MARCO GEOGRAFICO Y DEMOGRAFICO

Accountability is a process where a person, or groups of people, are required to present an account of their activities and the way in which they have or have not discharged their duties. They are required to present this account to a nominated person or agency.

Accountability is, of course, not exclusive to the public sector. Private sector organizations attach great importance to accountability as a method of examining how people discharge responsibility and the financial performance of the organisation. However, it has been argued that the concept of accountability takes on greater importance in the public sector for a number of reasons:

• Public sector organisations are the guardians of monies collected through taxation and policies approved through the democratic processes, and the public demands that those responsible for public monies and public policies present a public account of their activities.

• Because of the responsibilities entrusted to public servants, high standards of conduct from them are expected. These standards will cover the way in which they spend money, the way in which policy is determined and put into practice, and sometimes even the way in which they conduct their private lives.

• The goals of private sector organisations tend to be much more precise and more widely understood than those in the public sector. A characteristic of public sector organisations is that they often have multiple goals which may conflict with each

other. For example, the prison system has as two of its main tasks: firstly to keep in custody, with such degree of security as is appropriate, having regard to the nature of the individual prisoner and his offence, sentenced prisoners for the duration of their offence, and secondly to provide for prisoners as full a life as is consistent with the facts of custody, in particular making available the physical necessities of life.

• The diversity of public sector organisations and the huge variations in the activities that they undertake mean that differing methods of accountability will apply in different situations. It is therefore difficult to generalise about the process of accountability in the public sector. The mechanisms of accountability in local authorities are different from those in central government It is, however, possible to detect certain trends such as the increasing importance that is being attached to management accountability in all parts of the public sector.

• The scale of public sector organisations, which are frequently large organisations with long chains of command, often present logistical problems in controlling the activities of those charged with putting policies into practice.

5.2.1 Responsibility and Accountability in Public Sector

There is a link between accountability and responsibility. Responsibility is a duty or obligation of a person or organization. It can be viewed in three ways (Simon, 1950):

• Responsibility as legal authority - for example having responsibility for a job;

• Responsibility as a moral obligation - the irresponsible parent may not fulfil his or her obligations to their children;

• Responsibility as responsiveness to values - where a public servant is charged with carrying out the wishes of others with particular reference to the values that are held by those charging the servant with carrying out the function.

On the other hand, accountability is those methods, procedures and forces that actually determine what values will be reflected in administrative decisions. Accountability is the enforcement of responsibility. In other words, accountability is the method or process to achieve the objectives of a government or its administrations in the context of public administration. Accountability works in different ways in different situations, depending on various factors in a particular situation. Therefore, accountability can be viewed from different perspectives.

First, more important forms of accountability have concentrated on the political dimension. The senior civil servant in the government department would be accountable to the Cabinet or Parliament for the discharge of his office. This is known as the doctrine of “ministerial responsibility”, one of the conventions upon which the system of the government depends. The model assumes that powers are vested in the appropriate minister, with civil servants taking decisions under the name of the minister. For example, rules are often set up or changed in safety matters after a major disaster, which have arguably had more political intention than technical solution.

Second, while political accountability involves an account being presented to an external and public audience, managerial accountability is concerned with internal processes. This may involve a shift in the nature of the account from a potentially more global set of considerations to a more restricted set of considerations about how things are done with particular reference to organizational objectives and resource considerations. The process moves on to issues such as how the policy should be put into practice, how this can be done within the available resources, and how the implementation of the policy is to be reviewed.

Managerial accountability is concerned with issues such as cost effectiveness, efficiency, budgetary control, monitoring performance and policy effectiveness. Systems of accountable management may be introduced to delegate responsibilities to those nearest the point of service delivery in a hierarchical sequence.

There is an inevitable tension between on the one hand the demands for political accountability where control is exercised from the top down, often with layers of administration exercising supervisory functions, and on the other managerial accountability where decisions are often delegated down the hierarchy as close as possible to the point of delivery. Decentralisation of decision-making conflicts with the traditional requirement for control through hierarchical chains of command.

Third, the actions of public sector organizations are subject to challenge in the courts of law, which is the doctrine of ultra vires that limits the powers of public bodies to that which the law empowers them to do. Quite often decisions or actions of a public department are criticised, not only by the clients but also by other departments, on the basis that they have exceeded their powers.

