Public Management and Administration - Owen E.hughes

improved because the principals – the politicians and the public – have far better
information on the activities of their agents – the public service, while those
agents are required to take responsibility for what they do and what they achieve.
The managerial changes promise greater transparency, so that achievements of
particular programmes can be seen better than was ever the case before. This
may actually improve accountability in that failure to achieve objectives should
be more visible than under the old system. Yet there are problems of accountability,
or potential problems.
Accountability problems of the managerial model
Accountability 251
A managerial model will mean a major change to the system of accountability,
particularly of the political kind. Whether it will mean some diminution of
accountability is arguable. There may be some concern as to whether the new
managerial concepts and procedures are capable of being made consistent with
the more traditional notions of accountability. If public servants are responsible
for the performance of their own objectives, this may diminish the accountability
of the whole political system. To the extent that the public servant is to
be managerially accountable, does this not mean that the political leadership is
less accountable? Perhaps politicians will no longer be responsible or accountable.
Perhaps, too, the derogation of traditional accountability is so serious that
the entire public management reform programme is doomed to fail.
The first point to look at briefly is that of the relationship between new forms
of accountability and democracy. As Minogue argues (1998, p. 17):
Modern public administration is not just about efficiency; it also involves ideas of democratic
participation, accountability and empowerment. There is therefore a constant tension
between two main themes: making government efficient and keeping government
accountable. There is a corresponding tension between the conception of people as consumers,
in the context of relations between the state and the market; and the conception
of people as citizens, in the context of relations between the state and society.
There may be a tension, as Minogue argues, but what he does not establish is
that accountability in the political sense is any worse with public management
than it was previously. Perhaps the citizenry can distinguish between the different
roles of government; sometimes services are delivered, sometimes regulation
or governance. The former can be judged as consumers, the latter cannot.
However, the broader question of accountability, especially the possible effects
of public management reforms on democracy, is sufficiently important to be
dealt with at length later (Chapter 14).
The second problem to look at is concern over market accountability. As
Peters argues, ‘rather than being defined as progressing upward through ministers
and parliament and then to the people, accountability is defined increasingly
in market terms’ (1996, p. 43). And, market accountability is more important