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PAC often revisit issues in follow-up reports, although it has been recommended that the work of PAC would be enhanced further if more systematic follow-up inquiries were built into its programme (Brazier, 1999, p. 11).

The Audit Commission audits services implemented at local government level. Audit reports of non-central government bodies are not sent to parliamentary committees. However, where central government bodies are responsible for grant funding or contracting to bodies that are not audited by the C&AG, the PAC may still hold an AO to account for the department’s financial supervision of such bodies.

Duration of budget system law. Statute laws relating to the budget system are all permanent laws, unless there is a section specifying a time limitation. Major revisions to old laws often do not result in their entire repeal. Rather, the new law contains section(s) that state that “section x of the older law shall cease to have effect”. For example, the GRA Act 2000 – a major reform in government accounting arrangements – did not result in the entire repeal of the E&AD Act 1866, but only certain sections of it.

Notes

1.Conventions are understandings and traditions, including the royal prerogative (see footnote 5).

2.Most delegated legislation is in the form of “statutory instruments” (SIs) governed by the Statutory Instruments Act, 1946. Around 80% of SIs are adopted by Parliament on a lapse of time basis (the “negative procedure”) (Hansard, 2003). If Parliament does not object within 40 days, the SI has the force of law. Some SIs require formal parliamentary approval (those for which the primary act specifies the adoption of SIs by the “affirmative procedure”). See House of Commons (2003).

3.Command papers derive their name from the fact that they are presented to Parliament by a government minister “by command of Her Majesty”. Command papers include White Papers, which are statements of government policy.

4.Extra-legal means that its existence is not established in law. In many countries, constitutions require civil services, cabinets and ministries to be explicitly established in law.

5.Prerogative powers are the constitutional understandings derived from an earlier age when all executive power resided in the monarch. These are the powers unique to the executive that the courts recognise it possesses for the purposes of carrying out the business of government.

6.A full description can be found in the Annex 2.1 to Chapter 2 of Government Accounting, www.government-accounting.gov.uk/current/frames.htm, which is a guide on accounting and financial processes for the use of government departments for the proper handling and reporting of public money. The Treasury issues Government Accounting without reference to Cabinet.

7.Capital expenditures are not explicitly voted.

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8.This includes the Lord Chancellor, who plays three roles simultaneously: 1) a Cabinet member with departmental responsibilities; 2) the Speaker of the House of Lords; and 3) the head of the judiciary of England and Wales. As part of constitutional reforms aimed at clearer separation of executive, legislative and judicial powers, in 2003 the Prime Minister proposed that this 700-year-old position be abolished.

9.For a discussion of attempts to change the legal basis of the civil service, see chapter 3 of Daintith and Page, 1999.

10.The statutory instrument was an Order in Council in 1995. For an informal consolidation of the operative parts of all amendments since then, see www.civilservicecommissioners.gov.uk/documents/orderincounciloct2003.pdf.

11.Scottish legislation uses the term “accountability officer”, which is a more accurate description of AO roles.

12.Besides these committees, there are Joint Committees, Grand Committees, and Private Bill Committees. See www.parliament.uk/parliamentary_committees/ parliamentary_committees16.cfm.

13.In contrast, the Scottish Parliament has established a Finance Committee which may propose amendments to the budget proposals of the Scottish Executive. For example, for 2003/04, the eight amendments of the Finance Committee were incorporated in the Budget (Scotland) (No. 4) Bill – the appropriations act. See www.scottish.parliament.uk/S1/parl_bus/bills/b72s1ml.pdf.

14.To enhance select committees’ powers to amend budget proposals, it has been proposed that each select committee formally establish a permanent finance and audit sub-committee (Brazier, 1999, p. 12).

15.See www.scotland-legislation.hmso.gov.uk/legislation/scotland/acts2000/20000001.htm which, inter alia, establishes Audit Scotland (a corporate body) and the Scottish Audit Commission (for parliamentary oversight).

16. Budget day had traditionally been in early April. The government of 199397 changed the budget day and also, for the first time, presented a budget that unified revenues and expenditures, in early winter (November). The new government of 1998, however, reverted to the pre-1993 timing of a spring budget.

17.The government has discretion on how far into the future it makes long-term projections. In this regard, H.M. Treasury has published fiscal sustainability projections with a 50-year time horizon.

18.For example, it has published a guide to SDAs, available on the H.M. Treasury Internet site.

19.These include the Charity Commission, the Electoral Commission, the Forestry Commission, the Postal Service Commission, the Office of the Parliamentary Commissioner and the NHS Commissioner for England.

20.A party whip is an MP whose task is to ensure that members of the party attend and vote as the party leadership desires.

21.For example, the 1999 Procedure Committee of the House of Commons proposed that the House should be authorised to change budget proposals, at least within votes (House of Commons, 1999). Even this modest proposal was rejected by the government, on the grounds that “it would serve to undermine the financial initiative of the Crown” (House of Commons, 2000).

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22.Details of the Vote on Account are available on www.hm-treasury.gov.uk/media/ D8ABE/Voteonaccount_04to05.pdf.

23.The prohibition is based on two legal sources: 1) the prerogative of the House of Commons, and 2) the Parliament Acts of 1911 and 1949. The ancient “rights and privileges” of the House of Commons are based on a centuries-old resolution “that in all aids given to the King by the Commons, the rate of tax ought not to be altered by the Lords” (Daintith and Page, 1999).

24.Immediately following the budget speech, a single motion – an “amendment law resolution” – is adopted without debate. This provides an interim legal basis for the immediate application of the Chancellor’s announced tax changes. Other revenue resolutions relating to the budget speech must take effect within 10 sitting days, at which time the interim law amendment lapses. The main resolutions must be in turn be confirmed by the formal approval of the finance bill

– i.e. royal assent – by 5 August (for budgets delivered in March or April).

25.For customs duties, on the basis of the Import Duties Act 1958, the necessary authority is finally (not provisionally) given by a simple resolution of the House of Commons. Similarly, the Finance Act 1972 empowers the government to initiate value-added tax orders, with final effect.

26.Exceptions are made for government trading funds, which may spend surplus revenues on authority provided by other legislation. Any end-year surplus funds do not have to be deposited in the Consolidated Fund.

27.The number of estimates exceeds the number of departments, as a department may be responsible for more than one estimate. Also, reflecting their constitutional independence, the estimates for the House of Commons (Administration), the National Audit Office, and the Electoral Commission are by convention presented on the same day as the main estimates, but in separate publications.

28.This paragraph does not cover Scotland (whose local authorities’ borrowings are governed by the Local Government in Scotland Act 2003), nor Northern Ireland.

29.The Chief Secretary to the Treasury is a junior position in the United Kingdom Cabinet. The post was created in 1961, to share the burden of representing the Treasury with the Chancellor of the Exchequer.

30.The 1866 Act combined the functions of Comptroller (who had authorised the issue of public monies to departments) with those of the Commissioners of Audit (who presented government accounts to the Treasury).

31.The National Audit Act establishes a Public Accounts Commission, comprised of the Chairman of the PAC, the Leader in the House of Commons and seven backbench MPs. The Commission, which is distinct from the Public Accounts Committee, presents a report of its functions to the House of Commons. The Commission also appoints an Accounting Officer for preparing appropriation accounts for the NAO (usually the C&AG) and an auditor of the NAO.

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ISSN 1608-7143

OECD Journal on Budgeting – Volume 4 – No. 3 © OECD 2004

United States*

*This study has benefited from comments from: staff members of the Office of Management and Budget; Professor Allen Schick of the University of Maryland; and OECD colleagues including Thomas Laubach of the Economics Department.