Designing accountability

Power states [1] "Accountability and account giving are part of what it is to be a rational individual” (page 1). In order to audit, there must be:

1. a relationship of accountability


2. the relationship must be complex so that the principals are distant from the action and are unable personally to verify them.

Is accountability in the public services sufficiently complex that the principals are hardly known personally. So who verifies? Which principal can verify the action of the management agent in a public service? In the EDS case, it must have been vertical accountability from lower management up to Sir Nick Montague but was he so distant that audit would have been required? And would it have helped?

Power goes on (p123) to ask:
"What does accountability mean when it is operationalised by auditing?"
He relates themes of risk, trust, democracy and surveillance.

Page 127 the audit requires trust in experts; it is the dead end of the chain of accountability (Day & Klein: 244 [2]). Power states (p127):
“Audit expresses the promise of accountability and visibility”, which makes me think beyond visibility. Visibility is a design principle along with affordance, structure, consistency and feedback. So what other design principles apply to audit? Do they apply?

Day & Klein conclude (p249) that “accountability must be seen… as a system which is woven into the fabric of political and social life as a whole”

If accountability is a system, then somewhere it will show these design principles, even if they emerge naturally rather than be deliberately man designed.

Look for visibility, affordance, consistency, structure and feedback in systems of accountability.

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[1] Power, M., 1997, The audit society: rituals of verification, Oxford
[2] Day, P., Klein, R., 1987, Accountabilities: five public services, Tavistock Publications

Networking

Today there was a doctoral training workshop on the topic of networking. Unfortunately I had to miss it in order to go to a business women's networking event.

Amongst the many interesting women that I met, in a friendly and non-threatening atmosphere was one Woman of Particular Interest for my research topic. WPI is a senior civil servant, joining the civil service only about 18 months ago, with experience of having been a consultant and of using consultants in the civil service. She tells me that accountability is not so much of an issue. She finds that red tape is a nuisance and so encourages people to get round it, take more risks, but calculated risks, taken with knowledge. She said that projects that involve consultants need not go wrong if they are correctly managed and we discussed the NAO guidelines. It was encouraging to find someone who was practically interested in what I'm researching and willing to talk to me. I hope we'll be in touch again when I come to do my interviews.