A government is also subject to scrutiny over its proper discharge of public funds. Thus, public officials operate within a framework of controls. However, these

controls are sometimes not clear. There are areas of uncertainty. For example, it is difficult to judge how much money should be spent on search and rescue services, or on preparedness for emergency incidents.

Furthermore, accountability in the public sector has to be directed to the consumer or client. In response to demands for a more accountable administration, there has been a development in machinery through which individuals who feel aggrieved at the decisions of the administration can attempt to gain redress. In many cases there is the opportunity to appeal against an administrative decision to a tribunal. This opportunity exists if, for example, a planning application is refused or where an application for a social security benefit is denied.

Throughout the last two decades, in most countries, especially the OECD countries, public sector organizations have been under attack for being unresponsive to the needs of consumers. Many critics have argued that such organizations have grown in size to serve their own interests rather than concentrating on financial control and meeting the needs of those to whom they are supposed to be providing a service. This criticism has led many organizations to reconsider the way in which they organize and deliver the services they provide in order to be more accountable and responsive to their customers. In doing so, market mechanisms, and contracting out some kinds of services, have been introduced in the public sector. Some critics have argued that market accountability and accountability through contracts have weakened public accountability generally. Attempts to improve accountability through the use of contracts may be problematic where the contract is not legally enforceable or where responsibility is not clearly specified between the contractor and the client.

Finally, the public sector has many areas where professionals have a dominant role in the application of their expertise to specific areas of work, for example, the maritime safety administration. This can lead to distortions in policy. It is quite possible that the wishes of political masters may be for one set of policy preferences while the professional group tend to prefer another. The resolution of this conflict may be in favour of the trends of the profession rather than the policies of the politicians. Politicians may not wish to exercise direct political control over certain areas of work in the public sector, for example areas where professionals make scientific judgement about a particular issue such as safe levels of chemicals for transportation by sea.

5.2.2 Budget in the Public Sector

Any debate about the role and function of the public sector inevitably involves the issue of finance, which is known as the government budget. Every organization, whether public or private, has its own budget, that covers resourcing of the organization and its expenditure. However, one of the traditionally cited differences between public and private organizations is the role of the budget. In the private sector , a budget will be a set of projections about likely future activity. The decision on the budget in a private organization is more likely to be made on the basis of cost/benefit analysis and profit production, driven by market forces, but it takes the risk on revenue uncertainty. In the public sector, the budgetary process will take the form of allocating resources through a political process. It is political, not necessarily because politicians are involved, but because it involves the representation of organizational interests and has scope for bargaining and conflict.

Budget development is a complex process, and it is controlled by the national accounting system in a hierarchical way, including supply estimates, cash limits, vote accounting and the government public expenditure planning arrangements. Normally, it starts with proposals from the “bottom” organizations, which are called to submit estimates in connection with the strategic plans and business plans. The estimates are then assembled and analysed. Finally, decisions on the budget estimates will be made from the “top” to “bottom”.

According to Bozeman & Straussman (1990, p.64), budget Processes have three broad functions. First, they try to enforce spending limitations through various kinds of controls. A good example is the common requirement that agencies submit spending plans to show how they will spend their appropriations over the fiscal year. Typically, a central budget office will allocate the budget piecemeal over the fiscal year to avoid overspending. Budgets also try to achieve an efficient allocation of resources; therefore, managers are often asked to show the “output” that will be produced for a given budget level. This reflects a management orientation toward budgeting. And third, budgets usually are prospective; in other words they say something about what should happen in the future and thereby exhibit a planning orientation.

Budgeting in the public sector is quite problematic. It may be influenced by many factors, for example, the economic situation, political and economic priorities, public expectation, and organizational bargaining by various interests. So, it is quite

often that “budget planning begins as chaos and ends in panic” (Hodgson, 1999, p.56). Government budgeting is the fundamental pre-condition under which the government departments are able to proceed with their tasks and programs. As a general observation on government budgeting versus obligations, the principle trend is that the public sector is under pressure to cut down on taxes and thereby reduce government expenditure, but at the same time more requirements of government services are expected. So, how to manage these contradictory questions is a major concern of organizations in the public sector.