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The aim of this paper is to compare modern internal control systems with those in medieval England.

This paper uses a modern referential framework (control environment, risk assessment, information and communication, monitoring and control activities) as a lens to investigate medieval internal controls used in the twelfth century royal exchequer and other medieval institutions. It draws upon an extensive range of primary materials.

The paper demonstrates that most of the internal controls found today are present in medieval England. Stewardship and personal accountability are found to be the core elements of medieval internal control. The recent recognition of the need for the enhanced personal accountability of individuals is reminiscent of medieval thinking.

It investigates internal controls in medieval England for the first time and draws comparisons to today.

The paper seeks to makes a correlation between poverty; and disaster‐induced losses and to clearly put forth a hypothesis for deepening poverty in India; the disaster – poverty cycle, and to suggest that India would perpetually remain a developing nation unless attempts are made to reduce the burden of disasters on the public exchequer. A practical strategy is put forth for disrupting the disaster – poverty cycle through appropriate risk management measures. This is envisaged to better compensate the disaster victims besides significantly reducing the burden upon public exchequer. The paper thus aims at contributing to economic growth and development of India.

Based on the review of the practices in other nations as also in India a strategy is proposed for disrupting the disaster – poverty cycle so as to accelerate economic growth and development of the nation.

Experience the world over suggests that risk management is the key for reducing the burden on the public exchequer as also for minimising the misery and trauma of the masses exposed to disasters. Risk management has been split into two parts; risk reduction and risk transfer. The former aims at reducing the misery of the masses apart from lessening the burden of post‐disaster reconstruction while the latter aims at significantly reducing the burden on the public exchequer as also the trauma of the disaster victims by way of introducing compulsory insurance cover for all residential units.

The paper attempts to put forth a blue print of a strategy for disrupting the disaster – poverty cycle. Open debate on this important issue is intended to be initiated so as to improvise the strategy in view of the ground realities and past experiences so as to evolve a practically applicable strategy. Together with this the financial implications and practical constrains in implementation have to be probed in detail before putting the same into actual practice.

Besides highlighting the need for reducing the burden of disasters on the public exchequer the paper highlights the shortcomings in the relief package at present being offered by the state to the disaster victims in India. The state should come forward with instruments that better compensate for the individual losses of the disaster victims. Public opinion would at the same time force the state to devise ways of minimising the burden of disasters on the public exchequer and the ensuing enactments would pave way for vibrant economic growth and development of India. This debate would also lead to refinement of the strategy proposed in this paper so as to make it practically applicable and acceptable.

Based on experience in the field of disaster management the paper has innovatively put forth a sound correlation between increasing frequency and toll of disasters and the deepening poverty of India. This economic correlation (disaster – poverty cycle) is sure to invoke the interest of the various stakeholders on this important issue. The paper thus reflects the author's understanding of the issues related to disaster management.

This paper analyses public sector accounting and organisation reforms, focusing on the departments in charge of defence, military procurement and war between 1850 and 2000 in Britain. Over this period, three parliamentary acts, resulting from a power struggle between the Treasury and Parliament, produced the shift between two institutional logics: probity (spending properly) and performance (spending well). The purpose of this paper is to describe how the acts produced a shift between two institutional logics.

The authors adopt Quattrone’s (2015) procedural notion of institutional logics and the consequent concept of “unfolding rationality”. Using documents from the National Archives, the authors analyse three reforms: The Exchequer and Audit Departments Act 1866 (towards probity), The Exchequer and Audit Departments Act 1921 (towards performance) and the National Audit Office Act of 1983 (towards performance and probity).

For a long time, the actors narrated in this story argued and acted as if probity and performance were incompatible. The two are now treated as compatible and equally important. Before that, the “incompatibility” was a rhetorical, or “procedural”, device. The authors argue that a procedural rather than substantive notion of institutional logics is more suitable to explain the trajectory that was the result of constant negotiation among actors.

The study might contribute to the understanding of the increase in national defence-spending at continental level and the call for a common European Union (EU) military procurement strategy that followed the invasion of Ukraine. The war could produce changes in what is a traditional tension between two logics: sovereignty or efficiency.

The originality of this paper stands in highlighting the link between the institutional logic of public-administration accounting and military history. This link emerges also thanks to a very long time-horizon. Additionally, from a theoretical viewpoint, the authors have put Quattrone’s approach to the test in a context very different from the original one (the Jesuit order).

