The Finance of Publicly Owned Utilities
| Published date | 01 October 1926 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9299.1926.tb02271.x |
| Date | 01 October 1926 |
| Author | J. R. Johnson |
The
Finance
of
Publicly
Owned
Utilities
in Relation to the General National
or
Local
Finance
By
J.
R.
JOHNSON,
F.S.A.A.
City Treasurer,
Birmingham
N
any study of the financial relationship of Publicly Owned Utilities
I
to National or Local Finance, one cannot fail to be impressed by
the phenomenal development of these utilities in recent years. This
development is to be observed in connection with Public Authorities
generally, whether part of the Central or Local Government or whether
boards or trusts of which the Metropolitan Water Board and the Port
of
London Authority are notable examples.
Various
reasons could be given
for
this
rapid
growth
of activity of monopolistic control on the part
of
Public Authorities, but however interesting such
a
survey might prove,
it can hardly be dealt
with
in
these notes.
Great though the advance has been in the past half-century,
particularly among Local Authorities, there can be little doubt that even
greater progress
is
likely to be made in the next few years, for experiments
are now taking place in services which have long been considered the
exclusive domain
of
private enterprise, and the success already achieved
seems to indicate that the publicly owned utility services possess
a
future
which only a
few
short years ago would have been regarded as beyond the
realms
of
possibility.
One must not, however, theorize too largely on the future, for the
utilities controlled by Public Authorities are already so wide and varied
in their scope that for the purpose
of
this paper
it
is
necessary to confine
one’s attention mainly to the financial relationship of the large trading
services of Local Authorities to the Local Exchequer, and to the extent to
which the finance and financial policy of these services should be controlled
by the central financial department of the Local Authority concerned.
CENTRAL
FINANCIAL SUPERVISION
There are many publicists
well
versed in Local Government administra-
tion who contend that the operation
of
a
public utility service cannot
strictly be said to form part of the essential duties
of
a
municipality.
Briefly, they maintain that the principal functions
of
a
municipality are
377
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