The Issue of Public Accountability
When people in authority fail to do their jobs properly, we can
expect needless harm, injustice and waste of public money. Holding
to account is a powerful lever to cause authorities to act diligently
in the public interest, but we have never used it. It means exacting
and validating the public explanations we need from authorities
that help us to make sensible decisions as citizens -- including
what trust to place in the authorities. If we do not trust people
in authority, society will not work properly.
Accountability means the obligation to explain -- to report, at
the time it is needed, how responsibilities are being carried out.
Accountability does not mean the responsibility to do something,
which is the obligation to act. Nor does it mean answering questions
in an inquiry. Public accountability means the obligation to explain
publicly, fully and fairly, how responsibilities affecting the public
in important ways are being carried out. Public answering for responsibilities
cannot be rejected or evaded, because the obligation is politically
neutral and tells no one how to do their jobs. It is simply the
requirement to explain.
Holding authorities fairly to account has two purposes. First,
it produces useful information that we would not otherwise have
but which we need if we are to make sensible decisions about authorities,
including the trust decision. Holding effectively to account helps
prevent "spin" from authorities, because their public
answering will be validated. As the American George Washington said
two centuries ago, "...I am sure the mass of Citizens in these
United States mean well, and I firmly believe they will always act
well, whenever they can obtain a right understanding of matters..."
He spoke for all societies.
Secondly, holding to account imposes a self-regulating influence
on those asked to account. People who must report publicly on their
responsibilities will want to say something praiseworthy. Since
what they say they intend and achieve will be subject to scrutiny
and validation by knowledgeable organizations or professional audit,
exposed lying brings high personal cost. Most important, intentions
that would lead to harm or unfairness tend to self-destruct when
they are exposed.
Authorities such as governments and large corporations have resisted
the obligation to answer fully and fairly for their responsibilities
because public answering shares power and the self-regulating effect
tends to restrict whim in their intentions.
Explaining publicly, fully and fairly how responsibilities are
being carried out means that authorities will report intentions
that would affect the public in important ways and the reasons for
those intentions. They will also report the performance standards
they intend for themselves and those they oversee. They will report
their actual performance, as they see it, the outcomes they think
they have brought about, and the learning they gained and how they
applied it.
For example, a government adequately accounting for its responsibilities
can reasonably be expected to meet each of these standards of public
reporting. Conversely, a government not wanting to take responsibility
for adequate and cost-effective healthcare, for example, can be
expected to publicly explain its intentions and reasoning, using
the same answering standards.
We need to know what authorities such as executive governments
and their agencies and corporate governing bodies intend, for whom,
and why they intend it. Without this reporting, and without validation
of what authorities assert, we have no assurance whether authorities'
intentions will lead to fairness or harm. We are therefore not well-enough
informed to sensibly commend their intentions, or act to alter or
halt them. At present all we seem to have is blind faith or public
protest -- with protest usually too late. Once authorities' agendas
have been set, citizens' restraining forces seldom match authorities'
driving forces. Holding fairly to account can reduce the driving
forces because the public answering requirement produces the self-regulating
influence.
We also need authorities to report after the fact but we must validate
that reporting as well. It is reasonable that they tell us what
they think they have brought about in the public interest; why the
result was different from plan, if that is the case; and how the
authorities applied the learning available to them.
Thus the aim of holding fairly to account is to convince authorities
not only to meet reasonable performance, but also to meet reasonable
standards of answering for their responsibilities, and to help ensure
that intentions that would lead to harm or injustice are exposed.
It is because we have never required authorities to give us these
public explanations -- let alone to meet reasonable standards of
public answering -- that needless harm, unfairness and waste continue.
The immediate task is to hold authorities publicly and fairly to
account while at the same time holding our legislators to account
for installing the public answering obligation in the law. Accountability
legislation must require adequate public reporting by authorities
for their responsibilities, and set the basic standards for the
reporting. However, those legitimately holding to account must make
fair use of answering given in good faith or it won't be given a
second time, regardless of the law.
Exacting adequate answering from authorities is a test of our civic
competence. It shows our ability to learn beforehand the intentions
of people in authority so we can act on those intentions. Holding
to account is simply applying the precautionary principle to civics.
No one has given power of attorney to authorities. But today citizens
have lost, or are close to losing, control that should be theirs.
The same holds for too many legislative assemblies. The idea is
to reverse this trend. Otherwise we will be accepting the pronouncement
of the cartoon character Pogo: "We have met the enemy, and
he is us."
