The average amounts, per pound of assessable value and per head of population, of the rates and Government grants received by Local Authorities during the year 1921-22 were as follows:

The percentages of the total amount of rates received in the year 1921-22 which were applied in meeting expenditure on each of the principal groups of local services were approximately as follows:

Education (including public libraries)

Highways and bridges (maintenance, repair, improvement, and scavenging, but not lighting)

Health :

i. Sewers; removal, etc., of house refuse; water supply;
parks; baths; cemeteries; isolation hospitals;
vaccination; salaries of medical officers of health,
etc., (so far as not allocated to specific services);
port sanitary service; other health services (so far
as not included in ii and iii)

Per cent. of total rates.

19.4

17.7

17.7

ii. Maternity and child welfare;

treatment, etc., of

tuberculosis; diagnosis, etc., of venereal diseases.. iii. Lunacy and mental deficiency

0.9

3.8

22.4

Housing and town planning

0.6

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

18.9

Administration of justice; police; fire brigades

7.7

Other specific services

5.1

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

The Local Taxation Returns for England and Wales are now published annually in three Parts as Stationery Office papers. The financial statistics which are presented in a summary form in Appendix XII to this Report will be shown in those Returns in more detail for each of the more important Local Authorities, and as totals for each of the different classes of other Local Authorities.

Part I relates to Poor Law Authorities, Part II to the London County Council, Metropolitan Borough Councils, the Metropolitan. Police, the Metropolitan Water Board, and County Borough Councils, and Part III to County Councils (other than the London County Council), and the remaining Local Authorities, including the Councils of Non-County Boroughs, other Urban District Councils, and Rural District Councils.

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The general plan of the volumes is to give full particulars, in comparative form, of the expenditure, income, and outstanding loan debt, for each of the principal Local Authorities. In the case of the minor Local Authorities particulars similar to those mentioned above are given for each class of Authority.

Amount of Rates Levied: Years 1922-23 and 1923-24.

The amounts, per pound of valuation, of the rates levied in the years 1922-23 and 1923-24 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 compiled in the Department, which was published and placed on sale (price 2s. 6d. net) as a Stationery Office paper. It is there shown, inter alia, that, taking England and Wales as a whole, the average amount of the rates per pound of assessable value, which was 6s. 8d. in the year 1913-14, had shown a continuous rise from 6s. 8d. in 1916-17 to 14s. 74d. in 1921-22. In the second half of the latter year there were clear indications in many places that a fall in the rates had commenced, and the average rate in the pound fell to 13s. 34d. in the year 1922-23, and to 12s. 2d. in the year 1923-24, a decrease of 16.7 per cent. in two years. There are indications that this fall in the rates is being checked by the tendency of wages and prices to become stabilised. Some further reduction in rates is, however, probable in many places if the decrease in the number of persons in receipt of Poor Law relief, which has been. in progress for some months, is continued.

Audit.
GENERAL.

During the past year the work of the district audit staff has still further increased. The total expenditure audited by district auditors during the year is estimated to exceed £400,000,000, apart from the considerable expenditure which has been examined by them but not formally audited.

District audit applies to the accounts of practically all Local Authorities except the Councils of Municipal Boroughs outside London. Of the 335 Municipal Boroughs outside London the accounts of 36 Councils are wholly subject to district audit, while in the other cases the accounts relating to assisted housing schemes and to education are audited by district auditors.

During the year two Boroughs have obtained legislation enabling the whole of their accounts to be audited by district auditors.

REORGANISATION OF DISTRICT AUDIT.

The scheme of reorganisation of the audit service, which was briefly referred to in last year's Report, has been brought into operation during the year.

Outside the Metropolis there are now twenty audit districts instead of forty-eight as before. A district auditor is assigned to each district, with a certain number of assistant auditors and a clerical staff to assist in the work. The district auditor is responsible for the whole work of his area, but he devotes most of his personal attention to the organisation of the work as a whole, to the audits of the more important Local Authorities, and to audits on which matters of special difficulty arise.

The scheme enables a larger measure of uniformity to be secured in audit procedure and accounting methods than was possible under

the previous arrangements, and provides for a more effective and economical use of the staff in dealing with the increasing volume of work.

EXTRAORDINARY AUDITS.

Reference was made in last year's Report to the powers given to the Minister by the Audit (Local Authorities, etc.) Act, 1922, to direct an extraordinary audit to be held at any time in the case of an Authority or officer whose accounts are subject to district audit. The extraordinary audit requires only three days' notice and can cover any period. A large number of such audits has been held during the year.

The power to direct extraordinary audits has been found to be specially valuable in cases of suspected fraud, and goes far to meet the objections which have been raised to the recent substitution of yearly for half-yearly audits.

