Mr. Pat Owens:

The credit union is a financial institution with an elected board of directors. The draft scheme suggests we have no financial officer on the elected board. The reality is that the role of treasurer needs updating. The role as set out in the Credit Union Act 1997 is outdated. Certainly, in our own case and many others it is not what happens on the ground. As manager, I prepare the management accounts each month and then meet the treasurer to go through them and answer any query he has. We then go to the finance and planning committee and he presents the accounts and it raises queries. If it is happy with the accounts, they are proposed to the board which accepts them having been satisfied with the answers to questions it may have had. At the end of the year the treasurer is the person responsible for presenting the accounts to members. We think this is vital.