Politicians and Civil Servants: Unfinished Business—The Next Steps Report,Fulton and the Future*

This article discusses the origins of the Efficiency Unit's ‘Next Steps’ Report, published 20 years ago which recommended the executive agency as an organisation for much of the British government. Within five years more than half the civil service had been transferred to work in agencies but the other major recommendation of the report – improving the management skills of the senior civil service received far less enthusiastic attention. From the Fulton Report, the Next Steps report to the Capability Reviews of current Whitehall the same problem is highlighted: there is still too little management competence within the public service despite the endorsement of the need for improvement by successive governments.     

Organizational reform within government: accountability and policy management

The article considers, from a United Kingdom perspective, the ways in which relations between Government Departments and Agencies are organized to ensure clarity of roles and effective accountability; and also looks at the ongoing need for effective policy management at the centre of Government. It describes the progress of the Next Steps programme, examining its successes and perceived weaknesses. In particular, it rehearses the debate running in the UK on the question of Ministerial accountability, and considers the distinctions between responsibility and accountability, and between policy matters and operations. (© 1997 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.)     

WHAT DO CHIEF ADMINISTRATORS DO? FINDINGS FROM VICTORIA

Abstract: This study explores the views of Victorian Chief Administrators (CAs) about their jobs. CAs report that the environment of administration has changed in three broad areas: greater public expectations, a breakdown of the politics-administration dichotomy and difficulties reconciling managerial accountability with limited managerial autonomy. In response, CAs describe a distinctive pattern of concerns — with the "what", "why" and "how" of agency operation. First, they attempt to shape the "what" or the ends and values their agency creates. Second, they act to enhance the "why" or their agency's legitimacy and the support it attracts from constituencies. Third, CAs are concerned with "how" to mobilise organisational resources, particularly by moulding culture towards the agency values they identify. These findings suggest that CAs have devised understandings of their responsibilities which conform more to theoretical conceptions of leadership than either administration or management. The research points to the emergence of a distinctive type of administrative leadership.     

Epidemiological accountability: philanthropists,global health and the audit of saving lives

Abstract

There have been concerns about the recent private turn and re-emergence of philanthropies in world health, with many worrying about philanthropies’ perceived lack of transparency and accountability. In contrast, I argue that while the private turn might have led to a decline in democratic or public accountability, it did not bring an end to all forms of accountability. Specifically, I suggest that philanthropists’ involvement in global health has led to the spread of another, new form of accountability: epidemiological accountability. The latter is a combination of two regimes of expertise and practices hitherto kept separate: audit and epidemiology. To substantiate this argument, I draw on my research on the Bloomberg Initiative – a global effort to reduce tobacco use spearheaded by the Bloomberg and Gates foundations.     

Accountability Expectations in an Intergovernmental Arena: The National Rural Development Partnership

This article explores the expectations and accountability relationshipspresent in an intergovernmental experiment known as the NationalRural Development Partnership (NRDP). As such, this study extendsearlier analyses of accountability dynamics beyond the boundsof a single agency into the organizationally less tidy realmof intergovernmental relations. This research focuses on theunique expectations and accountability dynamics facing participantsin the NRDP and identifies gaps between expectations at thecorporate (agency) and individual levels and between arenasin the intergovernmental system. These gaps complicate the accountabilitydynamics for NRDP participants and contribute to the challengesof operating within the rural development policy arena. TheNRDP is designed to emphasize the relationship between processesand substantive outcomes. It has developed a tendency to relyon professional and political accountability relationships thathave little to do with formal responsibilities.     

The Institutional Basis of Democratic Accountability

This article offers an institutional approach to accountability in representative democracies. Theorising accountability comprises both settled polities with well-entrenched institutions and unsettled polities with weak or contested institutions, and it is argued that agency theory and formal principal–agent models giving priority to compliance and control usually make assumptions that are unlikely to apply to the latter type of polity. An institutional approach challenges principal–agent assumptions regarding what accountability means and implies, what is involved in demanding, rendering, assessing and responding to accounts and assigning accountability, and how accountability institutions work and change. Accountability is related to fundamental issues in democratic politics and the paper treats distributions of information, normative standards of assessment, authority and power relations as endogenous to democratic politics. The paper also holds that institutions affect actors’ identities and roles through socialisation, internalisation and habitualisation, as well as through external incentives. An aspiration is to take a modest step towards understanding areas of application for competing approaches to democratic accountability.     

Program Accountability as an Emergent Property: The Role of Stakeholders in a Program's Field

This article applies the concepts of organization field and accountability environment to a government-funded program. It argues that the formula for accountability inspired by agency theory—define performance standards, measure performance, and sanction based on measured performance—is frequently impossible to apply because program accountability can be an emergent property arising from the actions of the major actors in a program's field. Studying a program reform of social service transportation in Kentucky, it illustrates the utility of conceptualizing accountability as an emergent property of the program's field. After the principle actors in this program field—the transportation broker, the state, the transportation provider (such as a taxi company), and the riders—established their roles, there was a decline in program cost per rider and a reduction in waste and fraud. The article concludes with implications for designing more accountable programs.     

