Government challenges in delivering performance and accountability (cont’d)

The new modes of policy implementation are collaborative and can seem unstructured or messy. They require levels of risk taking, experimentation and engagement with communities that do not fit comfortably within current accountability and performance management arrangements. This paper examines how the current accountability and performance management arrangements are dealing with these new modes of policy implementation. It points to accountability gaps that have emerged as the new modes of policy implementation have failed to achieve the standards of transparency and accountability that the public expects from governments. The paper also contends that the current arrangements may constrain innovation. They are forcing public servants back into traditional problem solving techniques, even when they are being asked explicitly to be more adaptive and inclusive. A one-size-fits-all accountability and performance management framework may be seen as anachronistic in light of the diversity of policy implementation modes and the accountability and performance gaps emerging in the current framework. A flexible and adaptable public service needs to be able to devise new ways of tackling difficult policy problems and delivering services, and be prepared to experiment without always being sure of what their likely effects will be or how well they might work. In addressing complex policy problems, decisions about accountability and performance management need to be a key part of policy design, because accountability and performance management arrangements play an important role in defining how problems are understood and addressed. Accountability systems that punish public servants for their mistakes will not constrain policy innovation, and limit the public service’s capacity to deal flexibly with new and emerging problems. The paper canvasses more extensive options for reforming accountability and performance management frameworks, but argues for a gradual, case-by-case approach in applying fit for purpose accountability and performance management arrangements to specific programmes and policy initiatives. The solution to designing for innovation and flexibility does not lie in giving up on goals and objectives, but in formulating different ways of assessing performance and adjusting expectations in relation to how performance information is interpreted and applied. The paper acknowledges the obstacles to be overcome in realising a more varied model of accountability and offers a framework to assist in designing fit for purpose accountability and performance management arrangements. It also makes some concrete suggestions for modifying the current framework which takes into account the decision-making context and the selected mode of policy implementation. The Concept of Accountability: Accountability is fundamental to good government. It is one of the cornerstone values of a modern, open society. The legitimacy of our institutions rests on the confidence that public servants and elected representatives will provide a full and honest account of their actions when called to do so and be held accountable. Rwandans rightly see a high level of accountability of public officials as one of the essential guarantees and underpinnings of an efficient, impartial and ethical public administration. Accountability is a central pillar of our political direction. At its simplest, accountability involves being called to account to some authority for one’s actions. In a democratic state, the key accountability relationships are between citizens and the holders of public office, and between elected politicians and bureaucrats. This model of accountability is captured in a management and improvement advisory system, which states: In the context of the relationship between public servants, secretaries of state, ministers and the Parliament, accountability is defined as existing where there is a direct authority relationship within which one party accounts to a person or body for the performance of tasks or functions conferred, or able to be conferred, by that person or body. This definition incorporates a number of features: accountability is external, in that it is owed to someone or something other than the person who is being held accountable; it involves social interaction and exchange, though this may be somewhat one-way; and it implies rights of authority, in that the body to whom accountability is owed asserts authority over those who are accountable. However, the concept of accountability does not have a fix ed or precise meaning. The relatively simple idea of being called to account for the stewardship of funds and services has been added to overtime and accountability is now often associated with other ideas that relate to the performance of government. In many countries, Rwanda inclusive, accountability has become entwined with the concept of managerial performance. In addition to being accountable to an external authority for the public money and services they oversee, public officials are also held to account for how this money has been spent, and for the quality of the decision-making that underpins such spending. Some commentators have suggested that performance management has emerged as a rival to traditional forms of democratic accountability. Accountability and performance can be seen to operate as rival concepts, in the sense that accountability arrangements impose costs that reduce flexibility and innovation. In Rwanda at least, accountability and performance management have not been presented in official documentation as rival standards. But the current idea of accountability has sometimes been subsumed within a performance management framework that emphasises results rather than process and is expressed in terms of managerial assessments of progress against outcomes, outputs and benchmarks. The concept of accountability has also come to include the responsibility that individuals might have to their professional ethics and/or values as well as their personal morality. This extends the concept of accountability beyond the traditional idea of external scrutiny; it refers to an inward rather than an outward obligation and, in the case of professional values and/or ethics, it can proceed without a visible process. The Public Service Commission seeks to fuse these very different notions of accountability by setting out the values which public servants need to uphold, and a code of conduct for public service employees, as well as external processes through which public servants can be held to account. (To be continued…) The author is a Development Policy Analyst.