Section 2

The Accounting Officer is personally responsible for the regularity of all payments authorised by his department or office; that is to say he is responsible for seeing that all payments made have behind them authority which can, if required, be referred to in their justification. Although this responsibility is an important one, in any well-organised department or office unauthorised and irregular payments should be rare. A more important responsibility of the Accounting Officer is to ensure 6 Finance and Audit (Reform) that the functions of the department or office under his control are exercised on the most economical lines. This means that it is his duty to ensure that the activities of his department or office within the ambit of approved policy are carried out without waste, the monies voted to it being utilised in the best possible way. It is part of the functions of the Public Accounts Committee to draw attention to the existence of wasteful expenditure where it finds it, and the Accounting Officer must be prepared to defend himself on such charges when he appears before the Committee.