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Accountability in Governance

 27 Oct 2020

 11 min read

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 GS Paper - 4

 GS Paper - 2

 Dimensions of Ethics

 Government Policies & Interventions

 Transparency & Accountability

 Accountability refers to the process as well as norms that make decision makers answerable
to ones for whom decisions are taken i.e., the decision maker and the beneficiary.

 The recent emphasis on revolutionised democracy seeking increased accountability from

the government has brought into focus its need and importance in Governance and
government functioning.

o Accountability mechanisms-in functioning of the State has been engaging attention

of the civil society, academicians and lawmakers in general and international
financial institutions and donors in particular.

 In this context, accountability institutions assume importance and form the core of any good
governance mechanism helping in bridging the gap between the stakeholders and the
decision makers.

Advantages of Accountability in Governance

 Democratic governance: The accountability to the citizens is a fundamental principle of

democratic governance. It is not limited to accountability to seniors in hierarchy only as part
of chain of command but also the stakeholders including citizens and civil society.

o It may stem out of legal requirements or may be determined by the moral and
ethical framework of the organisation.

 Answerability: Accountability as an answerability component to justify the action and an

enforcement component that is to take action in cases where an act of omission or
commission is established.

 Remedial measures: It provides for remedial measures including punishment in case of

deviations from norms.
  Public confidence: Accountability helps in improving public confidence in government
performance.

Stakeholders

 Bodies enabling check and balance: The framers of the Indian Constitution, while adhering
to the principle of separation of powers between Legislature, Judiciary and Executive also
provided for appropriate checks and balances for administrative objectivity and
accountability. The accountability could be financial, administrative, legal or professional.

 Citizens as electorate: First and foremost, the stakeholder in any case would be the citizens.
As the electorate, they have the right to seek accountability of the elected representatives.

 Citizens as taxpayers: The citizens are the taxpayers. They have a right to know how the
money paid by them has been expended by the Government and whether it was used for
appropriate purposes and efficiently. It also needs that the government functionaries
entrusted with the collection of taxes and implementing the schemes of the government
follow the prescribed norms

Accountability as an ongoing process

 Vision of government: The stakeholders directly or indirectly participate in framing the

vision and indicating the priorities. The schemes are framed and implemented by the
government. The results of evaluation help in improving the system.

 Empowering stakeholders: At the same time, they empower the stakeholder to seek
justification from the decision makers who in turn are obligated to provide necessary
explanation. There are checks and balances and incentives in the system on one hand and
expectations of the stakeholders to be met on the other.

 Making accountability an obligation: Accountability is essentially an obligation to give an

account of the actions taken or the decisions made by the person in authority to the
stakeholders who are impacted by those decisions.

 Necessisting transparency: Accountability necessitates transparency in decision making on

the other it also presupposes that the accurate and reliable information and data is
maintained by the government agency and is available in public domain for public scrutiny.
In absence of information and facts neither the grievance of the citizens would be
appreciated nor could the responsibility be imposed for acts of omission or commission.

Accountability and the Right to Information Act

 The Right to Information Act, 2005 has introduced a huge element of transparency in the

decision-making in the government as well as access to information.

 Digitisation of various services to the citizens has not only facilitated faster delivery of
services but also provided a clear trail of transactions for any analysis by an oversight
agency.

Accountability and the Citizen's Charter

 The Citizen's Charter also clearly spelt out the responsibilities of various agencies of the
government. By laying down the timelines for rendering the specific services they
proactively make themselves accountable to the citizens.
  For example, the Citizens Charter of the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) provides
for inter-alia service delivery standards which include the specified timelines for issue of
refunds or redressal of grievances.

Role of Vigilance in Accountability

 Institutional mechanisms: The institutional mechanisms existence of strong and

independent accountability institutions is a necessary condition for good governance.

o These institutions can detect the violations and deviations from prescribed norms

as well as the instances of poor administration.

o They can indicate the abuse of power and unconstitutional conduct. The institutional
mechanisms in context of the Government to ensure accountability may emanate
out of Constitutional provisions, legislative framework and administrative
arrangements.

