Paymaster General

Her Majesty's Paymaster General

Incumbent
Ben Gummer

since 14 July 2016
Office of HM Paymaster General
Style The Right Honourable
Appointer Elizabeth II
Inaugural holder Henry Parnell
Formation 27 April 1836
Website HM Paymaster General [archived version]
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Her Majesty's Paymaster General or HM Paymaster General is a ministerial position in the United Kingdom. The Paymaster General was formerly in charge of the Office of HM Paymaster General (OPG), which held accounts at the Bank of England on behalf of Government departments and selected other public bodies. Funds which were made available from the Consolidated Fund were then channelled into OPG accounts, from where they were used by the relevant body. OPG operated a full range of accounts and banking transaction services, including cheque and credit, BACS and CHAPS services for its customers via an electronic banking system. Integration of OPG accounts held with commercial banks was provided by the private company Xafinity Paymaster. However, in 2008, the government announced that the Office of the Paymaster General would be incorporated into a new body, the Government Banking Service,[1] which also provides banking operations for HM Revenue & Customs and National Savings and Investments. Following the Bank of England's decision to withdraw from providing retail banking services,[2] retail banking services for the GBS are provided exclusively by the Royal Bank of Scotland and Citibank,[3] although the Bank of England still plays a role in managing the government's higher level accounts.[4] The post is now therefore usually combined with another role.

When the post is held by a minister in HM Treasury it ranks third in the Treasury, after the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Chief Secretary to the Treasury. The post was created in 1836 by the merger of the positions of Paymaster of the Forces, Treasurer of the Navy, Paymaster and Treasurer of Chelsea Hospital and Treasurer of the Ordnance. From 1848 to 1868, the post was held concurrently with that of Vice-President of the Board of Trade.

The longest-serving holder of the post was Dawn Primarolo, whose portfolio covered HM Revenue and Customs (formerly the Inland Revenue and HM Customs and Excise). The incumbent Paymaster General is Ben Gummer, who is also the Minister for the Cabinet Office.

List of Paymasters General

Victorian

Edwardian and wartime

Post-War

21st century

Name Portrait Term of office Concurrent office(s) Political party Prime Minister
Dawn Primarolo 4 January 1999 June 2007 Labour Tony Blair
Tessa Jowell 28 June 2007 May 2010 Minister for the Olympics
Minister for the Cabinet Office
(from 5 June 2009)
Minister for London
(until 3 October 2008; from 5 June 2009)
Labour Gordon Brown
Francis Maude 12 May 2010 May 2015 Minister for the Cabinet Office Conservative David Cameron
(I)
Matthew Hancock 11 May 2015 14 July 2016 David Cameron
(II)
Ben Gummer 14 July 2016 Incumbent Conservative Theresa May

References

This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the 11/14/2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.