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52. It is recommended that a monthly omnibus schedule of applications for Special Warrants should be prepared, submitted to the Finance Committee at a meet- ing and when approved, one monthly Special Warrant should be issued.
53. Although the proposed procedure as illustrated on the attached chart shows a saving of 30% of the main operations, the detailed operations saved is twice this percentage. The full present and proposed procedure has been noted by the Organiza- tion and Methods Branch, and these will be explained to the officer of the Finance Branch responsible for the issue of Special Warrants.
Preparation of Annual Estimates.
54. It is recommended that the scales of pay now printed in the Estimates should be referred to by a code letter, with a key in the index. This would have the effect of reducing the bulk of the Estimates, make easier reading and reduce costs of preparation and printing.
EXCHANGE CONTROL.
Codification of Instructions.
55. The Assistant Financial Secretary in charge of exchange control has a com- plete knowledge of the regulations and directions governing the work of his section. The regulations, directions and instructions now operative should be codified to assist the work of a successor to or leave reserve for the present Assistant Financial Secretary.
Bank permits.
56. When foreign exchange is placed in a bank to the credit of an applicant in accordance with exchange control regulations, a permit is issued by the bank certify- ing the amount of the credit and sent to the Exchange Control with the application for imports or exports. The day following the issue of the permit, the bank confirms the issue by letter to the Exchange Control. It is understood that this confirmation was introduced at the request of the banks to assist the rapid tracing of forgeries, but although many thousands of permits were issued since the introduction of this pro- cedure, no case of forgery has been found.
57. The checking of confirmations against permits issued, creates work for the Exchange Control and this work and that of the banks in this connection, can be saved if the bank's endorsement on the application form included their permit number and any other information, to ensure rapid recognition of forgeries without the neces- sity of issuing and reference to letters of confirmation.
58. The banks should be consulted with the view to abolishing the confirmation of permits.
Recording.
59. The volume of recording is largely determined by regulations issued by the Bank of England and other authorities. The usefulness of records and reports should be constantly under review, and when it is considered that a form of report or record is no longer useful, or can be simplified, representation to the appropriate authority should be made.
The receipt ledger E.C. 7.
60. This ledger is used for recording receipt of applications for import licences. The ledger is ruled with 9 columns, but the only information required for the purpose of quick reference can be contained in the following columns:-
(1) Serial number
(2) Country of origin
(3) Name of firm
(4) Remarks