Catalogue description Ministry of Food: Finance Department

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.