The general sense of accountability is required or expected to justify actions or decisions.

This is
the dictionary meaning of accountability. But in governmental affairs particularly in public
administration it has special implications and the concept is regarded as an important part. It
implies that the representatives elected by the people must give explanations of the electorate for
all these policies and actions. This is a very important part of democracy-particularly represen-
tative form of government. This is a very common cause that a person by whom he is elected is
accountable to him or them. This is not only a common sense affair but the very foundation of
democracy.
A quite reasonable definition of the term is: “The requirement for representatives to answer to
the represented on the disposal of their powers and duties and act upon criticisms.” The ministers
are accountable to the legislature, and the members of the legislature are accountable to the
electorate. It may be explained in another way.
Accountability is a central problem for governments which are or claim to be democratic. The
activities of civil servants and public agencies must follow the will of the people to whom they
are ultimately responsible. The publicness of their employment and goals thus prescribes their
behavior and circumscribes their choices.
There are three Phases of Classical Cycle of Public Administration. First is Planning which
received disproportionate attention in traditional public administration. Secondly,
Implementation came into its own much later. And lastly, Evaluation which is more of under
thought sometimes taught along with survey methods and rarely transferring from the realm of
methodology into substance.
There are four standard questions which are central to accountability:
 who is considered accountable?
 to whom he is considered accountable?
 to what standard or values is he accountable?
 by what means is he made accountable?
Traditional Accountability focuses on the regularity of fiscal transactions and the faithful
compliance to legal requirements and administrative.
The standards by which one is judged are those of legality and regularity set by controllers
external to the person responsible
 determining if an act is within the provisions of laws and regulations governing the
agency;
 if the person/s who performed it have the authority to do so;
 each agency set up procedures for each transactions and following the Weberian rule,
expects these procedures to be followed fairly and equitably without regard to individual
characteristics of the clients interested in the transactions.
In having to account for detailed use of inputs, official sometimes protect themselves by making
they commit no violation, thus little encouragement of initiative and innovative performance. It
concerns with efficiency and economy in the use of public funds, property and manpower. As its
name implies, the administrator is responsible to his superiors, and external controllers which
provides the resources for the operation of the agency. It recognizes that government officials are
responsible for more than just compliance but the need for the constant concern to avoid waste
and unnecessary expenditures and to promote the judicious use of public resources. This
promoted by programs which cut the “red tape” of government procedures;
Managerial Accountability. These programs range from attempt at work simplification and
revision of forms all the way to systems improvements and agency reorganization. Operational
audits had long been done by agencies concerned with management under such names as
management analysis, methods (O and M) studies and systems improvements. And all calling
attentions to how government agencies can reduce waste and effect savings in their operation.
The main values are economy and efficiency. Leo Herbest 1982 as cited by Carino:2003 provide
a useful definition of and differentiation between two standards:
 Economical Operations is the elimination or reduction of needless costs.
 Efficient operations include
o holding the costs constant while operation is the increasing the benefits
elimination or
o holding the benefits constant while decreasing the costs.
o Increasing the costs at a lower rate than benefits and
o decreasing costs at a lower rate than benefits

Program Accountability is concerned with the results of government operations. Accountability

