with the aid of payroll data obtained from the Director of Accounting Services, the Secretary for the Civil Service has commenced a comprehensive programme of reviewing the justifications for the payment of all
job-related allowances. Attention has so far been concentrated mainly on shift duty allowance and extraneous duty allowance. Work has also started on reviewing
eligibility for obnoxious duty allowance throughout the whole service.
The Secretary for the Civil Service has stated that the review exercise is time-consuming since it involves job inspections by staff of the Civil Service Branch, but steady progress is being made. The Secretary has also stated that the work done so far has not revealed any further problems similar to those already commented upon by me and considered by the Public Accounts Committee in their Seventh Report, and that minor discrepancies, where identified, have been rectified immediately. The Secretary has further stated that broadly speaking, the allowance payments so far reviewed have been found to be properly authorized. The Secretary has commented that the review has driven home to controlling officers the need to reappraise allowance payments regularly and to justify all applications for new payments with the greatest care.
66.
The following action has been taken by the Director of Accounting Services:
revised procedures have been instituted for processing allowance payments through the Treasury payroll system. These will have the effect of requiring controlling officers to maintain more accurate records of allowances than hitherto and of strengthening and improving the system of internal control; and
The
a start has been made to review job-related allowances by three stages in order to ensure that officers currently in receipt of the allowances are indeed eligible for them. first stage covering officers in receipt of extraneous duty allowance commenced in March 1985 and the Director of Accounting Services has reported that no serious discrepancies were found. The second stage covering officers in receipt of hardship allowance commenced in August 1985. The third stage covering officers in receipt of other allowances is scheduled to commence in early 1986.