The Commonwealth parliament's Public Accounts Committee (PAC) was established
in 1913 and to the end of 1995 had produced 397 reports on government expenditure
and administration, with almost all its recommendations implemented by government.
However despite the Committee's prominence among the instruments parliament
has used to oversight the executive, not only does it lack clear legislative authority
for major areas of its activities but its specific purpose is not defined in its legislation.
Among other things the latter omission renders proper evaluation of the PAC's
effectiveness impossible, as objectives are a necessary prerequisite to assessment.
This thesis establishes the de facto purpose of the Committee by tracing the
development of standing public accounts committees generally, and by analysing
the PAC's work as shown by its output of tabled reports.
In that development, six evolutionary phases are identified:
the PAC's roots in the move to a parliamentary control of the administration of
government expenditure in Britain from the 1780s;
its genesis in the 1850s with the concept of the standing public accounts
committee, to be concerned with regularity and probity in government
expenditure;
its origins in the establishment of the British standing public accounts committee ,
in 1861, stressing high standards of government accounting, audit and reporting;
its establishment in the Commonwealth, concentrating on information on
departmental activities, efficient implementation of government programs and
provision of policy advice;
its re-establishment in 1951, stressing parliamentary control of government
financial administration; and
its operations from 1980, pressing for economic fundamentalist change in the
public sector.
Their output shows that in these phases the committees concerned displayed
characteristic standing public accounts committee activism and independence in
utilising the wording of their enabling documentation to adapt themselves to changes
in their environment by pursuing a corresponding different mix of one or more of
the following concurrent immediate aims:
ensuring adequate systems of government accounting, audit and reporting;
ensuring probity and regularity in departmental expenditure;
obtaining and disseminating information on departmental activities;
ensuring high standards of departmental administration and management;
providing policy advice to executive government; and
ensuring economic, efficient and effective government spending.
Together these attributes and practices have made the PAC a parliamentary instrument
of unequalled flexibility with a single continuing underlying aim - a purpose not
concerning the public accounts per se, but directed at achieving high standards of
management and administration in government by calling the Commonwealth's public
service to account for its expenditure and activities.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:ADTP/218622 |
| Date | January 1997 |
| Creators | Laver, John Poynton, n/a |
| Publisher | University of Canberra. Management |
| Source Sets | Australiasian Digital Theses Program |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Rights | ), Copyright John Poynton Laver |
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