The Role of Information in Public Accountability

J. D. STEWART

In our society the exercise of governmental powers is legitimated by the requirements of public accountability. Those who exercise the power of government have to be publicly accountable for their action. II is on that basis that the very substantial powers of government are accepted. H is public accountability that is relied upon to transform arbitrary action into the legitimate exercise of governmental power.

Public accountability, like accountability itself, is not a simple concept. The requirement that those who exercise public power should be accountable for that exercise may appear simple and clear, but the application of that requirement to the complexity of government and to the variety of forms taken by governmental organization is by no means straightforward.

Public accountability has been defined by Normanton as

Consisting in a statutory obligation to provide for independent and impartial observers holding the right of reporting their findings at the highest level in the state any available information about financial administration which they request. (Normanton, 1966)

Normanton appears, however to be defining an intermediate stage in public accountability namely, public audit, which is a commonly found component in public accountability, but does not by itself constitute public accountability. After all, when audit is complete, accountability has still to be applied. In fact, the need for a wider concept of public accountability is recognized by Normanton in his later work: ‘Public accountability is a phenomenon associated with the Western-type states. It calls for openly declared facts and open debate of them by layman and their elected representatives’ (Normanton, 1971, p. 312). He goes on to describe public accountability in wider terms than would be used for other forms of accountability. ‘There is no clear master-servant relationship; public accountability means reporting to persons other than to one’s own superiors who have the power to make open criticism’ (Normanton, 1971, p. 313). The stress here is upon information and upon debate and discussion about the information.

Jackson has argued that,

Basically, accountability involves explaining or justifying what has been done, what is currently being done and what has been planned. Accountability arises from a set of established procedures and relationships of varying formality. Thus, one party is accountable to another in the sense that one of the parties has the right to call upon the other to give an account of his activities. Accountability involves, therefore, the giving of information. (Jackson, 1982)

This is a restricted concept of accountability limited to the provision of information. Dunsire (1978) on the other hand, goes further, arguing that

Being accountable may mean as Is now said about ministerial responsibility, no more than having to answer questions about what has happened or is happening within one’s jurisdiction … ‘But most usages require an additional implication: the answer when given, or the account, when rendered, is to be evaluated by the superior or superior body, measured against some standard or some expectation, and the difference noted; and then praise or blame are to be meted out or sanctions applied. It is the coupling of information with its evaluation and application of sanctions that gives ‘accountability’ or ‘answerability’ or ‘responsibility’ their full sense in ordinary organizational usage.

Dunsire has recognized that the common usage or accountability involves information (and not merely financial information), and also evaluation of that information, and that it is then that praise or blame is applied. .

Accountability has also been seen as an element within the concept of responsibility (Jones, 1977). Accountability

is the liability to give an account to another of what one has done or not. done. It is the antithesis of autonor1y, where accountability is to oneself alone. Responsibility as accountability implies a liability toexplain to someone else, who has authority to assess the account, and allocate praise or censure. (Jones, 1977)

Or again,

In governmental terms … a responsible person or institution is one on whom is laid a task, function or role to perform, together with the capability to carry it out. There is also conferred some discretion and the liability to account for the performance of the dirty, which should induce the person or institution to act with concern for the consequences of the decisions made and, in so deciding, to act in conformity with the wishes and needs of those who conferred the authority and receive the account. Accounting should also provide information for the controllers to assess performance. If they arc dissatisfied they can withdraw their conferment, and by dismissal break the relationship of responsibility. (Jones, 1977)

Forming a Framework for Analysis

There are two strands present in this discussion:

 (1) The need for information, including the right to question and debate that information as a basis for forming judgments, which we shall call the element of account. Accounts have to be given in a form that is understood. Moreover, accounts can be given in different languages, depending on what has to be expressed and to whom. The language of the financial account is not the language of the legal account, and it need not be the same as the language of the policy account. Many languages are needed for a full account.

(2) The judgment, and the action taken on the basis of that judgment-which is an exercise of power—we shall call the element of holding to account. Holding to account involves both evaluation and consequence. It can involve approval or blame which, in turn, can involve reward or penalty. It can involve dismissal or renewal of confidence. It may involve only inaction, but clearly there must be a capacity for action.

