Accountability and Its Importance to the Public Administration - Coursework Example

Public Management Name Institution Tutor Date Introduction Accountability has been of great concern in all civilizations and societies. However, there are always variations in the means, criteria and agents of accountability according to the nature of polity from conservative to liberal, traditional to modern, capitalist to socialist. The connotations of accountability also differ among different societies based on their ideological inclinations, socio-historical formations, and cultural beliefs. Accountability is essential to any public sector. This paper explores accountability and its importance to the public administration. It also seeks to assess the impacts of the recent market or managerially oriented reforms in the public service on public accountability. Accountability is ensuring that the officials in private, public and voluntary organizations are answerable and responsible for any action they make, and there is also redress when their duties and the commitments are not fulfilled. Accountability can also be seen as an institutionalized system that is accepted, established and has a regular relationship between actors. One group of the organization or people is held to account (accounts) while the other group does the holding (accounters) (Lebow and Spitzer, 2002). An accountability relationship can take four different stages. The first step is setting standards. This involves setting out the behavior that is expected from the ‘accountee’ and various procedures by which the ‘accountee’ may validly be judged. The standards will give direction to the accounters on how to conduct the accounting process. This is the first and the main stage of the process of accounting. The next step is conducting an investigation. This is determining whether the accounts have fulfilled the set standards. The accounters will investigate and explore the activities of the accountees and judge if their work was correctly done. The third stage is answerability; the accountees are supposed to explain themselves, defend their actions and face skeptical questions. This step applies to the negative and positive feedback. The final stage is sanctioning the accoutees. In this stage, the accountees are to some extent punished for not meeting the set standards or rewarded for responding to standards (Lebow and Spitzer, 2002). Accountability can be categorized in terms of vertical, horizontal and diagonal mechanisms. Success in accountability cannot just be found in one approach but the interaction between different methods. Horizontal accountability entails the formal relationships in the state in that one actor within the state has legal authority to seek for explanations or impose any punishment on another. This stage often focuses on the oversight process and internal checks (Pelizzo and Stapenhurst, 2013). Vertical accountability is where the citizens and different associations play a direct role in holding power to account. An example of the formal channel of vertical accountability is elections. However, there are various informal processes the citizens use to organize themselves into different associations. These organizations are capable of making the private sectors and the government service providers accoutable by seeking explanations and threatening formal sanctions such as adverse publicity. The civil society and the citizens can find the support of the elected leaders to address their grievances and help in the event of inadequate or inappropriate action of the government (Pelizzo and Stapenhurst, 2013). The diagonal accountability operates between the horizontal and vertical dimensions. This is the direct engagement of citizen with horizontal accountability organizations when provoking good oversight of state actions. The citizens by pass compromised or cumbersome formal accountability systems and engage in budgeting, policy making and expenditure tracking (Pelizzo and Stapenhurst, 2013). Importance of Accountability in Public Administration Accountability has an outstanding importance to public administration. Managers of public organizations who are worth their positions assigns authority that match the responsibility for tasks that they assign to their team members. Failure to do this, the organization is bound to fail. Along with the responsibility and authority, comes accountability. The person assigned the authority or responsibility should be accountable for fulfilling their commitments and achieving the right results (Seton, 2014). Accountability can help reduce levels of corruption in public organizations. Corruption is the use of trust of the general public for dishonest gains. In order to successfully prevent corruption, they should know the cause and the source of corruption in the public sectors. Every society expects a given level of corruption. Although accountability in public sectors may help fight corruption, there is no agreement on which mechanisms through which it can be achieved (Rod et al, 2014). Accountability enables different individuals to be committed to their work. Individuals are always engaged when they are given keen supervision, this will help improve the performance of the organization when workers are to account for their dealings. Most individuals are busy with other activities if a close follow-up is not conducted; they are likely to fail the business organization. Quality output and success in completing any task depends on the commitments of the workers. When the workers show commitments in their work, they show that they are capable of undertaking the task and that they have some respect to the administration that assigned the task. This encourages transparency and openness in their work (Seton, 2014). Accountability in the public sector involves external standards that always pressure the development of internal systems that support adequate administrative judgments. The are anti-corruption efforts by the public sectors in the establishment of various essential elements. These include; codes of conduct, laws, and other legal binding documents. Also , the percentage of the recruitment of new public servants, the percent of the audited budgets and the merits of the financial systems that are operating in the management process should are put in place. These structural approaches may not be sufficient; as a result public organizations should include moral accountability in dealing with corruption in management (Rod et al, 2014). Accountability leads to success in any organization. According to Seton (2014), in order for any organization to be successful, each action or task should be assigned such that one individual is given the authority over the work. A target completion date is provided, and appropriate authority, responsibility, and accountability is conducted on the work. After the manager has assigned an activity, there should be a follow-up to ensure the work is being done appropriately. The monitoring action should provide all the standards set by the organization are met and that the worker has performed his or her task as required. By enforcing such accountability the public organizations can attain success (Seton, 