Devolved Functions in Government: Some Realities

Devolvement of functions to quangos and Departmental Agencies has been a marked feature of reform in government since 1970, accelerated by the ‘Next Steps’ initiative (1987–90). Its effects in terms of performance, costs and disengagement from related government activity are discussed by reference to experiences in the management of two large quangos created after 1970, the Manpower Services and Health and Safety Commissions and their Executives. Some general lessons are drawn for present application, and the discussion seeks also to expose realities and difficulties in the management of public bodies that are often overlooked in theoretical argument. It acknowledges the advantages of devolvement, but points to serious limitations in the ‘owner–agency’ model when applied to public business, arising from powerful centralising forces, rapid changes in political aims, the cardinal requirement for economy, and shifting needs for lateral co‐operation across the government sector.     

Cross-National Transfer of Policy Ideas: Agencification in Britain and Japan

This study seeks to contribute to the policy transfer literature through a comparison of the British "Next Steps" initiative of agencification (i.e., organizational separation of policy implementation from policy formulation in central departments) and the Japanese reform that officially proclaimed to be inspired by the British example. In addition to confirming the crucial role played by domestic structural constraints in producing variant outputs in different countries, this article also shows that the transfer of policy ideas can be a highly proactive political process in which political actors in the learning country interpret and define both problems and solution as they "borrow" from another country.     

The Reputational Basis of Public Accountability

This article proposes a reputation‐based approach to account for two core puzzles of accountability. The first is the misfit between behavioral predictions of the hegemonic political science framework for talking about accountability, namely, principal–agent, and empirical findings. The second puzzle is the unrivaled popularity of accountability, given evidence that supposedly accountability‐enhancing measures often lead to opposite effects. A “reputation‐informed” theoretical approach to public accountability suggests that accountability is not about reducing informational asymmetries, containing “drift,” or ensuring that agents stay committed to the terms of their mandate. Accountability—in terms of both holding and giving—is about managing and cultivating one's reputation vis‐à‐vis different audiences. It is about being seen as a reputable actor in the eyes of one's audience(s), conveying the impression of competently performing one's (accountability) roles, thereby generating reputational benefits.     

Roadblocks in Reforming Corrupt Agencies: The Case of the New York City School Custodians

Reformers have traditionally assumed that agencies can combat corruption through controls such as tighter oversight, increased regulation, internal audits, reorganizations, and performance accountability mechanisms. But this case study of the New York City school custodial system shows how a corrupt agency can derail these devices. New York City's $500,000,000 custodial system, responsible for maintaining its 1,200 schools, has been unleashing scandals since the 1920s despite decades of regulations, multiple reorganizations, and layers of oversight. Its history shows that a deviant culture—a management "captured" by special interests—and an infrastructure enmeshed in abusive policies will resist controls, no matter how well-crafted. True reform requires tackling institutionalized corruption through strategies like overhauling management, eradicating special interests, and aggressively punishing misconduct.     

The Role of the Public Manager: Loyalty,Autonomy or Advocacy?

It is argued that the role of the public bureaucracy must be analysed along at least two dimensions. One dimension concerns the relationship between politicians and bureaucrats, i.e. the possible conflict between political loyalty and autonomy. The other dimension concerns the relationship between citizens and bureaucracy, i.e. the possible conflict between openness towards citizens and bureaucratic closedness. With the aid of data from a survey of 407 agency heads in Norwegian municipalities, it was possible to group different bureaucrats along the two dimensions. Four categories emerged from the analysis; a political bureaucrat, an autonomous bureaucrat, the "classic" administrator and the "linking pin". An attempt to predict group membership was made using variables on the societal, organizational as well as individual levels. This attempt was only partially successful, indicating that there is a need for other independent variables to explain group membership.     

The Implementation of Welfare Reform Policy: The Role of Public Managers in Front-Line Practices

This study examines the extent to which staff in local welfare systems have embraced new welfare reform goals and, if so, the extent to which local management practices contribute to the alignment of staff priorities with policy objectives. It looks at agency structure and several aspects of public management from a microperspective that prior research has linked to agency performance including training, performance monitoring, staff resources, leadership characteristics, and personnel characteristics. The research indicates that front-line workers in welfare offices continue to believe that traditional eligibility determination concerns are the most important goals at their agencies. It also finds that management practices and the structuring of agency responsibilities matter: To the extent that public managers want to redirect local staff to focus their attention on the new goals associated with welfare reform, they can create the conditions under which staff have clear signals about what is expected and could provide them with the resources and incentives to realign their priorities.     