Analysis of accountability has to recognize that both the elements of accounts and holding to accounts are involved. The full concept of accountability involves both rendering and judging as a basis for action. Whereas the giving of an account is necessary to the holding to account, giving an account can stand on its own right. However, if it does stand on its own, then it is not a full expression of public accountability. Accountability also requires the capacity for the exercise of power.

The government’s accountability to Parliament involves this capacity for power. It involves the potential for withdrawal of confidence as well as the renewal of confidence. Accountability to the electors of Parliament or council, of MP or councilor, involves the possibility of non-election as well as of re-election. In all these instances there is both the element of the account-albeit the often imperfect account given in political debates or in an election campaign-and the element of holding to account.

There is a danger that public accountability is seen in too narrow terms. Much that is advocated in the improvement of accountability concentrates on the account, as we shall do in the latter part of this chapter. The account is important, but it is not the totality of accountability.

The relationship of accountability, involving both the account and the holding to account, can be analyzed as a bond linking the one who accounts and is held to account, to the one who holds to account. That bond can be defined by reference to the persons or institutions who are accountable and those to whom they are accountable. For accountability to be clear and enforceable, the bond must be clear. The relationship expressed in the bond is a relationship of power. It is a bond of accountability; only the person to whom the account is given has the power to hold to account the person who gives the account.

There will be relationships which fall short of the bond of accountability in that accounts are given, but there is no power to hold to account. These will be called ‘links of account’, and have an important role to play in supporting accountability, but do not in themselves constitute a bond of accountability.

To define a bond of accountability it is not sufficient to define the person or institution which accounts and the person or institution which holds to account; the activities covered by the bond of accountability, which we will call the ‘field of accountability’, must also be defined. A person who accounts may be subject to different bonds for different activities.

Within any field of accountability the bases of accountability must be defined. In relation to the activities for which accounts have to be given, the purpose of the account and hence the base of accountability can vary.

Accountability for probity is concerned with the avoidance of malfeasance. It ensures that funds arc used properly and in the manner authorized. Accountability for legality is concerned with ensuring that the powers given by the law are not exceeded. Accountability for efficiency is designed to ensure that there is no waste in the use of resources. Accountability for good administration is designed to ensure that there has been no maladministration and, in particular, maladministration leading to injustice. These are all different bases of accountability.

These bases of accountability represent necessary standards that have W be met by public bodies. That is, however, not the whole of public accountability. There is a wider sense of performance accountability concerned with whether a performance achieved meets required standards, and one of programme accountability, which is designed to establish whether a particular agency is meeting its objectives.

Robinson (1971) distinguishes three bases of accountability. First, programme accountability, which is concerned ‘with the work carried on and whether or not it has met the goals set for it.’ Second, process accountability, which is concerned ‘with whether the procedures used to perform the research were adequate, say in terms of the time and effort spent on the work and whether experiments were carried out as promised’. Finally, fiscal accountability, which is concerned ‘with whether the funds were expended as stated and whether items purchased were used for the project’.

Programme accountability is the more difficult to enforce precisely because goals may be difficult to define with any degree of precision. Yet accountability may still be required when goals have not been defined. Indeed, it could be argued that such bases of accountability are only appropriate to subordinate parts of government for which such standards can be set, or goals laid down. For government itself-both central and local-there can be no set standards used in the formulation of policy, in one sense it is the setting of policy and of standards for which government is accountable to the electorate, yet it is the government’s accountability to the electorate that is most crucial. It is accountable for both the policies it has pursued and .those it has failed to pursue. It is accountable for its budget, for expenditure approved and taxes raised. Policy accountability is at the heart of electoral accountability.

These alternative bases can be set out as a ladder of accountability:

Accountability for probity and legality

Process accountability

Performance accountability

Programme accountability

Policy accountability

It is a ladder that leads from accountability by standards to accountability by judgment.

The elements that we have used in building a framework for the analysis of public accountability are, first, the account and, second, (lie holding to account. These elements are expressed in a bond of accountability which is a relationship of power between the point of account and the point, which we shall call the focal point of the bond, to which the account is given and which can hold to account. Where there is no bond of accountability, but only an obligation or custom to account, we shall define as a link of account.

A bond of accountability is for a field of accountability, that is, activities for which the account is given and which have bases (hat can be set out on a ladder of accountability according to the purposes for which the bond is-constituted.

