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APPENDIX V.STATEMENT OF THE ACCOUNTING OFFICER ON NOTE NO. 32 BY COMPTROLLER AND AUDITOR-GENERAL AS TO ALLEGED OVERPAYMENTS TO A COURT STENOGRAPHER IN RESPECT OF TRANSCRIPTIONS OF EVIDENCE.The stenographer (Mr. B.) referred to in the Auditor’s note had been employed in the Courts for many years prior to 1932 but in April of that year he was made responsible for the reporting work in the Central Criminal Court, in addition to other duties. He was given a salary of £400 a year (not carrying a cost-of-living bonus) and was authorised to employ outside assistance in making transcripts. It was agreed that the sums paid by him for such assistance were to be refunded to him, on production of the necessary vouchers, up to a maximum of £175 in any one year. For fourteen years thereafter he performed his duties, so far as the Courts were concerned, in an entirely satisfactory manner. On the financial side he did not utilise the arrangement as regards assistance to the full extent: his claims under that head were at the rate of £130 p.a. on the average, or £45 below the prescribed maximum. Each claim submitted by him in respect of the employment of assistance was vouched by a receipt signed by the assistant who had done the work. The receipts were for specified sums, each acknowledged to have been received in respect of a specified amount of work on a specified case. The claims seemed to be quite in order and were paid without question. Early in 1946, however, suspicion arose in connection with a claim which Mr. B. had just furnished. It was, therefore, critically examined in the light of the original transcript. The following was the result:— Claim: £31 15s. 6d., made on the basis that 1,271 folios had been done by two assistants paid at the rate of 6d. a folio. This calculation and the receipt of the £31 15s. 6d. were certified by the signatures of the assistants. Facts: There were only 1,155 folios altogether. Of these 693 were written in Mr. B’s handwriting so that he had clearly done them himself. The remaining 462 had been done by the assistants. If the rate was correctly stated at 6d. a folio the total sum payable to the assistants was £11 11s. 0d. not £31 15s. 6d. Mr. B. was asked for an explanation. In reply he furnished a confused statement, in which he admitted that he had done a lot of the work himself, being unable to dictate his notes to the assistants (his usual custom) as he was suffering from laryngitis. Instead, however, of proceeding to explain why his assistants had attempted, with his connivance, to charge for work which they had not done he made the following observations:— As to the implication you pointed out to me as appearing from the figures you showed me I wish at once to allay the possible suspicion that i desire to benefit financially from the matter. It is to me far easier to dictate evidence, etc., than to go through the arduous labour of writing it. He was suspended from duty and subsequently dismissed. The papers were referred to the Chief State Solicitor, with some other cases subsequently investigated (see below) “with a view to instituting whatever proceedings may be considered appropriate”. The Chief State Solicitor laid the papers before the Attorney-General who advised that no proceedings should be taken. The claims made during the entire period of Mr. B’s employment (fourteen years) were then examined. It was found that these claims, vouched by receipts, and paid, amounted in all to about £1,800 and that the number of folios done by assistants amounted to about 48,000. This would have been in order if Mr. B. had paid his assistants at the average rate of 9d. a folio. There was nothing in the terms of Mr. B’s. employment to prevent him from paying at that rate; if the circumstances had been explained to me I would have passed it as a reasonable rate. But the claims had in fact been presented on a different basis: Mr. B. and his assistants had vouched for 72,000 folios at 6d. each, not for 48,000 at 9d. each. As the Attorney-General decided against legal proceedings, and as Mr. B. either could not or would not make an intelligible statement the truth in this matter will probably never be known for certain. My own belief is that Mr. B. (a) paid his assistants more than 6d. a folio; (b) took something for himself in compensation for his (admittedly) heavy overtime; (c) arranged with his assistants to certify the number of folios at such a number as at a rate of 6d. each would cover the entire sums received under (a) and (b). (He was afraid that a higher rate would be disputed.) But I also believe that in the net result the State was not in fact defrauded. The work was done by Mr. B. at a salary of £400 plus an allowance (as actually paid) of £130. It could not have been done at that cost except for the fact that Mr. B. overworked himself beyond all reason. The work is now done by two men, each with a salary of £500. If Mr. B’s. claims could be forgotten and his remuneration revised retrospectively on its merits I have no doubt that instead of his being invited to return £600, as overpaid, a much larger sum would be found to be due to him. (Signed) S. A. ROCHE, Secretary, Department of Justice. 19th May, 1948. On the question of the failure to detect Mr. B’s. irregularities at an earlier date, I desire to put the following observations before the Committee by way of supplementing my oral evidence:— 1. Except in Mr. B’s case (in which there was a special arrangement) transcripts, when paid for at all, are paid for at the rate of 8d. per folio: it is, therefore, essential that the number of folios be checked and they are checked. 2. In Mr. B’s case the arrangement was that he could pay for assistance within the approved annual maximum and that the money so paid by him would be refunded on production of the necessary vouchers. 3. There was no stipulation as to the rate per folio at which Mr. B. could pay his assistants. It was not compulsory for him to work on a folio rate at all. He could have engaged an assistant on the terms that the latter would attend to take dictation from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. every evening for a week, and supply the resultant transcriptions, for an inclusive fee of £5, or £10. The only “voucher” which could reasonably be expected in these circumstances was the assistant’s receipt for the sum paid to him. 4. It may be considered that this arrangement was a temptation to dishonesty—that is, for Mr. B. to arrange with his assistants for a secret “drawback” to him, the receipt to be for, say, £10 of which £3 was to be given back to Mr. B. From that point of view, it would undoubtedly have been better to give a fixed allowance of £175 per annum, payable without any vouching at all, letting Mr. B. make any small profit he could, at the expense of over-working himself, without deceit or subterfuge. From the angle of the County Registrar concerned, however, the arrangement was what it was and not otherwise and it was his duty to give effect to it. 5. This was the position as the County Registrar found it and in my opinion he acted, in that position, as a sensible man would act in his own business if he had made a similar bargain with one of his staff. He accepted the assistants’ receipts as the necessary vouchers and ignored the statements as to the basis on which the sums had been calculated as matters with which he was not concerned and, in any case, very difficult to check. (They would have been impossible to check if Mr. B. had taken any trouble to make them so.) It never occurred to him as a possibility that Mr. B., labouring under the delusion that he was tied down to the rate of 6d. a folio, was misrepresenting the figures as regards folios. I cannot feel that, acting as he did, he deserved any serious censure. He has since retired from the post of County Registrar. During his term of office, he showed conspicuous ability and energy and I am anxious to see that no injustice is done to him in the present instance by reason of any failure on my part to make the position clear. This reply was intended to express agreement with the suggestion that there was re-dictation and transcription “at second hand”. It was not intended to express agreement with the suggestion that “the Department’s intention was defeated”. The evidence as to whether an accurate report of the evidence could be expected as a result of re-dictation is perhaps not one proper to be pursued here, not being primarily one for the Accounting Officer, but it may be suggested that an accurate report could be so expected provided that the principal stenographer took care to see that the transcription made by an assistant was a faithful version of the original notes, as he could do by re-reading his original notes against the assistant’s longhand version. It was clear that the principal stenographer remained personally responsible for the accuracy of the final record; he himself fully understood that he was so responsible. (Signed) S. A. ROCHE, Secretary, Department of Justice. 2nd June, 1948. |
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