 Checks and balances: The framers of the Indian Constitution, while adhering to the principle
of separation of powers between Legislature, Judiciary and Executive also provided for
appropriate checks and balances for administrative objectivity and accountability.

 Horizontal accountability: The institutions of horizontal accountability in Indian context

include the institutions of Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG), the Election Commission,
the Vigilance Commission, the Central Information Commission and the Ombudsman.

o In addition, there are a large number of Regulatory bodies including SEBI, TRAI,

CERC, CPCB etc. While the institution of CAG and Election Commission derive their
mandate from the Constitution. others draw their mandate from the respective Acts
governing them.

Financial Accountability

 Financial accountability is rather critical for the overall functioning of the government. The
budget is passed by the Parliament allocating specific sums of money to different ministries
and departments to implement the schemes and projects.

 The Executive has full authority and freedom to formulate, design and implement the
schemes and projects for development and welfare of the citizens of the country.

 Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG): In order to ensure accountability of the executive
to the legislature, the framers of the constitution created an independent oversight agency
namely CAG of India as per Article 148 of the Constitution of India.

o Further, accounting for the expenditure incurred by the ministries and departments
is done by the office of Controller General of Accounts (Ministry of Finance).

o The Finance and Appropriation Accounts prepared by them are audited by the CAG
of India who submits a report thereof to the Parliament in terms of Article 151 of
the Constitution. This completes the financial accountability loop.

The Role of CAG

  The role of CAG is not limited to financial audit of accounts. In addition, CAG of India
conducts Compliance Audit and Performance Audit.

o Compliance audit: It is on examination of rules, regulations, orders and instructions

for their legality, adequacy, transparency, propriety, prudence and effectiveness.

o Performance audit: It is an independent assessment or examination of the extent to

which an organisation, program or scheme operates economically, efficiently and
effectively. Thus, the audit conducted by the CAG of India covers almost all aspects
of accountability.

 The CAG of India is an independent constitutional authority who is neither part of the

Executive, nor of the Legislature.

 Further, his independence is ensured through Constitutional and legislative provisions.

Independence of the authority entrusted with the task of oversight eclipse in efficient
discharge of his functions as part of the accountability mechanism.

Way Forward

 Resilient accountability: Governments today operate in a very complex environment with

stakeholders consisting of different interest groups, competing demands on limited
resources and complex legal requirements, therefore a more resilient accountability
mechanism is required that encourages responsible governance.

 Ensuring public trust: Accountability facilitates a feedback mechanism between the

Government and its citizens. So the accountability to the citizens is most critical in order to
ensure sustenance of public trust and confidence in the existing democratic systems.

o The accountability mechanisms also need to keep pace with developments of

modern government structures particularly in the era of digitalization.

o There is also a need to sensitise the functionaries towards their responsibilities and
duties in context of the accountability frameworks.

 Minimum element of discretion: For better transparency, not only should there be a

Citizen's Charter but also well-defined Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) for performing
a job. Element of discretion needs to be minimised for ensuring responsiveness,
transparency and accountability.

Definition and Nature of Accountability:  

The general sense of accountability is required or expected to justify actions or decisions. This is the
dictionary meaning of accountability. But in governmental affairs particularly in public administration
it has special implications and the concept is regarded as an important part. It implies that the
representatives elected by the people must give explanations of the electorate for all these policies
and actions. This is a very important part of democracy-particularly representative form of
government. This is a very common cause that a person by whom he is elected is accountable to him
or them. This is not only a common sense affair but the very foundation of democracy.
A quite reasonable definition of the term is: “The requirement for representatives to answer to the
represented on the disposal of their powers and duties and act upon criticisms.” The ministers are
accountable to the legislature, and the members of the legislature are accountable to the electorate.
It may be explained in another way.