This framework has been constructed for the analysis of public accountability, but can be used for other forms of accountability, such as managerial accountability and commercial accountability. Managerial accountability is the accountability of a subordinate a superior in an organization and can, of course, be found in the public sector as well as outside. Commercial accountability is the accountability of a firm to its owners and, once again, can be found inside the public sector as well as outside. Public accountability, the sense of the accountability of a government or council for activities undertaken in the public sector, can depend on the existence of managerial accountability within the departments of government, or commercial accountability for a publicly owned firm.

Public accountability, however, ranges more widely than managerial or commercial accountability. As Johnson has argued:

This brings us to the broadest political sense of accountability. There are many occasions when we want to go beyond the specific grievance and the possibility of redress: We wish to pass judgment on the general performance or conduct of those exercising public authority. If they can be said o be ‘accountable’, then it follows that they can, in a political sense, be praised or blamed for their actions. In the extreme case, sanctions can be imposed and traditionally this has meant the withdrawal of their right to continue in office. At this stage a very obvious point needs to be stressed. Accountability in this sense can really apply only to those holding elected political office. So long as we stick to the notion of a permanent bureaucracy, subordinate w elected representatives, then its members cannot, without some contradiction, be held accountable, in a way which involves public censure and their removal from office. This in turn underlines one of the inherent difficulties in reacting accountability in the public sector: we need different modes of accountability depending on whether we are concerned with the opportunities [or passing judgment on those who are politically responsible, or with the need to apply certain checks and controls In those who, by reason of the terms on which they operate In the political and administrative Structure, enjoy virtually complete security of tenure. (Johnson, 1974)

The distinctive feature of public accountability, as opposed to other forms of accountability, may be that it involves bases of accountability higher up the ladder of accountability. Managerial accountability will involve programme and performance accountability rather than policy accountability. For commercial accountability the market can provide standards. The dilemma for public accountability at the highest point of the ladder is that there are no predetermined standards.

Public accountability may also appear to be distinguished by the variety of bonds of accountability. The head teacher of a school has an apparent bond of accountability to his board of governors, the local authority, his pupils’ parents and perhaps the community at large, his profession and himself. There is not the apparent clarity of managerial accountability. Many of those bonds, however, are imperfectly defined. Indeed, many of them are links of account only, rather than bonds of accountability. The head teacher has to explain himself in many languages, to many different audiences. These audiences cannot hold him directly to account. That requires a bond of accountability. Nevertheless, the links of account are wide-ranging.

The Changing Patterns of Public Accountability

In one sense the bonds of public accountability are well established in our system of government. Ministers’ responsibility for the actions of their departments, and collective cabinet responsibility, are enforced by accountability to Parliament and through Parliament to the electorate. The officers of a council are accountable to the committees of the council and through the full council to the electorate. These bonds are supported by accounts in both financial and non-financial terms. For other public agencies tile bonds of accountability will normally be laid down in the Acts creating them, but may involve, directly or indirectly, a bond of accountability to a minister on defined bases.

The present period, however, is marked by proposals for change in the pattern of accountability to meet demands for the greater accountability of public bodies. Issues of police accountability, demands for greater accountability of schools to the local community, interest in community control, concern for tile rights of redress for aggrieved persons and demands for a stronger system of audit, are all part of a wider demand for greater accountability in government.

The reasons for the demands for greater public accountability lie in the changing nature of government in our society. There arc general forces at work. On the one hand, tile increased scale and complexity of government has weakened traditional modes of accountability; on the other, the increased impact of government has heightened the demand for accountability. Expectations generated by government have not been met in many instances and dissatisfactions have grown with perceived failures by government. In a period of economic difficulty, dissatisfaction has grown as the• means of meeting those expectations has lessened.

The scale of government has robbed certain bonds of public accountability of much of their force. The doctrine of ministerial responsibility for the acts of officials within a department loses much of its meaning when the department contains many thousands of civil servants. A ‘minister will not now be held blameworthy if one of his officials acts (a) illegally (b) in defiance of an instruction or (c) in a manner which the Minister could not have known or which if he had known, he would have disapproved’ (Dunsire, 1978, p. 42). Such changes mean that ministerial responsibility can no longer be regarded as providing public accountability for many of the actions of civil servants. Nevertheless, the myth of ministerial responsibility is still important. As has been said, ‘The constitutional structure of public accountability is still a necessary myth and to that extent a reality. “Untune that string” and we are without guidance as to our proper political allegiance’ (Hague, MacKenzie and Barker, 1975, p. 21). What is being demanded are new bonds to supplement or reinforce ministerial accountability. One approach has been found in the role of the ombudsman, giving a means of redress to the citizen who has a complaint about maladministration.

