Accountability & Control - UPSC PDF Download

Introduction

• In a democratic system, the government should not only be formed by the people but also be answerable to them. This means that public servants and the bureaucracy should operate in the best interests of the public and be held responsible for their actions and inactions. In practice, governments are managed by professional civil servants who implement policies based on laws, rules, and regulations. However, due to the vast size of the government and the gap between the public and government officials, it can be challenging to understand the reasons behind certain policies and their implementation. Additionally, government operations are often secretive and surrounded by intricate rules and regulations.
• Accountability is crucial for a thriving democracy. To make democracy effective and practical, governmental operations must be transparent, and civil servants must be held accountable for their actions. The primary concerns regarding accountability include determining how to regulate bureaucratic power, overseeing the use of such power, and establishing institutional limitations on those who wield it. Therefore, accountability encompasses both "answerability" (providing explanations for actions taken) and "enforceability" (implementing penalties for illegal, insufficient, or inappropriate performance).

Accountability: Concept, Nature & Significance

• Accountability, in simple terms is answerability for one’s action or behaviour. Public services accountability involves the methodology through which a public agency or a public official fulfils assigned duties and obligations. It includes the process by which the agency or the official is required to account for such actions. Governments everywhere in both developed and underdeveloped nations-are powerful institutions run by the bureaucrats. Expanding government functions have brought in their trail bureaucratic expansion, and the bureaucracies have a constant impact on the quality of life of the citizens. There is, thus, an increasing concern today about how the bureaucracies are using 'power'. At the heart of these concerns is 'accountability': for what and to whom are bureaucracies answerable? How are the bureaucracies held accountable?

11 types of Accountability

• Bureaucratic accountability is a fundamental aspect of public administration in a democracy, ensuring that those who hold power exercise it responsibly and can be held accountable for their actions. In a democratic system, bureaucrats must be subordinate to the constitution, the judiciary, and their organizational superiors, as well as the people and their elected representatives. This accountability can be divided into two main components: answerability, which refers to the obligation of public officials to inform and explain their actions; and enforcement, which refers to the ability of accounting agencies to impose sanctions on those who have violated their public duties.
• In modern day administration, the traditional dichotomy of policy-making and policy-implementation has become blurred, as administrators increasingly participate in policy-making and exercise significant discretion in their roles. As a result, there has been a growing demand for more transparent public administration and improved ethical behavior of public officials. This can be achieved through three primary means: subjecting power to the threat of sanctions, obliging it to be exercised transparently, and forcing it to justify its actions.
• Accountability not only involves the right to receive information (the informational dimension) but also the right to receive an explanation and the duty to justify one's conduct (the argumentative dimension). This establishes a dialogic relationship between accountable and accounting actors, engaging both parties in public debate and ensuring that power is bound both by legal constraints and by the logic of public reasoning. In this way, accountability is essential in preventing and redressing the abuse of political power, ultimately ensuring a more responsible and transparent democratic system.

Purposes of Accountability

The concept of accountability serves three main purposes in the context of public administration. First, it aims to prevent the misuse of bureaucratic power and authority. Second, it ensures that performance adheres to established standards and maintains high quality. Third, it promotes a culture of learning and continuous improvement in governance and public management. Additionally, accountability encompasses the human aspect, emphasizing values, ethics, and fostering trust in government. In essence, the primary goal of accountability is to bridge the gap between administration and democracy.

Accountability imposes four key expectations on public administration, which are:

• Implement laws effectively and efficiently, minimizing waste and delays.
• Exercise discretion in administration reasonably and lawfully.
• Propose new policies and suggest modifications to existing policies and programs as required.
• Strengthen public trust in the administrative institutions of government.

As Adam Wolf (2000) aptly states, without transparency, a vibrant democracy, and a free press, efforts to control abuse and evaluate performance will be futile. Accountability in public administration goes beyond the technical aspects of designing control mechanisms and institutions; it is a matter of democracy.

Accountable to Whom?