ADVERTISEMENTS:

When a person is entrusted with a job or duty he is supposed to do it to the best of his ability,
experience, honesty and efficiency. But if he fails to satisfy his employer, the latter can claim
explanation, or the latter can ask him the cause of failure. This is called accountability. Hence
accountability means one is bound to give explanation for the policy or work done by someone.

In Greek city-states the citizens assembled in open places and took decisions on legislative and
administrative affairs. But the citizens appointed some persons to do the job on their behalf and, in
that system, there was some sort of accountability. In other words, the citizens could demand
explanation from the officers.

The contractualist Rousseau did not directly deal with the concept of accountability. But in his
analysis of body politic and structure of government there was a concept of sovereignty which was
general will and all were accountable to the general will because it was formed by all the able-
bodied adult citizens. Everyone was legally bound by the principles of general will. It implies that the
citizens are accountable to the general will. None could violate the general will because he was also
the part of the general will.

With the progress of democracy and rapid progress of representative type of government the
accountability has earned added importance. It is chiefly due to the fact that there is no scope of
direct participation by the people in the administration. But while people elect someone or some
number of people for transaction of some job, it is a general expectation that he or they will do the
job satisfactorily. Any failure will call for an explanation. This is accountability. The key idea of
accountability is to ensure a balance in the administrative system.

ADVERTISEMENTS:

Here the word balance is used in a special sense. It means that someone is entrusted with a job and
he is supposed to do it. But if his performance fails to satisfy then he Is required to be called for an
explanation of his failure. Here lies the balance and it constitutes the very foundation of democracy.
The idea of accountability has another meaning-it is control. Whenever one is asked to do a job,
there must lie the system of controlling the process. Long ago Aristotle raised an interesting
question-quis custodiet upsos custodcs-“Who will guard the Guardians?

Accountability and Bureaucracy:

In all state systems-developed, developing and underdeveloped-there is bureaucratic structure.

Bureaucrats are not elected by people and naturally, like ministers and members of legislature, they
are not accountable to the general public. Naturally, they are not bound to give any explanation for
their policy or work and this has posed serious question as to the concept of balance. One is
empowered to rule but to what extent that satisfies the people that poses an important question.

The greatest shortcoming of Weberian model of bureaucracy is it remains outside the scrutiny of the
general public and ethics of public administration demands that control or scrutiny is indispensable.
For that reason there arises the idea of the control of bureaucracy. In this connection we quote Ball
and Peters: “The need for controlling bureaucratic discretion and power is apparent in every political
system.

In all forms of government-particularly in liberal democracies-need for controlling bureaucracy has

been strongly felt. In such systems there are two types of executives-one is permanent executive-
bureaucrat and the other is temporary executive-that is minister. The ministers perform executive
functions for a fixed period of time.

ADVERTISEMENTS:

Normally the tenure of ministers is tied with the tenure of the legislature. But the bureaucrats enter
the job and continue up to retirement. For some misdemeanour or wrongdoing they may be
removed from service. The ministers are doubly accountable. They are accountable to the
legislature-and again, to the people. If bureaucracy is the stamina of public administration it must be
accountable to somebody.

At the beginning of the twentieth century Weber invented his model and he thought that
administration without bureaucracy is simply an impossibility. If so, it is essential to control it
through the process of ensuring accountability. Some people have suggested that the civil servants
must be inculcated that they are servants of the people or society and their rudimentary duty is to
help the amelioration of society through their services.

They are selected, trained, appointed and paid for their service to the society. Any failure is an up-
pardonable misconduct. This inculcation, through various ways, will make them accountable. In
other words, the bureaucrats must be made conscious of their responsibility to society. It is the duty
of the state to do the job.

The common people must be made conscious of their rights and duties to the society. This type of
alertness will make civil servants conscious of their responsibility to the society. But any form of
callousness on their part will make the bureaucrats forgetful of their duty to society. This is possible
through socialisation and spread of education among the people.

ADVERTISEMENTS:

It has been suggested that internal control is sometimes more effective than external control.
Internal control suggests that in the entire bureaucratic structure self-regulatory mechanism is to
required be introduced. Some of the self-regulatory mechanisms are internal coordination, self-
discipline, checks and balances, introductions of hierarchical system etc. The administrative
structure is to be so arranged that no one shall get the opportunity to be powerful and unmindful of
this responsibility or accountability to society.

