ACCOUNTABILITY AND CONTROL- INTRODUCTION

The concept of administrative accountability implies that administrators are obliged to give a

satisfactory account of what they do and in what manner they exercise the powers conferred on

them. Its main aim is to check arbitrariness in administrative actions and improve administrative efficiency and effectiveness.

Accountability is one of the three important pillars of a trust society, the other two being participation and transparency. Each of these three pillars is the reason of other and also follows each other. Further, normally each of these pillars exists alongwith each other. Thus discussion of one necessarily follows references to others. The foundation of this concept however is the democracy vs bureaucracy debate. This debate unfolds the argument that in a democracy citizens are at the central point of governance - which exists to safeguard the rights and liberties of the citizens however governance operates through bureaucracy which is a institution built on the premise that efficient and

effective bureaucracy mandatorily needs some operational autonomy which creates a differential power structure and in turn erodes citizens’ freedom upto a certain extent within a society. This debate further extends to the secrecy vs openness argument. The openness argument believes that transparency in administration is the key to good governance while the secrecy argument believes that excessive transparency makes the system so much prone to scrutiny that effectiveness and working itself becomes difficult and in some cases even impossible. Thus if we are for democracy and openness our truly democratic society should have no place for an institution like bureaucracy-which creates power differences and defeats the very reason for which it exists in a democracy.

But bureaucracy is the instrument of governance which if jettisoned would turn the modern society into a Stateless society, which could give birth to problems of even greater magnitude and character in the absence of any regulation enforcing structure, especially at the current levels of human evolution. Thus bureaucracy should necessarily exist and is hence accepted by the modern societies as necessary evil. But this evil cannot be let loose to exercise arbitrary discretion, it has to be put under checks and balances so that its negative tendencies are curtailed and beneficence is unleashed. Thus is born the concept of accountability and control alongwith its core challenge of balancing

bureaucratic autonomy with citizens’ rights and liberties.

Thus the primary issue in accountability and control is to how to balance administrative accountability with administrative discretion or how to use the instruments of accountability so that rights and liberties of the citizens are safeguarded but at the same time powers in operational autonomy stemming out of administrative discretion is also not curbed. Another rationale of administrative accountability lies in the role which the administrators play in policy making and that is the informational dimension of accountability. The bureaucracy is the institution which implements the policy of the government on the field. Therefore the bureaucrats are the best people to provide onsite inputs and draw the attention of the policy makers towards the practical problems confronting regulatory or developmental functions. Moreover, the citizens have confidence in the administrative structure of the government which makes them frank in venting their problems to them. Thus inordinate delays are avoided which would have otherwise taken place if the citizens had to wait for the political representatives everytime to air their problems. The mechanism of administrative

accountability thus helps to play a vital role in addressing the issues within this phenomenon.

Thus another important issue which is an integral part of accountability and control is how to make the bureaucracy sufficiently responsive and articulate towards the problems of the citizens. How to improve the mindset and the functioning of bureaucracy on the ground so that the overall implementation becomes more effective?

Administrative accountability is enforced by

various types of controls. The public servants are

made accountable to different agencies which

exercise control over them. The purpose of

control draws out from the rationale of

accountability i.e., exercise of their powers and

discretion in accordance with laws, formal rules

and regulations, and established procedures and

conventions.

Broadly speaking there are two types of

administrative control viz. internal control i.e.

control exercised on the administration from

within the administrative machinery and

external control i.e., control exercised on the

administration from beyond the administration.

There are various methods of exercising control
from within the administrative machinery viz.
1. Administrative hierarchy.
2. Administrative leadership.
3. Professional standards.
4. Efficiency surveys.
5. Annual confidential report.
6. Enquiries and investigations.
7. Personnel norms.

Methods of exercising external control over
administration are:
1. Executive control.
2. Legislative control.
3. Judicial control.
4. Civil society groups or citizens.