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GENERAL STUDIES-4

ACCOUNTABILITY

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Accountability

What is accountability?

Accountability is to take complete responsibility by a person or an

organization for what he/she or the organization did or failed to do (which
was their duty) and must be able to give a satisfactory reason for it and the
use of authority entrusted in them to carry out that responsibility. It is to
check whether a work was done or not and Accountability as a process is
performed after the work is completed or is supposed to have been
completed.
As an aspect of governance, it has been central to discussions related to
problems in the public sector, nonprofit and private (corporate) and
individual contexts. In leadership roles, accountability is the
acknowledgment and assumption of responsibility for actions, products,
decisions, and policies including the administration, governance, and
implementation within the scope of the role or employment position and
encompassing the obligation to report, explain and be answerable for
resulting consequences.
Civil servants though not directly accountable to the People or their
representatives but they are Vigilance authorities and Ombudsman in all
organisations to keep a tab on them and also they are indirectly accountable
for their action/exercise of authority to the people through the political
executive(who are answerable to the Houses of Parliament for their
Ministries) and Courts of Law. If there is no accountablility then the civil
servants would turn in to despots(unfair/cruel rulers),arbitrary and corrupt.

What is difference between accountability and responsibility ?

The main difference between responsibility and accountability is that

responsibility can be shared while accountability cannot. Being accountable
not only means being responsible for something but also ultimately being
answerable for your actions. Also, accountability is something you hold a
person to only after a task is done or not done. Responsibility can be before
and/or after a task.

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In ethics and governance, accountability is answerability, blameworthiness,
liability, and the expectation of account-giving. Responsibility may refer to:
being in charge, being the owner of a task or event.
Example: It is DMs responsibility to make sure everyone in his district is
given Aadhar Card. So DM will be aware of this task and keep working. At
this point, you cannot say DM has been held accountable for performing this
task. DM is only held accountable owes an explanation for his actions
if he could not finish the task in stipulated time or there were many errors.

Types of Accountability:

Political accountability is the accountability of the government, civil

servants and politicians to the public and to legislative bodies such as a
parliament. For example, parliament can pass a vote of no confidence in the
government.
Ethical Accountability: Within an organization, the principles and practices
of ethical accountability aim to improve both the internal standard of
individual and group conduct as well as external factors, such as sustainable
economic and ecologic strategies.
Administrative Accountability: Internal rules and norms as well as some
independent commission are mechanisms to hold civil servants within the
administration of government accountable. Within department or ministry,
firstly, behavior is bound by rules and regulations; secondly, civil servants
are subordinates in a hierarchy and accountable to superiors. Nonetheless,
there are independent watchdog (Like CAG) units to scrutinize and hold
departments accountable; legitimacy of these commissions is built upon their
independence, as it avoids any conflicts of interests.
There can be many other types of Accountability.

Accountability Dilemma:

Because many different individuals in large organizations contribute in

many ways to the decisions and policies, it is difficult even in principle to
identify who should be accountable for the results. This is what is known as
the problem of many hands. It creates a dilemma for accountability.

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If individuals are held accountable or responsible, individuals who could not
have prevented the results are either unfairly punished, or they take
responsibility in a symbolic ritual without suffering any consequences. If
only organizations are held accountable, then all individuals in the
organization are equally blameworthy or all are excused. Various solutions
have been proposed. One is to broaden the criteria for individual
responsibility so that individuals are held accountable for not anticipating
failures in the organization.

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