Public Accounts Committee (United Kingdom)

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The Committee of Public Accounts is a select committee of the British House of Commons. It is responsible for overseeing government expenditures, and to ensure they are effective and honest. The committee is seen as a crucial mechanism for ensuring transparency and accountability in government financial operations, having been described by Professor Peter Hennessy as "the queen of the select committees...[which] by its very existence exert[s] a cleansing effect in all government departments."[citation needed]

Overview[edit]

The recommendation for the creation of a committee to oversee government accounts was first put forward in 1857 by a small group of interested Members of Parliament led by Sir Francis Baring. The structure and function of the PAC date back to reforms initiated by William Ewart Gladstone, when he was British Chancellor of the Exchequer in the 1860s. The first Public Accounts Committee was established in 1861 by a resolution of the British House of Commons:

There shall be a standing committee designated "The Committee of Public Accounts"; for the examination of the Accounts showing the appropriation of sums granted by Parliament to meet the Public Expenditure, to consist of nine members, who shall be nominated at the commencement of every Session, and of whom five shall be a quorum. 31 March 1862.

The form has since been replicated in virtually all Commonwealth of Nations and many non-Commonwealth countries. A minister from Her Majesty's Treasury sits on the committee but, by convention, does not attend hearings. The Chair of the committee is always drawn from the main opposition party and is usually a former senior Minister.

The Exchequer and Audit Departments Act 1866 appointed The Committee of Public Accounts to oversee the work of the Comptroller and Auditor General (C&AG) [1] The Committee continues to be assisted by the C&AG who is a permanent witness at its hearings, along with his staff of the National Audit Office, who provide briefings on each report and assist in the preparation of the Committee's own reports.

Notable failures highlighted by the Public Accounts Committee[edit]

The Public Accounts Committee has criticised the expenditure on numerous government projects over the years, such as:

  • the NHS National Programme for IT, which was described as one of the worst fiascos ever in the history of public sector contracts.[2]
  • the decommissioning of the Sellafield nuclear reprocessing site, noting the cost of decommissioning had now reached 67.5 billion, and there was "no indication of when that cost will stop rising".[3][4]

Membership[edit]

The Committee's members for the 2015 session of Parliament are as follows, but has since changed to http://www.parliament.uk/business/committees/committees-a-z/commons-select/public-accounts-committee/membership/ :

Member Party Constituency
Meg Hillier MP (Chair) Labour Co-op Hackney South and Shoreditch
Richard Bacon MP Conservative South Norfolk
Charlie Elphicke MP Conservative Dover
Deidre Brock MP Scottish Nationalist Edinburgh North and Leith
Christopher Evans MP Labour Co-op Islwyn
Caroline Flint MP Labour Don Valley
Stewart Jackson MP Conservative Peterborough
Kevin Foster MP Conservative Torbay
Nigel Mills MP Conservative Amber Valley
Kwasi Kwarteng MP Conservative Spelthorne
Anne Marie Morris QC MP Conservative Newton Abbot
Anne-Marie Trevelyan MP Conservative Berwick-upon-Tweed
John Pugh MP Liberal Democrat Southport
Karin Smyth MP Labour Bristol South
Bridget Phillipson MP Labour Houghton and Sunderland South

Source: Public Accounts Committee

Changes[edit]

Occasionally, the House of Commons orders changes to be made in terms of membership of select committees, as proposed by the Committee of Selection. Such changes are shown below.

Date Outgoing Member
& Party
Constituency New Member
& Party
Constituency Source
2 November 2010 Eric Joyce MP (Labour) Falkirk Dr Stella Creasy MP (Labour Co-op) Walthamstow Hansard
24 October 2011 Dr Stella Creasy MP (Labour Co-op) Walthamstow Meg Hillier MP (Labour Co-op) Hackney South and Shoreditch Hansard
Rt Hon Anne McGuire MP (Labour) Stirling Fiona Mactaggart MP (Labour) Slough
31 October 2011 Justine Greening MP (Conservative) Putney Chloe Smith MP (Conservative) Norwich North Hansard
27 February 2012 Jo Johnson MP (Conservative) Orpington Stewart Jackson MP (Conservative) Peterborough Hansard
12 November 2012 Matthew Hancock MP (Conservative West Suffolk Guto Bebb MP (Conservative Aberconwy Hansard
James Wharton MP (Conservative) Stockton South Justin Tomlinson MP (Conservative) North Swindon

Chairmen of the Public Accounts Committee (1861present)[edit]

House of Commons standing orders give the opposition party the right to chair the committee[5]

