Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

collate and compare, and must take the responsibility for the decision. Practically, on professional points, the First Sea Lord is the chief adviser of the parliamentary head of the Board. It would certainly be desirable that the First Lord should combine with his parliamentary qualifications the naval knowledge of a sea-officer; but such a combination will rarely, if ever, be found. Under no circumstances Another would it be possible for the same individual to discharge efficiently ment. the parliamentary duties of a member of the House of Commons and to undertake the exacting administrative responsibilities of the First Sea Lord of the Admiralty.

arrange

formation

Parlia

son's pro

should be

While retaining the present organisation, it seems desirable to More ingive more ample information to Parliament, and to mark more should be definitely than heretofore the personal responsibility of the profes- given to sional advisers of the First Lord. With these objects in view, an ment. excellent suggestion has been put forward by Sir Spencer Robinson. Sir SpenThe business of the Admiralty divides itself broadly under three cer Robinheads:-Manning, under the First Sea Lord, Ships, under the Con- posal. troller, and Finance, under the Financial Secretary. As a foundation for the preparation of the Estimates, each of these high officers should prepare a Report. "These Reports should be in the first instance Routine of addressed to the First Lord. They should be discussed with him, reports. they should be amended, if cause were shown; but if the Head of the Department and the First Lord could not agree on such a Report as the one could sign and the other allow to be published, the subordinate must resign and the reasons for the resignation must be made public. "With these Reports before him, and guiding him, the First Lord Reports should draw up his own, dwelling on such parts of his parliamentary presented and political management as he thought fit. The Reports would form to Parliaa volume, to be presented to Parliament with the Navy Estimates, to which they would form a comprehensive and satisfactory key." Exception was taken by Lord Charles Beresford to the rule laid down by Lord George Hamilton that no member of the Board was to write a paper on any question outside his Department, and circulate it, until it had been submitted to the First Lord. The rule was designed, as Lord George Hamilton stated to the Committee of the House of Commons, to concentrate individual responsibility on the duties assigned to individuals. Whatever be the rule as to an official circulation of papers, it would be impossible to deny to men in a high position in a public department the right to put their views on any subject before their colleagues. When the compiler was summoned to the Admiralty the substance of several chapters which had been prepared for his work on "The British Navy" was put into print

ment.

Lord

Charles

Beresford

took ex

ception to the rule.

Admiraity staff.

and sent round to his colleagues and to the professional officers. The printed memoranda were not official, and no official action was called for, but the compiler had no reason to be disappointed with the practical results.

Passing from the Board to the great administrative machine worked under their directions, an additional infusion of the naval element, such as Sir Geoffrey Hornby has urged, might not only effect an economy in salaries but give increased efficiency at the Admiralty. Of the aggregate expenditure for salaries, £31,000 go to naval officers and £181,000 to civilians. Reforms can only be effected gradually. The officers on the active list in employment at the Admiralty must of necessity be few in number. A long service at Whitehall would not be favourable to efficiency at sea, especially in those duties which Frequent belong to the junior ranks of the Navy. Constant changes in the Admiralty staff would be highly inconvenient. Some addition to the naval element from the active list might be made on the lines sugStaff offi- gested by Sir Anthony Hoskins, by the appointment to the Naval Intelligence Branch of officers who should act as staff-officers to each of the Naval Lords, and who, when any changes were made at the Board, could give to the new comers the benefit of their knowledge. Such officers would be "the hand and the eye of the Naval Lords." They would assist them in keeping up the communication with the service, which, in consequence of their onerous duties in office, is very defective at present.

changes

undesirable.

cers to

Naval
Lords.

ACCOUNTS.

Financial control.

Mr. Forwood's explanation.

In the system of financial control at the Admiralty considerable changes have recently been made. In relation to shipbuilding the aim has been:

I. To strengthen the responsibility of the professional officers for the cost of the work executed under their directions.

II. To supply information more promptly as to the cost of work in progress.

The reasons for establishing a new officer and an independent staff for the purpose of dealing with the expenditure in the dockyards were ably explained by Mr. Forwood in his evidence before the Committee of the House of Commons on Navy Estimates. In reply to questions put by the Chairman as to the circumstances under which the transfer of the Expense Accounts had taken place, Mr. Forwood stated that, "During the year 1886, the question arose as to an

accounts.

alteration being made in the system of the preparation, compilation, and keeping of the Expense Accounts at the different dockyards. The Expense Accounts are the details indicating the quantity of Expense material and value of labour, incident to the building and repairing of ships, and incident to the maintenance of the Naval Dockyard Establishments, and to the various naval services. These accounts had been kept up to a certain time under the Controller of the Navy. They were some years since transferred to the Accountant-General. The different Controllers of the Admiralty, and the different constructive officers at the Dockyards had not found that these accounts were of value to them in regard to keeping a check over the expenditure, and keeping the expenditure within the authorised Estimates. In fact they were always months behind the work, and if a constructive officer wished to see how much material he had worked into a given ship, up to say a previous month or a previous week, so as to be sure that he was not exceeding his estimates, the Expense Accounts as then kept did not afford that information. Therefore Duplicate the constructive officers were forced into keeping a duplicate set of set of books themselves, and separate clerical staffs. They actually got writers into their different offices in order to post up the amount of labour and the approximate quantity of materials that they had worked up in the ships, because these Expense Accounts, which ought to have furnished the information, were so much in arrear and were not prepared in a technical or professional way, so that they were thus of very little value to them.

accounts.

why these

accounts

were in

arrears.

