The committee last considered the management and accountability of court funds at its meeting of 29 March 2001. Court funds are funds lodged in court pursuant to court orders or in compliance with legislative requirements. There are over 30,000 individual accounts with an estimated value of €700 million to €800 million, the bulk of which is represented by funds administered on behalf of wards of courts and minors. The committee's concern centred around the lacuna in the accounting and auditing arrangements which could result in the Exchequer having to meet the financial consequences of failings in individual cases.
At the time annual accounts had not been prepared for many years and there was no audit of the funds. The upshot of the committee's meeting was a request to establish a working group to examine the issue and report back within a specified period. In view of time constraints, I will not go through the group's terms of reference, but it submitted a report to the committee in July 2001 which set out the matter quite well and recorded the progress made in modernising the management of the funds by the Courts Service since its establishment in 1999. New investment arrangements, computerisation and improved accounting and auditing systems have been introduced.
The working group was unable to conclude at the time whether the Comptroller and Auditor General should be given a statutory power to audit court funds and, by extension, whether this committee should exercise an oversight role in relation to the funds pending the receipt of advice from the Attorney General. This advice was provided in December 2001 and formed the basis of a supplementary report by the group to the committee in early January this year. In summary, the Attorney General advised that, while it was a policy choice for the Department to decide who should audit court funds, he was of the view that the Comptroller and Auditor General was not somehow disqualified from discharging this function.
The other piece of relevant correspondence for the committee to consider is a letter dated 16 April 2002 from the chief executive of the Courts Service to the committee in which he outlined the progress made on the programme of reform and modernisation arrangements for the management and investment of court funds. Much has been achieved. I would like to think that my involvement and that of the committee has helped to give an impetus to action already instigated by the Courts Service when it took over responsibility for this area. Without wishing to overstate the position, it was very much in Dickensian times. Significant progress has been made.