A statutory body is to be constituted to ensure the accountability. It is said that people shall have
freedom and opportunity to lodge their grievances to this body without any fear or hurdle. This
system will make the bureaucrats accountable. They will be conscious of their responsibility to
society.

After the Second World War (1939-1945) a large number of countries of Asia and Africa got their
political freedom. For the purpose of economic development the most important and powerful
machinery is administration. It is to be remembered that the public administration will do the
necessary job of development. But the work requires to be assessed and here lies the question of
accountability.
So both bureaucracy and its accountability to society are of primary importance. But in the
developing states there is a brain-storming problem. The people are not politically educated and
conscious and because of this the activities of bureaucracy remain beyond scrutiny of the general
public. The inevitable consequences are corruption, nepotism, inefficiency in the department of
public administration.

ADVERTISEMENTS:

The situation is aggravated by the fact that the politicians in general and ministers in particular are
corrupt and the top bureaucrats exploit this situation in their favour-they do not hesitate to follow
corrupt practices for the gratification of their personal gains and desires This has eroded the sphere
of accountability of civil servants to the society The ordinary people are helpless. So is the
importance of accountability of bureaucracy to society. Rather, it may be treated as the central part
of bureaucratic administration.

Forms of Accountability:

When the question of accountability arises we generally mean the accountability of bureaucrats to
the general-public or society. But the experts of public administration have made a research about
its several forms or aspects and we want to throw light on them.

It is said that first of all a civil servant is accountable to the administrative system It is because he is a
member of civil service or bureaucracy. It has certain rules and norms. Every member of bureaucracy
must show respect to these rules that is, they scrupulously obey the rules. None can violate the rules
of the organisation.

In a democracy-particularly in parliamentary system-the ministers-that is political personalities-

became the head of each ministry and beginning from top bureaucrat to an ordinary officer-all work
under the authority of the minister and the decision of the minister is final. Of course the
departmental head or secretary of the department can give suggestions to the minister and he can
even warn the minister of the possible consequences of the policy which, the minister is going to
announce. But if the minister refuses to comply with his secretary the latter must submit to the
minister. This is called political accountability

ADVERTISEMENTS:

There is another form of accountability and it is legal accountability. This is of course, not new.
Legislature enacts laws, judges give verdict on different cases.

The decisions of judges are treated as law. A civil servant must obey all these laws which implies
bureaucrat’s accountability to all sorts of laws. Specially a civil servant has no scope to show
disrespect to the law of the legislature.

In a developing or transitional society there are customs, traditions, or old habits which are as
valuable as laws of legislature or decisions of the judges. A civil servant cannot disobey such
traditions, old systems. They are also accountable to the tradition or the traditional laws. Old
customs and habits are also parts of social system. The planning of administration and development
is to be made in this background.

There is an accountability to ethics or morality which is called bureaucratic morality or, what some
public administrationists call, bureaucratic ethics. Simply stated it means that a bureaucrat must be
sincere, honest, and efficient. He should remember that his perks come from the state exchequer
which is filled up by people’s taxes. He should remember that public money is to be properly spent.
He should do his duty efficiently and honestly. It is his duty to discharge his functions with utmost
sincerity and efficiency.

ADVERTISEMENTS:

Henry raises the question “Of what use was morality to a person who did no more than execute the
will of the state according to certain scientific principles? Provided that public administrators
accomplished their given terms efficiently and economically, they were moral in the sense that they
were responsible” This is morality in public administration and the civil servants must be
accountable to this special type of morality.

The accountability to morality may also be explained in terms of accountability to consciences. A

bureaucrat must always remember that he is performing his duties with utmost sincerity, efficiency,
and responsibility. When a policy is adopted, it is the duty of the officer to so execute it that the
benefits of the implementation reach the people for whom the policy has been formulated.

