The British Consolidated Fund was so named as it consolidated together a number of existing accounts, detailed below, and facilitated proper parliamentary oversight of the spending of the executive; it was defined as "one fund into which shall flow every stream of public revenue and from which shall come the supply of every service".
These funds were established in relation to specific government borrowing authorized by Parliament, which had a defined type of revenue appropriated to put towards the interest and repayment.
Often a two-year period is covered by a Consolidated Fund Act, and roughly two or three are passed in each parliamentary year.
A Consolidated Fund (Appropriation) Bill is brought in and passed at the end of the parliamentary year before the Summer recess.
These votes on account, and any necessary changes to departmental budgets (supplementary estimates) are passed as Consolidated Fund Acts, normally twice each year in November and February.
Certain expenditure is by law charged directly to the Consolidated Fund and is not subject to Parliament's annual budget process, ensuring a degree of independence of the government.
The full official title of the role is Comptroller General of the Receipt and Issue of His Majesty's Exchequer.
Each of the devolved government consolidated funds is held in the name of the Paymaster General at the Bank of England.
Today the Australian federal and state governments all maintain their own consolidated funds, with authorization for payments required from the relevant parliament.
[6] The act also allows for non-corporate Commonwealth entities (NCEs) to account for and retain their receipts provided they have legislative and policy authority from the Prime Minister or Cabinet.
However, most money collected by NCEs is treated as general government revenue that is not retainable and must be remitted to the OPA.
[7] Section 81 of the Constitution of Australia provides that: All revenues or moneys raised or received by the Executive Government of the Commonwealth shall form one Consolidated Revenue Fund (CRF), to be appropriated for the purposes of the Commonwealth in the manner and subject to the charges and liabilities imposed by this Constitution.
[4] Section 83 of the Australian Constitution provides that no money shall be drawn from the Treasury of the Commonwealth except under an appropriation made by law.
[4] Section 83 was intended to both safeguard parliament’s control over government spending, and restrict that expenditure to purposes authorised by the constitution.
[8] Sections 39 and 40 of the Constitution of New South Wales require that all revenues, loans and other monies collected by the state are to be paid into a single consolidated fund.
The Comptroller and Auditor General of India audits these funds and reports to the relevant legislatures on their management.