Formal Procedures, Informal Processes, Accountability, and Responsiveness in Bureaucratic Policy Making: An Institutional Policy Analysis

This study examines the role of public notice and comment in the development of 42 rules. These procedures can provide useful information to policy makers about the preferences of those who stand to be affected by agency actions. More importantly, they serve as cues for the accommodation of interests and the resolution of conflict through processes that are grounded in agencies' accountability to political officials. Yet, an examination of the interrelationship between formal, procedural constraints and the informal processes surrounding them reveals that the effects of notice and comment in promoting bureaucratic responsiveness are limited in ways that have received little systematic analysis. A consideration of the tension between the instrumental goal of procedural accountability and the political tasks that often dominate bureaucratic policy making suggests that it is desirable to return to the original use of notice and comment as a device for exposing agencies to the views of affected interests.     

CENTRAL AGENCIES AND THE COORDINATION PRINCIPLE*

Abstract: Resource scarcity and social and economic complexity have prompted a growing focus by governments on coordination. New roles for central agencies in Australian State and Federal governments have emerged. An evaluation of these functions is undertaken, starting from the distinction drawn by Leon Peres between "principle" and "interest" as forces in the machinery of government. It is argued that this distinction has deficiencies for the purpose of determining central agency functions, and that the focus should be on procedural values or "rules of the game" that these agencies promote and defend. Added to the procedural values of efficiency, economy and propriety there is now a growing focus on the "coordination principle". That principle, which central agencies should promote, concerns processes of conflict management in the policy process within the context of general purpose rather than sectorally fragmented policy-making. Policy coordination as an objective, associated with central planning and hierarchical control, is rejected in favour of this view of central agency involvement in a multi-organizational governmental setting. The role of cabinet is stressed, with the caveat that cabinet processes do not always entail coordination processes. In conclusion, there is a warning about the growing power of central agencies and concomitant temptations for them to interfere constantly in sectoral or departmental detail, possibly to the detriment of the coordination principle.     

Decentralization in Cambodia: New Wine in Old Bottles

The usual arguments for decentralization by its advocates are that it can achieve accountability, transparency, participation and democracy. In reaching these goals, however, proponents of decentralization reform have articulated concerns about whether government officials have sufficient capacity to implement decentralization policies, particularly at local level. This article asserts that in Cambodia, where decentralization has unfolded gradually since its adoption some 15 years ago, lack of capacity is not the main problem. Decentralization is designed and implemented as part of the ruling political party's strategy to strengthen its grip at the sub‐national level rather than as an exercise for improving accountability and democracy. Although decentralization is unlikely to lead to democratic gains, it does provide an opportunity for the rejuvenation of a patronage‐based party in ways that could increase state capacity and improve development outcomes. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The European Parliament and the Commission Crisis: A New Assertiveness?

This article examines two claims made about the "Commission crisis" of 1999: first, that the accountability of the Commission to the European Parliament (EP) was significantly increased; and, second, that the model of parliamentary government in the European Union (EU) was advanced by events in 1999. In analyzing the crisis and its consequences, this article focuses upon the powers of dismissal and appointment, and what these powers reveal about the capacity of the EP both to hold the Commission responsible for its collective and individual actions and to influence its policy agenda. If a parliamentary model is to develop in the EU, the negative parliamentary powers of censure and dismissal have to be balanced by the positive powers of appointment and enhanced executive responsiveness. On both counts—dismissal and appointment—the 1999 "Commission crisis" did not point to the clear and unambiguous dawning of a "genuine European parliamentary democracy."     

Delegation and accountability in parliamentary democracies

Abstract. Parliamentary democracy has been widely embraced by politicians and especially by the scholarly community but remains less widely understood. In this essay, I identify the institutional features that define parliamentary democracy and suggest how they can be understood as delegation relationships. I propose two definitions: one minimal and one maximal (or ideal–typical). In the latter sense, parliamentary democracy is a particular regime of delegation and accountability that can be understood with the help of agency theory, which allows us to identify the conditions under which democratic agency problems may occur. Parliamentarism is simple, indirect, and relies on lessons gradually acquired in the past. Compared to presidentialism, parliamentarism has certain advantages, such as decisional efficiency and the inducements it creates toward effort. On the other hand, parliamentarism also implies disadvantages such as ineffective accountability and a lack of transparency, which may cause informational inefficiencies. And whereas parliamentarism may be particularly suitable for problems of adverse selection, it is a less certain cure for moral hazard. In contemporary advanced societies, parliamentarism is facing the challenges of decaying screening devices and diverted accountabilities.     

The Spies Who Came from the Tropics: Intelligence Services and Democracy in Brazil

Despite the emergence of Brazil as a global power, little is known about its security and intelligence services and the way they are seen by Brazilian society. This article analyzes the Brazilian perception of the role of its intelligence services and the relationship between the intelligence community (IC) and the decision makers. The historical background of intelligence in Brazil and a general overview of the Brazilian IC after the reestablishment of democracy are presented, as well as the general mechanisms of control and accountability of the secret services. Finally, there is consideration of some concerns on reforming the intelligence sector and its control and oversight apparatus.