There is another type of accountability to conscience. It is a very well-known fact that the ministers
in a democracy are temporary executives. Whereas, the bureaucrats are permanent executives and
they are fully aware of numerous aspects of public administration.

Whenever a minister is going to make a policy it is the primary responsibility of the bureaucrat or the
secretary of the department or ministry to give or furnish all the details of the ministry including the
odds. If he fails he will be responsible to his conscience. To put it in other words, by not providing
the darker aspects of the ministry the civil servant has failed in his duty. He has not acted according
to his good sense or conscience. Accountability to conscience has failed.

It is also the duty of the bureaucrat to warn the minister whenever the latter is going to adopt a
wrong policy. In a democracy the minister is the final authority, but it is also a fact that so far as the
policy-making is concerned he is fully dependent on his departmental secretary. Naturally, it is the
primary responsibility of the secretary to aware the minister of the complexities and other aspects of
the department. If the bureaucrat fails he will be solely responsible for his duty.

Here arises the accountability to conscience. A well-known authority — while explaining the
relationship between the minister and his departmental secretary-said that it is the duty of the
secretary to furnish necessary facts to the minister, to warn him about the possible bad
consequences of a policy which he is going to adopt and, finally, to surrender to the minister
because he should know that the minister is his political master.

New Public Management and Accountability:

ADVERTISEMENTS:

In the fields of public administration and management America is always a pioneer. It devises new
techniques or methods to tackle situations or problems. During the last six or seven decades
America has introduced new systems or methods of public administration and these are followed by
other countries. A new method in this series is the New Public Management (hereafter NPM). The
NPM is not only a new method of public administration, it throws ample light on the issue of
accountability.

In the last decade of the twentieth century the federal government of America realised that the
advent of Cold War, and its recession, the disintegration of the then Soviet Russia as a superpower,
the emergence of unipolar system etc. had brought about certain changes in the administrative
system. Again, in the USA there emerged large and powerful corporations or multinational
corporations, innovative systems were introduced in corporations, both globalisation and
liberalisation were advancing rapidly.

The top public administrators of America felt the necessity of devising new methods of public
administration to cope with the new changes and problems. Both public administration and
management must be fully restructured or remodelled in the light of the new situation. A book was
published in 1992 — Reinventing Government: How the Entrepreneurial Spirit is Transforming the
Public Sector. This paved the way for a new look in administrative system.

In 1992 Bill Clinton was elected US president and in January 1993 he assumed charge. Immediately
after assuming charges Clinton declared a policy of public administration. He made the following
comment: “Our goal is to make the entire federal government both less expensive and more
efficient and to change the culture of our national bureaucracy away from complacency and
entitlement towards initiative and empowerment”.

Bill Clinton took the initiative to restructure the entire administrative system of the federal
government. His sole aims were to make the public administration efficient, accountable and to
remove complacency from the body of bureaucracy. Top bureaucrats, public administrationists,
scholars and experienced persons met together and discussed various ways of reinventing and
restructuring public administration. Towards the end of the twentieth century the general principles
of public administration were adopted and it is known as New Public Management.

The New Public Management offers the following ideas:

ADVERTISEMENTS:

1. The New Public Management, introduced in the nineties of the last century, emphasised on the
improvement of “accountability to the public interest, which should be understood in terms of law,
continuity and shared values”. This is a clear emphasis on accountability.

2. In order to ensure that accountability is functioning properly the government shall evaluate the
performance of bureaucrats.

3. The New Public Management has talked about empowering the citizens to assess the activities of
government.

The New Public Management is also associated with good governance. Good governance is a slogan
of most of the states, particularly the liberal democratic states. From the second half of the
twentieth century, to achieve the goal of “good governance”, USA has made a lot of attempts and
introduced a number of measures. Experts are of opinion that goodness of governance is to be
measured by its performance. Again, this depends on several factors such as decentralisation,
downsizing, proper budgeting. All these objectives are to be achieved through the successful
execution of accountability. The New Public Management stresses both accountability and good
governance.