DISALLOWANCES AND SURCHARGES.

The number of disallowances and surcharges reported by the district auditors during the year ended on the 31st March, 1924, as having been made at the audits of the accounts of Local Authorities, was as follows :—

The total of the sums to which the above disallowances and surcharges relate was £37,594. In nearly 90 per cent. of the number of cases no appeal was made to the Minister against the auditors' decisions, and, before the end of the year, £15,356 of the total amount had been refunded to the benefit of the local rates, without any appeal being made.

As regards the disallowances and surcharges against which appeals were made to the Minister, decisions were given by him during the year

*The figures given include disallowances and surcharges made in Education accounts.

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The auditor's decision was confirmed in most of these cases, but in three instances his decision was reversed wholly or in part. Remission of the disallowance or surcharge was wholly or partly refused in three cases, but in the other cases the persons affected by the auditors' decisions were relieved of their personal liability. The disallowances and surcharges in respect of which the persons surcharged were relieved of their liability by remission or otherwise, amounted to £11,513, and those in respect of which remission was refused to £1,118.

It may be mentioned that appeals against certain disallowances and surcharges amounting to £7,000 were made to the High Court instead. of to the Minister.

With respect to the actual disallowances and surcharges made by district auditors during the year, it will be seen that sums amounting to about £16,000 had been recovered and repaid to the Local Authorities before the end of the year. The reports received by the Minister, however, show that in addition to these sums the auditors have been instrumental in recovering, for the benefit of the Authorities, many thousands of pounds (in one case alone, some £8,000) without having recourse to actual disallowance or surcharge. The effect of the informal action taken in these cases is often continuous, and produces an annual saving to the funds of the Authority concerned.

ALLOWANCES.

During the year appeals were received by the Minister in four cases against the allowance by auditors of items of expenditure. The Minister did not find sufficient ground for interfering with the auditor's decision in any of these cases.

LOCAL AUTHORITIES (EXPENSES) ACT, 1887.

Under the Local Authorities (Expenses) Act, 1887, expenses paid by a Local Authority whose accounts are subject to audit by a district auditor shall not be disallowed if they have been sanctioned by the Minister.

The number of items of expenditure dealt with under the Act during the past year was 3,630. The applications from the different classes of Local Authorities were decided as follows:

*The figures given include payments chargeable to Education accounts.

WAR MEMORIALS (LOCAL AUTHORITIES POWERS)

Аст, 1923.

The Minister's approval under section 2 (b) of this Act was given in 13 cases to expenditure by Local Authorities on the maintenance, repair, or protection of war memorials vested in them.

III. ADMINISTRATION OF THE POOR LAW, Etc. Administration of the Poor Law.

NUMBERS RELIEVED.

During the year 1923-24 there was a substantial reduction in the number of persons in receipt of relief, though it may reasonably be hoped that a further and much more considerable reduction will have taken place before conditions which may be regarded as normal have been established. The variations in the number were not, as in the two previous years, sudden and conspicuous, nor were there, as in those years, acute crises at the end of the months of June and October, though the dock strike of July threatened to provoke such a crisis.

During the years of war the proportion of the population in receipt of relief did not exceed 180 per 10,000, and the average for the years from 1910-14 was below 200, while during the year under review the proportion was at no time less than 319 per 10,000.

The average of the weekly numbers* in receipt of relief in England and Wales during the year 1923-24 was 1,285,848, or 214,089 less than the corresponding figure for the previous year.

On the 31st March, 1923, the number of persons in receipt of relief was 1,345,634, which at that time was the lowest figure since October, 1921. By the 21st April the number had risen to 1,427,254, probably as the result of the exhaustion of the continuous benefit payable during the first part of the fourth special period of benefit under the Unemployment Insurance Acts. On the resumption of the payment of benefit the number fell to 1,290,085 on the 12th May. This followed a series of eighty-four consecutive weeks, in which the number of persons relieved had exceeded 1,300,000. With two exceptions, the weekly number continued to decline until the 7th July, at which date it stood at 1,269,351. On the 2nd July the dock strike began, but work was gradually resumed during the month in all ports except London, where the strike continued till the 20th August. By the 28th July the number of persons relieved had risen to 1,319,613. From this point there was a general fall to 1,237,481 (22nd September). After the 22nd September a gap of four weeks in unemployment benefit occurred. The number relieved rose steadily to 1,319,882 (20th October). After the termination of the gap period there was again a reduction, the number reaching 1,253,340 on the 10th November,

In this part of the Report the figures given as the number of persons in receipt of relief exclude (a) lunatics in County and Borough asylums, registered hospitals and licensed houses, (b) casuals, and (c) persons in receipt of domiciliary medical relief only. The numbers of these classes were approximately 115,000-119,000.

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