The growing complexity of government has made it more difficult to identify who is accountable for what. The fragmentation of urban government, symbolized by the division of the county borough’s powers in the 1974 re-organization between county, district, health and water authorities, has made the fields of accountability for closely interrelated activities difficult to identify. For example, accountability for the care of the elderly is divided between the health authority, the social services department and the housing department, the latter two being in separate authorities in the shire areas.

The growing dependence of local authorities on central government grants confuses accountability for local government expenditure and hence tile issue of where accountability for that expenditure lies. The Layfield Committee highlighted the weakening of local accountability brought about by the combination of two features of the present arrangements: ‘the tendency for government grants to grow as compared with the contribution from local taxation, and the natural concern of the government with the total of local government expenditure’ (Layfield, 1976, p. 72). It is no longer clear whether the bond of accountability for local government expenditure lies between central government and its electorate or between local government and its electorate.

The growth of quangos and the merging of public action and private contract can raise questions about the base of accountability when the dilemma is how to reconcile a perceived need for independence and initiative, with public control. At issue is ‘how the government can hold these organizations accountable without losing the essentials of ingenuity, creativity, and initiative which we have associated throughout our history with independent groups in our society’ (Staats, 1975).

As the scale and complexity of government has grown so has its impact. The lives of all of us are affected at a myriad of points by the actions of government. The formal bonds of accountability, based on Parliament and local council through the electoral process, must inevitably seem remote from the activities which impinge on the public. Those actions, be they the actions of a policeman, a civil servant in a social security office, or a rent collector, are the actions of the apparently unaccountable, rather than of the accountable. Those with least access will inevitably come to regard the actions of government as coming from ‘them’, and not ‘us’. Formal doctrines of public accountability can seem remote from the reality of life in the inner city. Demands for greater accountability are expressed in demands for community control.

Demands for greater public accountability are also expressions of deeper dissatisfaction. Government has generated expectations that it has not been able to meet. Economic difficulty and restraint in public expenditure have resulted in a reduction in the capacity of government to meet problems with services.

There is, in addition, a wider decline in acceptance of government, which is reinforced by economic problems, but has separate origins and an independent impact. It derives, in part, from the apparent failure of the solutions on which there was consensus in the 1950s and 1960s. It can be illustrated by the dilemmas of the city. The accepted solutions of the early 1960s-high flats; large- scale redevelopment; urban motorways; and the removal of nonconforming uses (or small businesses) from inner areas represent the consensus of the past. No new consensus has replaced the urban consensus of the past, based as that was on the authority of the accepted professional solution (Stewart, 1983). It is possible that given economic growth a new consensus could have been found. Without it, he challenge to the modes through which government has expressed itself has grown. The particular actions of government, be they the building of a new motorway or nuclear-based power station, are more sharply challenged. Dissatisfactions lead to demands for greater accountability and to demands for new bonds of accountability. Some seek through privatization the accountability of market forces. Others seek through decentralization bonds of community control. Each ideology seeks to replace the hierarchical control dependent on ministerial responsibility or council accountability by more direct bonds.

A wide variety of steps have been taken to add to the structure of accountability:

(1) the institution of select committees of the House of Commons to scrutinise fields of departmental responsibility;

(2) the creation of ombudsmen to investigate complaints of maladministration;

(3) the opening up of the meetings of certain public bodies to the public;

(4) the requirements on local authorities to publish annual reports;

(5) the creation of Community Health Councils to review the activities of health authorities;

(6) the implementation of the Taylor reports on the government of schools;

(7) the creation of the Audit Commission for local government.

The new forms of public accountability have been marked by certain key characteristics.

(1) They have been increasingly directed at local authorities and agencies separate from central government. Thus, the movement towards the publication of information, the opening up of public meetings, the establishment of community health councils and of the new Audit Commission, are not paralleled by changes of the same significance in central government.

(2) The changes that have taken place in relation to central government have been limited (with the possible exception of the institution of the ombudsman) to attempts to restore some of the impact of Parliament on the workings of central government.

(3) None of the changes involved major adjustments to the working of the institutions of government.

In other words, most of the changes designed to achieve greater accountability developed within the existing structure of government. Indeed, some of the changes introduced were probably designed more to secure central government policy aims than to introduce new forms of accountability as such. Thus, the requirements on local authorities to publish more information was part of a general strategy of the Government to put pressure on local authorities to reduce expenditure. The significant point is that, whatever the motivation, the actions taken were related to the demand for greater public accountability, which indicates, at least, the high visibility of that demand. These demands require a further response. In so far as they are created by real problems, the response may have to go further than existing changes. The problems however vary in their nature.

The weakening of formal accountability caused by the increasing scale of government is a weakening in both the account (due to a lessening in the capacity td appreciate what is happening in the machinery of government) and in the capacity to hold to account (as the responsibility of minister and council become remote from the actions of public servants). The weakening of formal accountability caused by the increasing complexity of government is due to confusion about the bonds of accountability, and the fields covered by the bonds and their base. The demand for greater accountability caused by increasing impact and growing dissatisfaction can be regarded as a demand for multiple bonds of accountability.

The different causes of the apparent weakening of traditional modes of accountability, and of the new demands for greater accountability, suggest different approaches. The increased scale of government may suggest the need for new supports for existing bonds of accountability, both to obtain accounts and assist the holding to account. Many of the reforms set out above are attempts to strengthen existing bonds.

The confusion of bonds of accountability caused by growing complexity may demand a restructuring of government. Thus, the confusion over local government expenditure led the Layfield Committee to recommend a fundamental change in the method of financing that expenditure as a means of clarifying accountability. ‘The system should be based on accountability; whoever is responsible for spending money should also be responsible for raising it, so that the amount of expenditure is subject to democratic control’ (Layfield, 1976, p. 283). In other contexts the confusion in accountability caused by the fragmentation of urban government has led us to put forward proposals for a new restructuring (Jones and Stewart, 1983).

The suggested clarification of the bonds of accountability may, however, run con1er to demands for multiple bonds of accountability caused by the dissatisfactions already plotted. There certainly are multiple demands for accountability. The industrial ratepayer demands accountability from the local authority as do community groups. The head teachers, as we have seen, face multiple demands for accountability. If all these demands are met, accountability will not be increased because multiple bonds for the same field confuse rather than clarify. If accountability is to be effective, the bonds of accountability must be clear and strong.

The dilemma of accountability is how to reconcile the demands for multiple accountability with a clear and effective bond of accountability. A distinction has been drawn between accounts and the holding to account. Multiple demands for accountability can be met by multiple links of account without weakening the bond of accountability. Multiple-links oft-account can be created, •and government can respond to. the links. This is responsiveness in government. The holding to account within the bond of accountability is required not for responsiveness, but for responsibility in government. As Jones has argued:

connections of control and responsibility are different from linkages of responsiveness; officials and civil servants, ministers and MPs may be responsive to a variety of forces in society— trades unions, employees, consumers, pressure groups of various kinds, but they are not responsible to them. A prudent concern for the views of such groups, arising Out of an appreciation of their political influence, leads those holding responsible positions in government to pay them attention. But this relationship does not involve responsibility. Responsibility certainly entails responsiveness but responsiveness does not entail responsibility. (Jones, 1977, p. 5)

A link of account can be recognition of responsiveness in government. The bond of accountability is recognition of responsibility. Multiple links of account should not be allowed to create multiple bonds of accountability because that will defuse responsibility. Multiple links of account can strengthen a clear existing bond of accountability. The understanding spread more widely by multiple links of account can inform the bond of accountability. Multiple links may be necessary for understanding. The bond of accountability is a lever for action in the holding to account. Action will be the more ensured by clarity of the bond of accountability. Wider understanding can inform that leverage of power.

A three-part strategy for strengthening public accountability may involve:

(1) a strengthening of traditional modes of accountability against the scale of government, which may involve both a strengthening of account and of the holding to account;

(2) a restructuring of government to combat complexity and clarify the bonds of accountability;

(3) a widening of the links of account to meet multiple demands for accountability. - -

The Role of Information in Public Accountability

Public accountancy is concerned first and foremost with the account element in public accountability. It provides the financial information which is the basis of one form of that account. Public accountancy is treated here as an important, though not the sole, component in the build up of the account element. it is one component of the wider universe of information, and provides one language for the expression of that information.