Year Chairman Party
186163 Sir Francis Tornhill Baring Liberal
18641866 Rt Hon Edward Pleydell-Bouverie Liberal
1866 Mr George Sclater-Booth Conservative
186768 Mr Hugh C E Childers Liberal
1869 Mr William Pollard-Urquhart Liberal
187071 Rt Hon George Ward Hunt Conservative
187273 Mr George Sclater-Booth Conservative
187476 Rt Hon John George Dodson Liberal
18771880 Lord Frederick Cavendish Liberal
188485 Sir Henry Holland Conservative
1886 Sir John Eldon Gorst Conservative
188788 Sir John Lubbock Liberal Unionist
188992 Sir Ughtred Kay-Shuttleworth Liberal
1893 Mr Edmond Wodehouse Liberal Unionist
189495 Sir Richard Temple Conservative
18961900 Mr Arthur O'Connor Irish National
190105 Rt Hon Sir Arthur Hayter Liberal
190608 Rt Hon Victor Christian William Cavendish Liberal Unionist
190818 Col Robert Williams Unionist
191920 Rt Hon Sir Francis Dyke Acland Liberal
192122 Mr Aneurin Williams Liberal
1923 Mr Frederick William Jowett JP Labour
1924 Lt Col Rt Hon Walter Edward Guinness Conservative
192429 Rt Hon Willian Graham JP Labour
192931 Mr Arthur Michael Samuel Conservative
193138 Mr Morgan Jones Labour
193841 Rt Hon Frederick William Pethick-Lawrence Labour
194143 Lt Col Rt Hon Walter Elliot Unionist
194345 Lt Col Sir Assheton Pownall OBE TD Unionist
194648 Rt Hon Osbert Peake Conservative
194850 Rt Hon Ralph Assheton Conservative
195051 Sir Ronald Cross and Rt Hon Charles Waterhouse Conservative
195152 Mr John Edwards Labour
195259 Sir George Benson Labour
195963 Rt Hon Harold Wilson Labour
196364 Rt Hon A.L.N. Douglas Houghton Labour
196470 Rt Hon John Boyd-Carpenter Conservative
197073 Rt Hon Harold Lever Labour
197273 Rt Hon Edmund Dell (Acting chair during Harold Lever's illness) Labour
197479 Rt Hon Edward DuCann Conservative
197983 Rt Hon Joel Barnett Labour
198397 Rt Hon Robert Sheldon Labour
19972001 Rt Hon David Davis Conservative
200110 Mr Edward Leigh Conservative
201015 Rt Hon Dame Margaret Hodge Labour
2015- Ms Meg Hillier Labour

See also[edit]

References[edit]

  1. ^ National Audit Office History of the National Audit Office, Accessed 25 September 2012
  2. ^ "NHS IT system one of 'worst fiascos ever', say MPs". BBC News. 18 September 2013. Retrieved 29 September 2013. 
  3. ^ "Sellafield clean-up cost reaches 67.5bn, says report". BBC. 4 February 2013. Retrieved 19 February 2013. 
  4. ^ "UK lawmakers criticise management of Sellafield nuclear site". Reuters. 11 February 2014. Retrieved 12 February 2014. 
  5. ^ Standing Order 122B(8(f)) https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201516/cmstords/0002/so-2.pdf

Further reading[edit]

  • David McGee, The Overseers Public Accounts Committees and Public Spending, Pluto Press, London 2002.
  • Stapenhurst, Rick; Sahgal, Vinod; Woodley, William; Pelizzo, Riccardo; World Bank, 1 May 2005, Policy Research Working Paper WPS3613, Scrutinizing public expenditures: assessing the performance of public accounts committees
  • Pelizzo, Riccardo, Stapenhurst, Rick, Saghal, Vinod and William Woodley, What Makes Public Accounts Committees Work?, Politics and Policy, vol. 34, n. 4, December 2006. pp. 774793.
  • Riccardo Pelizzo and Rick Stapenhurst, Strengthening Public Accounts Committees by Targeting Regional and Country Specific Weaknesses, in Anwar Shah (ed.), Performance Accountability and Combating Corruption, Washington DC, The World Bank, 2007, pp. 379393.
  • Jacobs, K. 1997. A reforming accountability, International Journal of Health Planning and Management 12: 16985.
  • Jacobs, K.1998. Value for money auditing in New Zealand: competing for control in the public sector, British Accounting Review 30: 343360
  • Jones, C. 1987. The Origins of the Victorian Parliamentary Public Accounts Committee, MA, University of Melbourne.

External links[edit]