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Controlling Officers
70
As Controlling
Officers
are personally responsible for the public funds entrusted to them by the Legislature, they will, if
So desires, attend the hearings and answer queries from the committee.
the committee
71
A Controlling Officer may be accompanied, if he so wishes, by up to two members of his staff to assist him with details but the responsibility for the evidence given will rest with him alone. He will have no notice of the questions to be asked but he should prepare himself beforehand by studying the relevant comments in the Director's report copied to him by the Director before the hearing.
The hearings
72
The hearings are held in public in the
Chamber. The examination
Legislative
Council
of
Controlling Officers and others will proceed by questioning, led by the Chairman and followed by other members. In some cases, the Chairman may, at his discretion, allow the oral evidence to be supplemented by a written memorandum. The Chairman may ask the Director of Audit, the Deputy Financial Secretary or the Director of Accounting Services if they have any further comments. Any witness who wishes to add to his evidence following such comments is allowed to do so.
73
The main aim of the committee in conducting its hearings is to establish the circumstances surrounding the matters reported on by the Director and to recommend remedial measures. The committee's primary concern is not with details but with the principles and systems. It is not a commission of enquiry set up to judge and discipline individual officers although it may enquire what remedial measures have been or will be adopted, and whether any disciplinary action has been or will be taken.
The committee's report
74
When the hearings are completed, the committee's report is compiled and then tabled at the Legislative Council in January; a copy of the report is forwarded to the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs.