Monday 12 April 2010

On the vexed matter of accountability...

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Hardly a day goes by without someone – usually a politician, journalist or quangocrat – uttering the word “accountability”. This could be in reference to spies, to the BBC, to family courts and to the actions of ministers. In all of this debate though we really don’t get to ask – let alone answer – the central question: what on earth do we mean by “accountability”?

So, in the interest of clarity and understanding, I thought I’d have a bash at defining accountability. And, as ever, it turns out to be harder that one might expect. Indeed, what many term “accountability” isn’t accountability at all but transparency. Take that family courts example:

“Measures to increase the public confidence in the family courts are being introduced in stages. The rule change in April 2009 allowed journalists to attend most family cases in county courts and the High Court, as well as family proceedings courts to which they already had access. However, the media were still only able to report the gist, rather than the substance, of proceedings they attended.”

Allowing reporting is not increasing accountability – it is welcome but does not “hold to account” in any substantive way, those charged with administering the family courts or those delivering “justice” in those courts.

In the case of the BBC we face a different aspect of ‘accountability as transparency”:

A cross-party committee of MPs has called for greater transparency regarding its executive and talent costs and accusing it of presenting some of its audience figures "in a somewhat cavalier manner".

Now the ‘committee of MPs’ do have a role in holding the BBC to account – although they have no direct power to act being limited to what they have done – publishing criticism. The BBC can – and does – ignore such actions so they cannot be seen to define “accountability” either.

And the same goes for spies – a committee of MPs meets privately and reports publicly on the activity of the security services. Again this is welcome transparency but does not really address the matter of accountability. In a democracy, public bodies are accountable (or should be) to the democratically elected government – to ministers. And it is ministers who are accountable.

All good so far. But this is “democratic accountability” – a particular flavour of accountability. Is that the only form of accountability? Or can we begin to see a different, less corruptible form of accountability emerge? Accountability to the consumer. Let me explain.

We live in a mature consumer society and most of us are informed and confident enough to challenge businesses providing poor service or a bad product. And in doing so we want some reparation – we hold the business to account for its failure to give us what we require. Businesses operating in competitive markets know that persistent service or product failures threaten the sustainability of the business and will act to reduce the number or impact of these failures. The business is very aware that the consumer can go elsewhere.

In the case of government supplied goods and services, this consumer accountability is moderated by the fact that, in most cases, the consumer is not the customer. The customer for, let’s say, the issuing of passports isn’t the individual wanting a passport but whoever holds the power to issue the contract to the passport agency. I cannot hold the passport agency to account (by, for example, purchasing that service from a different supplier) and rely on the long, complicated and deniable chain of accountability up through the Home Office to a minister.

We can see that the same circumstances apply in almost every case (although accountability may be to a council leader or police chief rather than a minister). Since I have no choice in who I get the service from, I am unable to use my ability as a consumer to ensure that the provider is accountable for service or product failure.

There is absolutely no reason why a whole range of government products and services – issuing passports and driving licenses, administering the vast array of benefits and tax credits, schools, hospitals, student loans and grants – cannot be delivered in a competitive market. The impact of creating such a competitive environment would be to drive down the cost of providing the services - a direct benefit to us as consumers and as taxpayers.

Indeed, any public service delivered to us an individual users could be considered for such an approach. And in doing this we would apply to government the power that consumers have to hold business to account.

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