CO129-590-11 Commission of Enquiry into irregularities in Immigration Departments 22-4-1941 - 19-12-1941 — Page 339

Honourable Colonial Secretary,

I submit Mr. Pudney's comments and although I

was filling the post of Assistant Financial Secretary at the

time of these happenings I add the following remarks.

2.

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The Commission came to the conclusion that an

unhelpful attitude was shown towards Mr. Forrest by the Treasury

and the Secretariat, which latter includes the Financial Officers

of the Secretariat. Mr. Pudney has set out the case for the

Treasury and I support his contention that any refusal or un-

willingness to cooperate came primarily from Mr. Forrest who

was only willing to cooperate on his own terms. One of the most

important duties of the Financial Secretary is to satisfy himself

that the expenditure of public money, no matter whether on the

salaries of staff, on transport (launches in this case), on

uniforms or on anything else is justified. In order that the

Financial Secretary may be in a position so to satisfy himself

it is essential that the necessity for the expenditure be clearly

set out in the minute seeking authority to expend which is

submitted by the head of the department concerned. If, as was

sometimes the case in the minutes submitted by Mr. Forrest, the

Financial Secretary or Assistant Financial Secretary felt that

a case had not been made out for the proposed expenditure they

were surely justified in asking for further information or in

making alternative suggestions. This naturally caused some

delay, which was annoying to Mr. Forrest in the conditions under

which he was working but which to any other head of a department

would have been regarded as inevitable. In the stress and

strain of his work Mr. Forrest came to regard any form of

financial control as intolerable "cheeseparing" or anything

connected with finance as almost unworthy of his attention.

As an example of the latter I would mention that

sometime in November or December last, when I was preparing the

draft 1941-42 Estimates, I sent a minute to the Immigration

Officer requesting him to furnish me with a draft estimate of

the expenditure of his Department for 1941-42.

3.

One morning a