• In western democracies, public officials are held accountable to a variety of sources, including supervisors, elected executives, legislators, courts, auditing agencies, professional associations, coworkers, clients, and the general public. There are two main facets of accountability: intra-organizational and extra or supra-organizational. Intra-organizational accountability refers to the hierarchical structure within a department or organization, where subordinates are accountable to their superiors, who in turn are accountable to their political bosses or ministers. This chain of accountability is institutionalized in a democratic system, with legislative accountability considered an integral part of this chain.
• Extra or supra-organizational accountability refers to external sources of authority that hold public officials accountable for their actions. For instance, administrators can be sued in a court of law for lapses or unlawful actions, making them judicially accountable. This accountability is contingent on citizens or clients appealing to the judiciary for justice in cases where they have evidence that a public organization has acted unlawfully or unjustly.
• Another important aspect of extra-organizational accountability is the direct action by citizens, who have the right to raise questions about alleged injustice, inaction, or improper action by administrative officials. The 'right to information' has been statutorily recognized to enable citizens to seek information from public organizations on matters in which they have a direct interest. For instance, a municipality may be held accountable to its residents for the delivery of specific services, such as water supply and garbage disposal, through a negotiated ‘citizens’ charter’.
• In addition to these formal mechanisms of accountability, the media plays a crucial role in holding public organizations accountable in the public interest. Investigative journalism helps to uncover cases of corruption and dereliction of duty by public officials, while citizens can voice their complaints and grievances through media channels such as newspapers' 'letters to the editor' columns. Similarly, people's movements against big projects like dams or large-scale displacements can hold government organizations accountable and influence public policy, promoting participative democracy and decision-making processes.

Types of Accountability

Accountability is a crucial concept in public service and administration, ensuring that key administrators are responsible for their actions and the performance of their organizations. It is not just about tackling corruption, but also about being a driving force for good public service performance. Accountability consists of both substantive aspects and procedural or means aspects. Three major types of accountability have been identified: fiscal accountability, process accountability, and program accountability.

• Fiscal accountability is the most traditional form of accountability involving the examination of financial records to ensure that expenditures have been made legally. This allows the legislature to maintain control over public funds and uncover any potential corruption or abuse of programs.
• Process accountability focuses on the performance of tasks by public agencies. It involves detecting procedural irregularities, such as improper tenders or contracts, in various government activities and suggesting measures to address these issues.
• Program accountability, on the other hand, is concerned with the effectiveness of government programs. It goes beyond just ensuring that funds have been spent efficiently and looks at whether the programs have actually achieved their intended goals and improved the lives of their intended beneficiaries.
• According to Jabbra and Dwivedi (1988), public service accountability should include at least five elements: organizational or administrative, legal, professional, political, and moral accountability.
• Organizational accountability refers to the traditional hierarchical accountability within an organization, as outlined in the classical Weberian bureaucratic model of administration.
• Legal accountability connects actions in the public domain to the established legislative and judicial processes. This can be achieved either through court actions or by judicial reviews of administrative actions, ensuring that public organizations and officials follow legal norms and delegations.
• Professional accountability involves balancing the codes of various professions (such as doctors and engineers) with the greater purpose of protecting the public interest. As governments increasingly rely on professional expertise, it is essential to ensure that public interest remains the ultimate determinant of responsibility and accountability.
• Political accountability is concerned with the legitimacy of public programs and the survival of involved organizations. In a democracy, administrators are obliged to recognize the power of political authorities to regulate, set priorities, distribute resources, and ensure compliance with orders.
• Lastly, moral accountability is at the core of public administration. It goes beyond mere obedience to laws and bureaucratic norms, as a morally accountable public official strives for a moral government. As instances of administrative and political corruption become more widespread, the demand for moral accountability in the management of public affairs is increasingly articulated in various forums, such as the media, the legislature, and the judiciary.

Tools of Accountability

There are different tools or means available to make public servants accountable. Specific tools are designed to suit particular purposes. Since the concept is essentially multidimensional, several tools are employed simultaneously in different countries to ensure administrative accountability in practice. As the following Table shows, the different tools subserve different purposes (Hayllar, 1991). 

Tools of Accountability

Accountability: The Changing Perspectives

The traditional liberal-democratic mechanisms of accountability, such as ministerial control, parliamentary debates, and legislative committees, have evolved over time. In recent years, there has been a significant shift in public governance towards a market-centered, neo-liberal approach, which emphasizes efficiency, competition, and value for money. This new approach has led to the adoption of business management standards in public governance, which contrasts with the traditional objectives of enhancing human progress, maintaining law and order, and ensuring public welfare.

• These changes in public governance have created several challenges to the realization of accountability. Standards of accountability have become more focused on procedural and economic criteria, such as efficiency and productivity, rather than on substantive public concerns like equality and representation. Moreover, the growing emphasis on managerial autonomy and result-oriented administration may render traditional means of ensuring accountability, such as legislative scrutiny and internal control, ineffective.
• In addition, public-private partnerships and exchanges under the new public management regime pose a threat to certain means of accountability, as they are often less answerable to legislative scrutiny and ministerial supervision. This makes it difficult to determine whether joint ventures or business deals have been made in the public interest or not, and can lead to potential abuse of power and corruption. In summary, the contemporary changes in public governance have created significant challenges to accountability in terms of standards, agents, and means.

Accountability under "Good Governance"

Good governance is an accountability-oriented concept that is particularly applicable to third world countries. The World Bank posits that good governance is synonymous with sound development management and is an essential complement to sound economic policies. Governments are the main producers of public goods and frame rules for the market to work efficiently. The institutional frameworks that promote growth and poverty alleviation do not evolve on their own; they require incentives and adequate institutional capacity to create and sustain them. The World Bank highlights accountability as an essential prerequisite of good governance.