Having full and fair public answering from authorities is a basic
human right. It belongs in the United Nations Declaration of Human
Rights and in nations' constitutions.
It is time we installed adequate accountability reporting within
our own localities and countries, and country-to-country. For its
part, the United Nations can appropriately take on the role of developing
public reporting standards for nations in publicly accounting to
each other for their intentions and reasoning. The UN could also
take on the role of validating the reporting, to the extent possible.
This would install a self-regulating influence for greater fairness
across the planet.
For Visitors to Our Website
The CCA website offers useful information for anyone interested
in or concerned about public accountability. The website explains
what public accountability means and why it is a society imperative.
It explains the concept and basic principles of public accountability,
and standards for public answering by authorities. Most important,
it sets out the basic steps for citizens, elected representatives
and public interest organizations to hold fairly to account. CCA
guidance on holding to account includes the Equity Statement as
a reasonable means for authorities to publicly report their intentions
and reasoning, and the approach of Citizen Audit where accountability
reporting is resisted.
Visitors to the site may wish to seek adequate answering from particular
authorities or, if they themselves are members of accountable governing
bodies they can see what is reasonably expected from them in public
answering.
Concerns about authorities can vary widely. They can be:
- the intentions and performance of the executive, board or governing
council of an organization you belong to, or of an organization
on which you rely for delivery of important services, such as
safety or healthcare
- the intentions and performance of elected and appointed officials
of local, regional, province/state or national governments, and
of the overseeing elected representatives
- the intentions of governing and opposition political parties
- the diligence of professionals, including the judiciary
- the intentions and performance of boards of corporations
- the intentions of nations affecting other nations
A New Emphasis in our 2004 Website Up-date
We are seeing the term "accountability" increasingly
bandied about as a buzzword by people in authority and their critics
alike, none of whom explain what they mean by it. And when the terms
responsibility and accountability are used interchangeably, the
public answering obligation can be evaded by authorities. Citizens
therefore need help in dealing with public accountability.
Knowledgeable individual observers and public interest organizations
give invaluable public alerts about apparent intentions and conduct
of authorities. Their aim is to have their alerts lead to a climate
of opinion or public protest that will halt a suspect intention,
or alter an authority's conduct. But most observers do not go beyond
alerts to suggest how citizens can force into public view authorities'
real intentions and reasoning, and thus cause harmful intentions
to self-destruct.
Without the information that holding to account produces, and without
the self-regulating influence that holding to account imposes, authorities'
underlying agendas stay alive and well and deception of the public
continues. Holding to account goes beyond reliance on public protest
or supplicating letters to officials such as, "We urge you
to..." It shifts the language to reasonable expectation ("We
think it reasonable that you publicly explain...") and shifts
the action to exacting needed public answering and validating it.
Holding to account also takes us beyond the findings of external
audits that expose the performance of particular audited entities
but don't fundamentally change how authorities operate -- even when
coupled with more and more regulatory activity such the Enrons of
the world produce. Reliance on more and more conduct rules, monitoring
agencies and policing is not holding to account. This approach ignores
citizens' information needs before the fact and ignores the important
self-regulating influence of public answering for responsibilities.
The aim of holding to account is not only to help ensure that intentions
leading to harm or injustice are detected and exposed. It is also
to help ensure that authorities meet reasonable performance and
answering standards for their responsibilities. Full and fair public
answering will illustrate diligence and raise public trust in the
reporting authorities.
We therefore published in 2002, through Trafford Publishing in
Victoria, Canada, A Citizen's Guide to Public Accountability:
Changing the Relationship Between Citizens and Authorities [link].
In the Guide, in more detail than in the website, we clarify
public accountability as a simple and powerful concept and provide
guidance for citizens wishing to hold fairly to account.
In a new section of this website, "Current Accountability
Issues," CCA will identify examples of important responsibilities
from media reports, note the missing public answering and suggest
the types of accountings that citizens have the right to be given
by the responsible officials. But we will also give encouraging
news in accountability when that is the case. Because we will be
continually adding examples, we ask visitors to the website to contribute
examples they know of -- good or bad -- to CCA [link to McC email],
to help build this information base.
We hope visitors to the site who are members of public interest
organizations and activist groups will be helped to decide what
action they can take themselves to hold fairly to account those
authorities having responsibilities in their issue areas of concern.
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