The equivalent average amounts per pound of assessable value and per head of estimated population were as follows :

Grant under the Tithe Rentcharge (Rates) Act, 1899.

Sums appropriated under the Tithe Rentcharge (Rates) Act, 1899, out of the Estate Duty Grant, and paid by the Commissioners of Inland Revenue under the provisions of that Act in respect of a moiety of certain rates otherwise payable by beneficed owners of tithe rentcharges, are not included in any of the foregoing totals. The amount so appropriated for the year 1921-22, viz., £477,976, together with the corresponding amounts for earlier years is, however, set out in column 12 on page 151.

The foregoing entries on pages 66 to 70 are restricted to sums distributed, through the Local Taxation Account and otherwise, in respect of the revenues assigned to Local Authorities by the Local Government Act, 1888, and the other Acts there mentioned. The entries do not include any grants borne on annual votes of Parliament.

Simplification of Statistical Returns.

The simplification and shortening of the forms in which Local Authorities furnish the statistics required from them under the provisions of the Local Taxation Returns Acts, 1860 and 1877, and similar provisions in other Acts, which, as mentioned in last year's Report, was proceeding with the assistance of an Advisory Committee on which Local Authorities are represented, has been advanced a further step by bringing the forms prescribed for Councils of NonCounty Boroughs and other Urban Districts into line with those. already prescribed for County Councils, County Borough Councils, and Metropolitan Borough Councils.

Throughout the process of simplification, not only have the requirements of the Government been met, but the desirability of interesting ratepayers in the finance of their Local Authorities has been kept in mind; and it is hoped that it may become the practice for each Council to publish, for the information of the ratepayers in its area, the return, contained in a few pages, which it now has to furnish to the Department.

The return is, in each case, an epitome of the Council's accounts, setting out all the income and expenditure of the Council, and showing, as concisely as possible, for each of the principal services administered by the Council:

(i) the total gross annual expenditure (distinguishing loan charges); (ii) how much of the gross expenditure is borne by Government grants, local income from sources other than rates, and rates, respectively;

(iii) the net annual cost to the rates, expressed in terms of a rate in the pound; and

(iv) the capital receipts and expenditure (distinguishing receipts from loans), with the gross amount of the outstanding loan debt and the amount standing to the credit of sinking funds towards the repayment of that debt.

The gross income and expenditure of each of the Council's trading undertakings is also shown, with the amount of assistance which each gives to or derives from the rates.

The entries are generally to show "expenditure" and "income" rather than "cash paid" and "cash received.”

The question of extending the system of shortened and simplified forms to other classes of Local Authorities is being considered.

Statistics for Year 1919-20.

A statement of the sums expended and received by all the Local Authorities in England and Wales during the year 1919-20, and of their outstanding loan debt at the end of that year, is printed in Appendix XI (pages 152 and 153 below).

The Local Authorities whose financial transactions are summarized in the statement include all County Councils, Councils of Municipal Boroughs, Councils of Metropolitan Boroughs, Councils of Urban Districts other than Boroughs, Rural District Councils, Boards of Guardians, the Managers of the Metropolitan Asylum District, the Receiver for the Metropolitan Police District, Burial Boards, the Port of London Authority and other harbour authorities not being_commercial companies or private owners, the Metropolitan Water Board and other water boards, Parish Councils, Overseers, and all other Local Authorities authorised to levy, or order to be levied, rates, taxes, tolls, or dues within the meaning of the Local Taxation Returns Acts, 1860 and 1877. The number of such Authorities having financial transactions during the year 1919-20 was 25,194.

The amounts expended and received by the Local Authorities during the year 1919-20, and the amount of their outstanding loan. debt at the end of that year, were as follows:

head

The average amounts, per pound of assessable value and per of estimated population, of the rates and Government grants received by Local Authorities during the year 1919-20 were as follows :

The percentages of the total amount of rates received in the year 1919-20 which were applied in meeting expenditure on each of the principal groups of local services were approximately as follows:

Education (including public libraries)
Highways (maintenance, repair, improvement, and scavenging, but
not lighting)

Health:

i. Sewers; removal, etc., of house refuse; water supply;
parks; baths; cemeteries;
isolation hospitals;
vaccination

ii. Maternity and child welfare; treatment, etc., of
tuberculosis; diagnosis, etc., of venereal diseases..

iii. Lunacy and mental deficiency

Housing

Relief of the poor (excluding maintenance of lunatics in county and borough asylums)

Per cent. of total rates. 20.4

17.0

17.1

..