2014). Public service organizations in United States represents the people that they work for. Accountability within the organization allows the customers to have control over the methods and products of the organization. The organizations are solely responsible for providing services to the customers without any bias. The organizations are often accountable for their actions to the customers. This increases the customer loyalty and trust in the organization. The organization should keep records containing the activities it has undertaken (Arnull and Wincott, 2001). Accountability also leads to innovation and creativity in public administration. The workers are committed to their actions. They can perform to their best. This will enable them have new ideas and handling situations or performing difficult tasks before them. Through this, the workers can innovate and create new procedures, ideas, and systems in the organization. Thus, the organization is at liberty to prosper and improve on its operations (Seton, 2014). Again, accountability assist to improve the morale of the employees, and they become satisfied with their actions. The workers can access their performance by being accountable for their actions.When the task was well performed, the employees can receive rewards for their good performance, this help improves their morale and satisfaction in their work. When the workers morale is improved, they can perfume to the best of their ability, this will help increase the success of their organization (Seton, 2014). The Impact of Recent Managerial/Market-Oriented Reforms in the Public Service on Public Accountability During the last two centuries, the evolution of managerial oriented reforms in the United States in the national, local or state governments has had considerable impacts on public accountability (Kellough, 2006). Every reform has acquired political strength, their importance to the public have been seen in the forming several corresponding systems and other related techniques. The new managerial changes have high impacts on the public accountability. The first administrative change is the political responsiveness. This is where the government answers the needs of the people through the elected leaders. The public workforce should be able to answer to the elected leaders. In this system, personal and political faithfulness of the employees in the public sectors should be ensured. This can be achieved by appointing well-educated leaders with relevant experience. In this reform, the elected leaders should show a high level of accountability in their service to the public since they represent the interest of the general public to the government. The reform calls for a high level of transparency and emphasizes the need for public accountability on the part of public representatives (Kellough, 2006). Another managerial reform is the organizational effectiveness and efficiency. This is the desire of the managers and the public to increase the profits of the organizations. This will suggest the decision on the person to hire, promote, or sign based on their competencies in the work. This reform has a great impact on public accountability. There should be a high level of transparency in hiring and promoting workers in the organization. As much as the organization's aim is to maximize profits, it should act ethically and avoid corruption in its activities. During the recruitment of workers, much considerations or emphasis should be put on their qualifications rather than on their political loyalty. Accountability is conducted by the end of the recruitment exercise to ascertain the process was a success (Kellough , 2006). An additional market or managerial reform is on the individual rights. It requires that the citizens or the public should be protected from any unfair action by the government officials or management in a given organization. In the civil service systems, the rights of employees to their job security and the due process are controlled through regulations and rules that protect the public from the unfair practices by different organizations. The workers who are union members are protected from the arbitrary decisions by the management through the collective bargaining agreement. This reform has a significant impact on public accountability. The government officials should be accountable for their actions to the public, the activities of the government are thus evaluated, and a follow-up activity is carried out on the actions of the managers and government officials. This has helped to promote public accountability (Kellough, 2006). Social equity is another significant reform in the management. It emphasizes on fairness to different groups. More specifically women, the disabled, racial minorities, and the veterans who can be disadvantaged by the market economy accept the existance of the legitimacy of the high level of discrimination in pay and hiring. Social equality calls for fairness in any activity of the managers or workers. Social equality is mainly concerned with the recruitment of qualified personnel in terms of experience, education or seniority. Social equality also promotes public accountability. For the fairness of the managers to be assessed, they have to account for their activities and actions in dealing with the public. Accountability has been necessary for public administrators in achieving social equality of all the workers (Kellough, 2006). Conclusion Accountability can be viewed as one of the golden concepts that no individual can be against. It is mostly used in policy documents and political discourse since it conveys an image of trustworthiness and transparency. Public accountability enables the managers and those in high positions to be answerable for their activities. They give the accounts of their undertakings. Accountability is necessary for public administration. It helps bring an enormous success to the public administration. There are several impacts of the new managerial or market-oriented reforms in public service on public accountability. The new changes promote accountability in dealing with the general public. Public administrators should thus ensure they are accountable for their actions and improve accountability within the organization. References Arnull, A and Wincott D, 2001, Legitimacy and Accountability in European Union, New York, OUP. Pp 35-40. Retrived from https://books.google.co.ke/books?id=0FL1XnvccNkC&printsec=frontcover&dq=Legitim acy+and+Accountability+in++European+Union&hl=en&sa=X&ei=BOMsVZPuJNbrarie gZgO&redir_ Aucoin, P and Heintzman, R, 2000, ‘ dialectics of accountability for the performance of public management reforms’, International Review of Administrative Sciences, vol 66. 531- 546.Retrieved from: http://ras.sagepub.com/content/66/1/45.extract Kellough J, 2006, Personnel Policy and Public Management, Albany, State University of New York Press. Pp 345. 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Pp.1 Retrieved from http://patimes.org/corruption-ethics-accountability-normative-approach- control/ Seton, L, 2014, Why is accountability important, retrieved from: pp.1 http://ontopofeverything.blogspot.com/2010/02/why-is-accountability-so-important.html Read More