Clause 10 - Accounting officer
Public Audit (Wales) Bill [Lords]
10:30 am
Mr Don Touhig (Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Wales), Department for Constitutional Affairs; Islwyn, Labour/Co-operative)
The hon. Gentleman referred to appointment by the Crown rather than by the Audit Commission. The current provision allows a temporary accounting officer to be appointed by the Audit Committee, not the Crown or the Audit Commission. As I said, under existing accountancy conventions for England and Wales, arrangements are made for designating an acting accounting officer if the accounting officer is incapacitated for four weeks or more. How long that would continue would be at the Audit Committee's discretion, and his terms and conditions of appointment would be part of that; for example, there would be statutory sick leave. We are keen not to tie anyone's hands by having a fixed and arbitrary period of three months, as suggested by the amendment. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will recognise that within four weeks steps would be taken and terms and conditions on the appointment would kick in and affect the length of time that a person might be permitted to be away before further action had to be taken.