the accounts of the State-guaranteed Advances, Government Life Insurance, State Fire Office, and Superannuation Fund are pre-audited, while those of the Public Trust Office, the imprest moneys of the Life Insurance, and administration expenses of the Fire Insurance Offices are post-audited. Vouchers for pre-audit are forwarded to the Audit Office by the several Departments, and on being found correct are sent on to the Treasury to be entered on requisitions for payment. Vouchers for post-audit are forwarded to the Audit Office by the Treasury daily with a schedule thereof. These are distributed amongst the officers known as Examiners, and after examination are returned to the Treasury for filing or further action as may be necessary. The only account-books kept in the Audit Department are such as are necessary for the purpose of checking and examining the Public Accounts, such as records of all contracts entered into, checking computations of compensation, pensions, and superannuation under various Acts. Salaries are checked by a system of cards, with a card for every officer in the Service. In addition to the audit of the accounts of the various Departments, the Audit Office is responsible for checking all mortgages, deeds, and debenture securities of the State-guaranteed Advances Office, and is joint custodian of the securities of the Public Trust Office. No public security of any kind can be withdrawn except in the presence of an Audit Officer. The work devolving upon the Audit Inspectors is very heavy, including not only the assistance of the Head Office in connection with over fifteen hundred Government office accounts, but also the audit of the accounts of about seventeen hundred local authorities, such as municipalities, counties, Road Boards, Harbour Boards, Fire Boards, and Education Boards. The carrying-out of all this very responsible and heavy volume of work appears to us to be done with as great care and completeness as is possible wdth the staff at the disposal of the Controller and Auditor-General, and the Controller himself has a grip of the whole of the Public Accounts which, so far as our observation goes, is not possessed by any other Government officer. At the same time, from information and complaints received in various directions, as to infrequent inspections and incomplete work, we are satisfied that the staff of the Department should be strengthened and enlarged. In one district office