Mr. Forwood proceeded to explain the reason of the Navy Expense Reason Accounts being in arrear. They are, he said, of so technical a nature that to be of any value they can really only properly be compiled under the supervision of a man who is himself accustomed to shipbuilding. An ordinary book-keeper sent down to keep the cost accounts of the building of a ship would be quite at fault. Men are required who are familiar with the technical details connected with the building or repair of ships.

Under the new system of accounts the constructive officers supply New the Expense Account Officer with details, and inform him under system. what headings they wish the construction of a ship to be kept. Then, as regards the labour, while the overseers and foremen are furnished with a list of the men under their responsibility, time-keepers, or as they are technically called at the dockyards, recorders, have been established. These recorders are perfectly independent of the execu- Recorders tive or constructive officers. The duty of the recorders is to visit of work. during the morning and during the afternoon each of the works going

Advantages of new system.

Checks.

Unauthorised accounts unne

cessary.

on at the dockyard, to take down the names of the men they find employed, to mark down in the diary the time that a man has been employed in his work, and to take these accounts to the expense account branch, where the labour is distributed over the several items on which the men have been engaged. So that we get by this system, a quadruple investigation: that the men are at work, that the men are on authorised work, that not only do they enter the yard and leave the yard morning and afternoon, but that twice in the day they are with hammer and chisel at their work, and not away from it. The system has another advantage. It produces an independent record, kept in an independent office, of the wages earned at each yard in the week, so that the Accountant-General, whose officer is in charge of the muster-books, and who pays the wages, can get, and does get from the Expense Account before he pays the wages, a check that the men have been found at their occupation, and that the amount of wages which they have earned in the different occupations tallies with the amount that they ought to earn by the record of their entries into the yard, as shown on the muster-book which is under the Accountant General's charge. The accounts have now been transferred to the Controller, and thereby to the Executive Officers of the yard, who are recognised at the yard as all-powerful and as really the controllers of the yard. The accounts are kept now in such a form that the necessity has ceased for the professional officers to prepare those extra unauthorised accounts, which were very costly; and the professional officers, within one week of the employment of a man on a ship and within one week of the building in of a ton of iron into a ship, know to a penny what was expended on that ship for labour and material, and further, by what department it was expended, so that they maintain perfect touch with the work as it goes along.

The work of the new branch was still further explained by Mr. Miller, who has been appointed to take charge of the Expense Accouuts. He showed in detail the check which would be secured on the cost of labour by the employment of a staff of recorders or time-keepers, and the mode of collecting the data for bringing into account the materials worked into ships.

Accountants and book-keepers can render valuable aid in the cause of good administration. But the skill in the use of materials, the energy in the direction and supervision of labour on which the cost and the quality of work depend, must be supplied, and can only be supplied, by the technical and professional men. In dealing with the huge manufacturing establishments conducted by Government this obvious truth is sometimes imperfectly appreciated. The office

ant's office

of the accountant is magnified, while that of the constructor is Accountviewed as subordinate. In the private trade the manufacturer or the magnified; contractor, who is stimulated by the strongest motives of personal construcinterest to cheapen and hasten production, will look, not to the preciated. accountants in the office, but to those whom he places in charge of Contracthe work out of doors, for the effective administration of a great tors' pracindustrial concern. In a great degree it is the same in the dockyards, tice. the vouchers for the withdrawal of materials from stock, and the Vouchers prices at which they are charged in the rate-book, are entirely under rate-book prices. the control of the professional officers. The duty of Mr. Miller and his subordinates is to draw attention to any excess, or probability of excess, over estimates. In this way the superior officers in the department of construction are enabled to exercise an effective control over expenditure.

son of

actual with

store

In this connection, it may not be superfluous to remark that a Insufficiency of mere comparison of actual and estimated cost will not afford con- compariclusive proof that a ship has been built economically. If such a test were accepted as sufficient the tendency would be irresistible to estimated begin with high estimates. The professional officer in a dockyard ture. expendihas not the same inducement to cut down figures which operates in the case of contractors sending in competitive tenders. The necessary check on dockyard estimates, both for building and repairs, is supplied by the supervision exercised by Mr. Elgar, the Director of Dockyards. The transfer from the Accountant-General of the Navy to the Audit of Comptroller and Auditor-General of the audit of Store Accounts has been approved by the Director of Victualling and other principal officers examined by the House of Commons Committee. They feel that a higher degree of responsibility rests upon them than before; while the audit of a great department outside the Admiralty is more efficacious as a check than the audit of an officer, however highly placed, belonging to their own department. On this point the Committee of the House of Commons express concurrence with the Report of Messrs. Waterhouse and Mills, addressed to Mr. W. H. Smith. They consider that, with an efficient outside audit by the Controller-General, any departmental audit will become superfluous.

accounts.

INTELLIGENCE BRANCH.

From Finance we pass to the Intelligence Branch of the Admiralty. An excellent summary was lately published in the columns of the Army and Navy Gazette, showing the valuable results achieved in a

« AnteriorContinuar »