• Accountability is crucial for ensuring efficiency in investment as well as in the production and distribution of public goods and services. The government also has to ensure accountability in the private sector through appropriate company and securities legislation, competitive policies, and regulatory oversight, especially when downsizing through disinvestment, privatization, and contracting. The current trend of formulating corporate governance codes and requiring public and private sector companies to adhere to them is a means of exercising accountability.
• Public accountability involves three interrelated groups: the general public, particularly recipients of public services; political leaders and supervisors of service providers; and the service providers themselves. The World Bank identifies two broad types of accountability: micro-accountability and macro-accountability. Micro-accountability is critical for ensuring government responsiveness to the views and needs of the public for whom services are intended. The concepts of "exit" and "voice," which originated in Hirschman's work, have been used to emphasize the importance of micro-accountability.
• Macro-accountability, on the other hand, has two major dimensions: financial accountability and accountability for overall economic performance. Financial accountability involves a properly functioning government accounting system, an external audit system, and mechanisms to review and act on the results of audits. Accountability for economic performance involves reviewing resource use in public investment programs and strengthening governments' capacity to monitor and evaluate their own economic performance, including proper resource use. This form of accountability can only be enforced with the help of special kinds of data regarding both inputs and outputs.

Accountability in Global Governance

In recent years, there has been a growing demand for accountability at the international level due to several emerging trends. Global governance has evolved into a complex network, as governments rely on international organizations such as the UN, IMF, World Bank, and WTO to play larger and more comprehensive roles in ensuring stability, growth, and security within and among states. Additionally, large corporations are organizing their commercial activities, lobbying, and self-regulation on a global level to safeguard their transnational interests. Furthermore, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) are rapidly expanding in various sectors. As a result, the 21st century is witnessing more global actors, processes, and issues, leading to perplexing implications for development.

• Within state boundaries, people have had the ability to hold their governments accountable through elections, impartial courts, ombudsmen, the media, and other mechanisms. However, in the current global governance landscape, governments are increasingly required to delegate or relinquish control over many significant domestic matters to international organizations, networks, or other actors. Consequently, even in democracies, governments cannot be held accountable for a wide range of decisions.
• The UNDP report on 'Accountability in Global Governance' (2002) highlights that while the accountability gap in industrialized countries is being partially addressed by a growing number of NGOs and investigative media attention, this is not the case for developing countries. In international organizations, developing countries have limited power and influence to hold these agencies accountable. Moreover, their actions within these organizations are less monitored by their national media and NGOs. In the global private sector, public-private expert networks, and global civil society, developing countries have even less capacity to hold global actors accountable. Therefore, accountability in global governance and its implications for development need to be re-evaluated and reconsidered.

Conclusion

In conclusion, accountability is a crucial aspect of a functioning democracy, ensuring that government officials and bureaucracies are answerable for their actions and decisions. It is a complex and multidimensional concept that encompasses various types, purposes, and tools. Recent shifts in public governance, such as the new public management paradigm and the emphasis on good governance, have further highlighted the importance of accountability in both public and private sectors. Ultimately, accountability aims to promote responsible use of power, transparency, and ethical behavior in public administration, thereby fostering trust in government institutions and strengthening democracy.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) of  Accountability & Control

What is accountability in public administration?

Accountability in public administration refers to the methods by which public agencies and officials fulfill their duties and obligations, and the processes by which they are required to account for their actions. It ensures that those who wield power exercise it responsibly so that they can be held accountable for their actions.

What are the types of accountability in public administration?

There are three major types of accountability: fiscal accountability, which involves scrutiny of financial transactions to ensure legal expenditure; process accountability, which focuses on the performance of tasks by public agencies; and program accountability, which focuses on the results or effectiveness of public programs.

What are the purposes of accountability in public administration?

The main purposes of accountability in public administration are: controlling the abuse of bureaucratic power and discretion, ensuring performance in accordance with standards and quality, promoting learning for continuous improvement in governance and public management, and enhancing citizen confidence in administrative institutions.

To whom are public servants accountable?

Public servants are accountable to multiple sources of authority, including their organizational hierarchy, the legislature, the judiciary, citizens, and the media. This creates complex relationships and challenges for public officials as they navigate the different expectations and requirements of each source of authority.

How has the concept of accountability changed with the rise of new public management?

New public management has shifted the focus of accountability from traditional democratic standards to market-based, business-like criteria such as efficiency, competition, and profit. This has led to challenges in maintaining accountability for public servants, as the emphasis on economic performance can overshadow concerns for citizens' rights, representation, and equality.