The role of information within the wider concept of accountability tics in forming the raw material for the account. This means that while information is of critical importance, it does not constitute the whole of accountability. Information expressed in the account is the basis for both judgment and action in the holding to account. Without that basis judgment must be inadequate and action misguided. But information, though the basis for judgment and action, is not in itself the holding to account-more is required!

This has to be clearly stated because from this point on, the chapter concentrates up on information. It does so to establish the place of public accountancy, but in doing so, it concentrates on the account rather than the holding to account, within the overall concept of accountability. This is because the direct contribution of public accountancy lies more in the element of account than the holding to account.

The formal structure of public accountability and the potential to hold public officials and institutions to account would be, and often is, a mere form because there is inadequate information to make a judgment or to make that judgment effective.

The account is in part determined by the institution rendering the account, for the information in it is provided by the institution. This is not an adequate basis for accountability. Information is a source of power, and as such, is guarded by the institution. In giving information the institute would be giving up power. For this reason, rules may be laid down in legislation as to the form in which the account-and not merely the financial account-is to be given. Thus, the Local Government Planning and Land Act laid on local authorities a series of obligations to publish information:

The Secretary of Slate may issue … a code of recommended practice as to the publication of information … about the discharge of their functions and other matters (including forecasts) which … [the Secretary of State] considers to be related. (Local Government Planning and Land Act, 1980, S.2 (2)).

On failure to carry out the code, the Secretary of State may make regulations requiring adherence to the code. (Ibid. S2).

The aforementioned Act also contains provisions specifying the form in which accounts for direct labour organisations should be kept (Ibid, S. 10 to 14), thus adding to existing legislation governing the accounts of land authorities. In addition, the Act gives the Secretary of State the power to prepare a register of the land holdings of particular local authorities and certain other public bodies. The register will be sent to local authorities who must make it available for public inspection (Ibid, S.93 to 100).

These are recent examples of the vast body of legislation governing local authorities and other public bodies. Nationalized industries are also required to publish annual reports and accounts. In certain instances central government or Parliament is the focal point for the bond of accountability, as in the case of nationalized industries; and it is, in effect, laying down the nature of the account required-an account that has often been judged inadequate because it does not permit a proper assessment of the policy, or even the performance, of nationalized industries. In other instances, central government or Parliament are not the focal point of the bond of accountability. The bond of accountability lies between local authorities and their local electorate and not between Parliament and local authorities. In these instances, central government and Parliament specify the form of account for the bond between local authorities and their electorate.

It is, however, not merely a matter of specifying the information to be provided. The conditions cover not only the form of information, but also the way in which it is published, and the right of access. It is not sufficient merely to have an account: that account has to be distributed or, at the very least, the public has to be given access to it. However, having access to information is not, in itself, sufficient. For, if the total responsibility for the account is laid on the accountable body, then too much may have to be taken on trust

There can be various means of providing information that is not entirely under the control of the accountable body. One method is greater openness in government. Thus, the Public Bodies (Admission to Meetings) Act 1960, introduced the provision that council meetings and education committee meetings (and the meetings of certain other public bodies) should be open to the public and the press-a provision extended by S. 100 of the Local Government Act 1972, to cover all committee meetings. Public access and access by the press provide direct information. The provision of such direct access can he frustrated to a degree by the authority, which can remove decision making to other settings. Nevertheless, these provisions secure a greater openness than, for example, in central government, and that openness provides information in forms not entirely predetermined by the local authority.

The other approach adopted to avoid the over-dependence of the account on he accountable body, is to give an external person or institution the right of scrutiny into the account and beyond. This is the role of public audit. The strength of public audit is an important support iii public accountability, but it is not itself public accountability, as perhaps the quotation from Normanton suggested. Public audit is a means of checking the account that has been given by the accountable body. It can add to that account information not contained in the account. Public audit is not public accountability, because the need of governmental organisations to give an account, and the need of those to whom the account Is given, to hold to account on the basis of their judgement of the account, stands in its own right apart from public audit. Public audit can assist that judgement. At lower points on the ladder of accountability, public audit can even apply rules about probity and the legality of action, because those rules enforce judgements already made. But, as one ascends the ladder of accountability towards policy accountability, the role of the public audit becomes more restricted.