The Address given by the chairman of the Construction Industry Training Board to the Conference of the Institute of Municipal Building Management in October. He comments on the need for stability in the policy approach to industrial training and in the funding of it.

OF THE MANY responsibilities shouldered by the civil service, revenue collection would be unlikely to get a high rating in any popularity poll. Yet taxation, just as inevitably as night follows day, is with us from the cradle to the grave, and HM Customs and Excise is one of the two main government departments (Inland Revenue being the other) charged with the duty of filling the coffers of the Exchequer. The department's main function is the collection of ‘indirect’ taxes, eg purchase tax, spirit and import duties, imposed by Parliament and which at present yield £5,000 million a year — about one third of the total revenue received by the Exchequer. Other non‐revenue functions are performed in connection with the arrival and departure of ships and aircraft, the detection and prevention of drug smuggling, the control of imports and exports, public health and so on.

Recounts how medieval English Jewry began when Jews were invited to immigrate by William I and ended with their expulsion by Edward I in 1290. The Jewish community was important and for most of its existence it was prosperous, owing to its particular social function – being the bankers, moneylenders and financiers of the time. Concentrates on a relatively little known aspect of the medieval Jewish community: the role played by its women. Jewish women played a significant part in business, not just as the wives or widows of businessmen, but as entrepreneurs on their own account. This was in sharp contrast to the position of women in wider English society. Using contemporary documents, the article examines the scale and nature of the business activities of Jewish women in medieval England, sketches the activities of some of these female entrepreneurs, and attempts to investigate the factors which enabled them to play such a prominent role.

In the post‐1945 period, successive Governments have provided a considerable amount of aid to industry in various forms and under various Acts of Parliament. Governments have tried to alleviate unemployment in the regions by providing assistance to manufacturing firms under the Local Employment Acts. Under the recently passed Industry Act, the Minister for Industry has been empowered to disburse large sums of money to firms not only in the manufacturing industry but also in the job‐creating service industry. When new jobs are created, there is a saving of unemployment benefits to the Exchequer and the earnings of the newly‐employed provide a stimulus to the growth of the local and regional economies and thus benefit the community.

In Private Finance Initiative (PFI) projects, value for money (VFM) tests and accounting treatment are distinct but related issues. VFM analysis should be concerned with total risk, not just with the sharing of risk, which dominates the accounting treatment decision. A framework is developed for logical thinking about what is meant by “best VFM” in the context of PFI projects. This involves consideration of the full set of alternatives, not an artificially diminished subset. The credibility of analytical techniques can be tarnished if they are misused to legitimate a predetermined decision. A reduction in construction risk may be a powerful source of VFM gains under PFI, but, under UK accounting regulation, this should not influence the accounting treatment decision. New complications about how VFM should be interpreted arise directly from the process of public sector fragmentation: affordability to the client is not necessarily the same as VFM for the public sector as a whole. Only public auditors, such as the National Audit Office, can gain access to PFI documentation on the conditions necessary for a comprehensive assessment of both accounting treatment and VFM. However, such studies require the kind of theoretical underpinning provided in this article, as otherwise the findings are likely to be ambiguous and hence vulnerable to rebuttal. In particular, VFM judgements must make explicit the basis of comparison on which they rest.

Preamble Taxation does not escape the effects of inflation. It too is distorted by the fall in value of the national currency. No problem would arise where a tax is applied to a simple base at a single rate, with no exemptions or allowances and without a significant time lag. This is however a rare case. Certainly so far as the British direct tax system is concerned there are usually multiple rates, thresholds and other allowances and, particularly in capital taxation, there may be significant gaps in time between the date of the imposition of the tax and the time when the tax becomes payable. For example the new rates of capital transfer tax announced on 26 October 1977 would apply to the estate of a person who dies in 1978, 1998 or in the next century or would do so but for the inevitable review which will be required mainly because of inflation arising between 1977 and the date of death. If this were not adjusted the heirs of the deceased would manifestly be required to pay more capital transfer tax than the Chancellor of the Exchequer in 1977 intended them to pay. A simple example will illustrate this.

Dealing with the target of promoting a four per cent rate of growth the Chancellor of the Exchequer, in his Budget statement, said it was the availability of manpower, and especially of skilled manpower, that set the limit to our capacity to increase production. We needed more skilled men and to increase the speed at which men could acquire new skills. What we had to provide were the facilities for training and the will to use them when provided.