Ministry of Food: Finance Department

MAF 138

1938-1970

The series covers the establishment of the Finance Department as well as aspects of its administrative work, including correspondence with outside bodies. It also includes the papers of the Margins Committee. The papers in this series are generally dated between 1938 and 1955. Exceptionally a few later papers have been included to preserve continuity.

Public Record(s)

English

384 file(s)

Subject to 30 year closure unless otherwise stated

Topics

Food and drink

The Finance Department under the charge of the Principal Finance Officer was organised in four main sections. Two were controlled by the Finance Controller (Supply) and Finance Controller (Services) respectively, a third, under the Accountant General, consisted of four divisions, namely Administrative Finance, Trading Accounts, Internal Audit and Costings. The fourth Finance (General) was divided into Home and Overseas Divisions. A Finance Secretariat provided assistance for the Principal Finance Officer and each of the headquarters sections as required.

The Principal Finance Officer was responsible under the permanent secretary for financial control generally and for the ministry's estimates and accounts. The department was charged with the duty of ensuring that all proposals for purchases and sales, schemes of control, prices, distributors' margins, subsidy arrangements and administrative expenditure were satisfactory from a financial point of view. The department liaised with the Treasury and ensured that the ministry's transactions and financial proposals had appropriate sanction. It also prepared the Parliamentary estimates and accounts of the administrative and trading transactions of the ministry on both a cash and a commercial accounting basis.