The need for arj account to be rendered and judged requires one who accounts and one who holds to account. That is the bond of accountability. Public audit does not constitute a bond, but a means of improving the effectiveness of the bond.

Public audit does not stand alone. Other institutions can be set up with similar rights of scrutiny, though for different purposes. For example, Inspectorates of education or of the police can aid performance accountability. The courts can scrutinise to establish a ‘correct’ account or the facts when enforcing legal accountability. In addition, the ombudsman has the right to scrutinise in order to establish a ‘correct’ account: that does not rest solely on the accounts of the complainant or of the institution about which the complaint has been lodged. ‘ :

Scrutiny must go beyond the collection of information: explanation is necessary. The

mystique of accounts is a hindrance, not a help to public accountability in this sense. The accounts themselves are no more than time hack guide for the investigation, t he outline may be of the whole financial territory. The outline must be filled in by systematic exploration; by obtaining explorations and documentation about all unusual features encountered. (Normanton, 1966, p. 2)

But even such scrutiny is not itself accountability. Public audit must remain a support of public accountability and not supplant ii.

The Information Requirements of Public Accountability

The information requirements vary with the bases of account. As the ladder of public accountability is mounted, the information requirements become more difficult to define precisely because the ladder is defined as a movement from accountability by reference to standards, to accountability by judgement. It is a ladder that moves, therefore, from greater use of external bodies, not merely to collect information but to appraise it. At the highest level of accountability there is danger in the use of such bodies for anything other than information collection. There is only information and judgement on that information, and judgement can only be carried out by those at the focal point of the bond of accountability. Auditing and the ombudsman cannot be substituted for the electorate.

The information requirements of accountability for financial probity and legality can be defined with precision. The information required for process accountability can, if narrowly conceived, be defined. Programme and performance accountability imply stated goals which may not always be available. Policy accountability cannot be confined within pre-set standards. Yet, as demands grow for accountability, or at least for accounts, it is for policy accounts - precisely because the information of account is often inadequate.

It is because public accountability extends to policy accountability, which cannot be contained within predetermined standards, that the information requirements extend beyond those required for commercial or managerial accountability.

It is significant in this context to note that where public bodies are regarded as subject to commercial accountability, it is regarded as a reason for lessening access to information. Thus, whereas local authorities and health authorities have to admit the public to meetings, this is not required of nationalized industries. Commercial accountability, with its narrower informal ion requirements, is regarded as sufficient. V

Managerial accountability, which can itself be set within a Framework of public accountability, has more limited information requirements than public, accountability. This is precisely because the bond of accountability involves the simpler relationship of superior and subordinate, rather than the infinitely more complex relationship between electorate and government, or even between Parliament and government.

Policy accountability cannot be kept within Set bounds. If new demands for greater public accountability are to lead to a range of accounts, they will have to meet the widening demands of those requiring accounts.

‘In giving an account, its form and substance depend upon the values, beliefs and perceptions of the person giving the account’ (Jackson, 1982, p. 221). To be meaningful the account must also recognize the values, beliefs and perceptions of those to whom the account is given.

The Place of Financial Information

It is the job of an accountant to prepare an account. Marshall has written:

we are concerned with accounting’s place in accountable management. How does it help the council to ‘account’ to the public, the chief officer to account to the committee, the foreman to account to the engineer?

We shall view accounting as a technique seeking to help in laying down what is to be done, what resources should be used, and in monitoring operations, individually and in the aggregate. We shall approach it from the layman’s point of view, regarding it as embracing not only the records’ cost in financial terms, but those having financial overtones or consisting of statistical information to be used in conjunction with the financial facts. So conceived accounting will cover a vast range of information, generated and assembled in many departments by persons having different degrees. V of skills, arrived at by different processes, and demanding varying standards of precision according to the use to be made of it; (Marshall, 1974, p. 155)

Within the framework of public accountability the accountant has a special role to play in the preparation of the account. 1-ic is one who deals almost exclusively in information. The financial account is a necessary account, hut (lie financial account is only one account, using but one language. The accountant has an important role in describing the different processes in the organization in a common language. As the ladder of accountability is mounted, the financial account becomes VICSS adequate by itself. Accounts must still encompass the language of the accountant, but other languages are also required. In accounting for financial probity (lie language of the accountant is sufficient, but for other bases of accountability, other languages are required. For performance accountability output data must he added to financial data; for programme accountability the language of objectives becomes critical; and for policy accountability, a range of languages becomes important. In all bases of accountability financial information, as a measure of the use of resources, must remain. The accountant’s language is important to public accountability, but if it is the only language used, the bases of accountability will be limited.