1.1

3.7

21.9

0.4

13.7

Administration of justice; police; fire brigades

7.9

Other specific services

12.4

..

Items common to two or more of the above-mentioned services but not allocated to them in the Returns (general administrative expenses, etc.)

During the year a Return (House of Commons Paper 231 of 1921) was published showing, in some detail, the sums expended and received in 1919-20 by Boards of Guardians and Joint Poor Law Authorities (including the Managers of the Metropolitan Asylum District), and the amounts of the outstanding loan debts of those authorities at the end of the year. Returns giving similar particulars in regard to other classes of Local Authorities have been prepared.

Years 1920-21 and 1921-22.

The amounts, per pound of assessable value, of the rates levied in the years 1920-21 and 1921-22 respectively have already been made public in a collected form, for every Borough and other Urban District and for certain typical rural parishes, in a Statement presented to Parliament (Cmd. 1633), which was compiled in the Department. It is there shown, inter alia, that the average amount of the rates per pound of assessable value (which, taking England and Wales as a whole, had been 6s. 8d. in the year 1913-14, 7s. 8d. in the year 1918-19, and 9s. 63d. in the year 1919-20) may be estimated to have risen to 13s. 3 d. in the year 1920–21 and 14s. 9 d. in the year 1921–22. The Statement also shows that generally the highest point in regard to the amounts in the pound of local rates was reached in the second half of the year 1920-21 and the first half of 1921-22. In the second half of the latter year there was a marked decrease in many places, and present indications point to a further and more widespread decrease in the half-year ending in September, 1922.

Special Return: London Local Authorities (Expenditure).

In pursuance of an Order of the House of Commons, the Department prepared a Return (No. 248 of Session 1921) showing, as regards the expenditure otherwise than out of loans of each of the following London Local Authorities, viz.: the London County

Council, acting (i) as local education authority, (ii) as tramway authority, and (iii) in other capacities; the Metropolitan Water Board; the Metropolitan Asylums Board; each Borough Council; and each Board of Guardians: (1) the total expenditure; (2) the sums paid under contract for works; and (3) the sums expended in salaries and wages, including bonuses, otherwise than under (2), in respect of the years ending on the 31st March, 1914, 1919, 1920 and 1921.

Audit.
GENERAL.

The scope of District Audit and the powers and duties of the Auditors were dealt with at some length in last year's Report.

The work and results of District Audit cannot be judged by the number of formal reports presented by the Auditors to the Local Authorities and the Department after the audits, nor by the number of formal disallowances and surcharges which they find it neccessary to make in the accounts before them.

A very important part of the work of the District Auditors is the prevention of fraud or misappropriation of moneys. It is also the duty of the Auditors to secure, as far as possible, the adoption of the latest and best methods of accounting, to increase and strengthen the financial control exercised by Local Authorities over those of their officers who have to account for money, and to see that the accounts as presented show the real financial position of the Authority and their several undertakings. The work that the Auditors do in these matters cannot be shown in any statistics.

During the year some 1,500 reports were made by the Auditors, in which attention was drawn to irregularities on the part of officers of Local Authorities, or to defects in the method of accounting or in the system of financial control. In the majority of these cases the Department communicated with the Authority concerned with a view to appropriate action being taken.

Assent has been given in the case of two Metropolitan Boroughs to an experiment in the method of keeping the rate books. Instead of requiring a separate book for each half-yearly rate, one rate book only will be used for ten half-yearly rates made during a period of five years; the columns for assessment number, names of occupiers and owners, description and situation of property, etc., once entered up will suffice for the successive rates, the entries in these columns being amended only where necessary. Separate books of account are, of course, required in connection with the collection of each rate. The assent given is subject to proper arrangements being made for obviating objections on proceedings for recovery of any of the rates involved. The plan secures a considerable simplification of the existing procedure and effects substantial economy in money and labour. It may be added that a satisfactory report has been received on the working of the plan during the first half-year of its operation.

Assent has also been given during the year to the experimental adoption of arrangements for facilitating the collection of rates on small properties by means of the purchase of municipal rate stamps, and in one instance, subject to the approval of the Postmaster General, to the use of postage stamps for a similar purpose.