Abstract The West German Parliament in 1950 re-established a central German Audit Court (Rechnungshof), traditionally one of the most respected and useful institutions in the entire German governmental structure. This body and its work are not without interest to American accountants and students of government who, witnessing an astronomical growth in Federal expenditures and taxes, are today concerned with methods which might improve accountability to the U.S. Congress of the Federal departments and agencies for their million and billion-dollar programs. In fact, the main purpose of this article is to describe and appraise the work of the Rechnungshof in order to discover whether any features of this old established continental institution might possibly be adapted to the work of the U. S. General Accounting Office. The word adapted is used advisedly because of the difference in traditions and in governmental structure. Both the German and the U. S. Federal governments have much to learn from the experience of the Public Accounts Committee of the British House of Common. A serious gap in both governments is the absence within the parliament or Congress of a full-time, well staffed committee for the permanent and uninterrupted business of studying efficiency in government operations.
Hillhouse et al. (Wed,) studied this question.