There is a challenge to public accountants to meet more fully the information requirements of performance and programme accountability and, above all, of policy accountability. As the links of account grow, new skills will be required from the accountant if these demands are to be met by accounts able to meet the requirements of those making the demands. The accountant himself cannot meet these demands by supplying merely what he considers necessary for professional accounting. New demands for accountability will place new requirements on the accountant. The accountant will have to work increasingly with other accountants who use different languages and will have to learn a sufficient number of those languages to translate into them from his own.

Both performance and programme accounts require accounts that relate financial inputs to achieved outputs (i.e. goods or services provided) or outcomes (i.e. effect or impact of goods or services provided). The need is widely recognized by public sector accountants, though the difficulties of obtaining adequate measures of output, and even more of outcomes, on the systematic basis required to match financial data are also great.

The requirements of policy accounts are less recognized, precisely because those requirements are not normally stated in language seen as meaningful by accountants. The public sector accountancy profession has laid down its own definition of the account. In most forms of account it is the dominant voice, and it is not accustomed to meeting requirements which are expressed in unfamiliar language and which do not fully accept the public sector accountant’s definition of his task.

Some requirements can be more easily met. The new complexity of government has, it has been argued above, confused formal bonds of accountability, and this can best be met by a re-structuring which would reduce or eliminate the confusion. Without such developments there may be a role for public sector accountability in describing more fully and more carefully the use and allocation of resources across institutions. In a fragmented system of government, there is a challenge to public sector accountancy to develop inter-organizational statements of account (for example, for the care of the elderly) that show the totality of resources used, as well as where the bond of accountability lies. Such a line of advance will, however, create few problems for the public sector accountant. He can still use the accountant’s language; however, much of the work involved in preparing policy accounts lies in meeting the new demands for accountability which require the use of new languages along with the accountant’s language.

Some of the demands are political, which is hardly surprising given that public accountability in our society is achieved through political process. it may well be that the public sector accountant has to learn more of the language of politics in order to express his accounts more cleary in the political process. Thus, ‘manifesto accounting’, both in he sense of cost estimates of manifestos, and records of achievement in relation to manifestos, could be an important line of advance. ;‘

Politics can be defined more widely: it can encompass concern for public participation. Professions other than accountancy have encompassed that concern, planning and social work have, as professions, both responded to demands for greater accountability processes of participation. They have also moved towards advocacy planning and community work. The accountant remains relatively isolated. Not merely is the neighborhood accountant comparatively rare, but little in the way of public participation has been allowed to approach the budgetary processes of public bodies which are at the centre of governmental choice.

Many of the demands for greater public accountability come from groups or interests within the wider political community. For example, a minority my be pressing for special recognition, or those living in a particular area may consider that they have little control over governmental action whether instituted by local or central government or by the proliferating special agencies. Accounts are required which can indicate the resources spent on particular groups or which can show how the resources of government are divided between different areas. A poverty budget can highlight the actions of government in meeting the needs of the deprived in society. Understanding who gains or who loses in financial as well as in other terms may be a necessary part of a developed political process. Public sector accountancy has perhaps been built too readily on the assumption that there is one public, whose interests can be expressed in unitary accounts. Accounting for the variety of interests that make up the public to whom accounts have 10 be given may require new values from the public sector account ant.

As demands for more responsive flai1agC1nCnt arise, processes may have to develop including the provision of community accounts. Decentralized resource management operating within frameworks set by central or by local government may be required.

All these lines of advance require new approaches from public sector accountancy: they may challenge values written into past professional tradition; the financial information required may lack the precision of the professional account the financial language of account may lose its separate identity in merging with other languages; and the unitary nature of the account may be lost.

As the ladder of public accountability is mounted’ so the language of account must change.