is the property of units as well as the individual bureaucrats whose activities together make the
effectiveness of a program. To secure its attainment, a comprehensive performance audit on the
financial and operational performance using the standard 3Es.
Program Accountability A complete performance audits involves inquiry into the following:
 Whether the government unit is carrying out only authorized activities or programs in the
manner contemplated and whether they are accomplishing their objectives.
 Whether the programs and activities are conducted and expenditures are made in an
effective, efficient and economical manner and in compliance with applicable laws and
regulations.
 Whether resources are being adequately controlled and used effectively, efficiently and
economically
 Whether all revenues and receipts from the operations under examinations are being
collected and properly accounted for
 Whether the entity’s accounting system complies with applicable accounting principles,
standards and related requirements; and
 the entity’s financial statements and operating reports properly disclose the information
required
Social Accountability is the main inquiry is whether the administrative activities inspire general
confidence and secure what are widely regarded as desirable social ends. Recently the program
manager’s arsenal has been augmented by such tools as human recourse accounting, social
accounting, and the analysis of economic and social impact of programs
Process Accountability implies emphasizes on procedures and methods of operation and focuses
on the black box inside systems which transforms inputs (the concern of traditional and
managerial accountability). This type of accountability recognizes that some goals may not be
measurable directly and surrogates, representing how goal directed activity may be performed,
are used instead.
There is a danger that indirect measurement my degenerate into a number games where an
evaluator simply counts inoculations and consultations. To avoid this, the concept may be
enhanced by using Mckinney’s adaptation of process accountability into specifically democratic
and political settings. His suggestion is to both providers and recipients have met together to
agree in advance regarding the actions, processes or steps that will be followed prior to delivery
of the quality, quantity, time, manner and place of the proposed goods and services. Those
responsible for providing the service are expected to perform according to agreed upon terms
with stipulated use of resources based on specific performance standards. Likewise, recipients
(participants) must agree to accept in advance specific rewards or sots based on an evaluation of
the approximation of planned ends to attained outcomes.
Accountability can then be asked to both provider and recipient and standards of judgment are
themselves products of the mutual agreement. Each side may withhold its part of the bargain
when the other fails the accountability test. Program accountability adds the 3rd E which means
effectiveness.
The Varieties of Public Administration
The discipline of PA has changed overtime both as response to changing currents of thought
within the social science community as well as the events in the country and the world which
press on both our understanding of the discipline and on its practice.
Each of the four varieties of PA offers a distinct emphasis and relates to the people and the
society in a different way. They maybe identified as: 1. Traditional Public Administration 2.
Development Administration 3. New Public Administration and 4. Development Public
Administration. The last variety has been called by various authors as “Social Science
Administration”, Social Development Management”, “ Development Administration for Equity”.
Traditional Public Administration.
Traditional accountability practically demands doctrine of politics administration dichotomy,
where decisions are made elsewhere by policy makers who were not in the bureaucracy.
Teaching in traditional PA centered on the inputs to the system. Thus, the main resources
became the major focus of subfields – personnel administration, fiscal administration, and
organization and management (O & M). As a discipline, traditional PA constituted the main
doctrine until the late fifties. As an actual activity, many of its main features persist to this day.
Development Public Administration. The variety that gained currency when colonies called the
Third World got political independence and set their sights on the development of the economy
following the examples of the west. With the western experience as the model, DA became
involved in looking for tools that can improve the planning process and the performance of staff
functions. The main task of DA is the search for theories that can describe and explain the
management of economic growth. Behavioralism, logical positivism, structural-functionalism
and quantification entered the discipline through the influence of the social sciences especially
sociology and economics. The Bell Mission ushered DA in the Philippines for use in its own
development effort. This included management tools like Planning, Programming and Budgeting
System (PPBS).
New Public Administration. NPA was born in the 70’s in United States where restive scholars
found traditional PA largely irrelevant to a turbulent technological society crying for equity and
social justice. NPA advocated project management and the modular organization in lieu of the
bureaucracy It either moved away from economic to philosophy, or sought a blending of both.
Just prior to the birth of NPA, PA scholars discovered implementation and service delivery as
just as worthy of attention as planning and the merit system. These blended to make
responsiveness and effectiveness of programs as the main foci of concern.
Development Public Administration (DPA) The product of the 1980’s with emphasis on the
goals of social justice, equity and the centrality of the human person and its focus on the
problems of the third world. NPA was born in the 70’s in United States where restive scholars
found traditional PA largely irrelevant to a turbulent technological society crying for equity and
social justice. DPA locates its bureaucracy not only within its own society but also in context of
a global system, not against bureaucracy or the toppling of large-scale hierarchical structures but
their modification through bureaucratic reorientation. DPA searches for smaller possibly ad hoc
organization of trying out new approaches for coordinating the activities of similar agencies and
for involving those outside of the organization in planning, implementation, and evaluation.
Particularly in the Philippines, an important aspect of DA is decentralization, a value
reemphasized by DPA as it seeks harmony between central direction and responsiveness to
particular needs.
Accountability and Public Administration
Traditional PA and Accountability of Regularity. Traditional accountability demands the
doctrine of the politics –administration dichotomy where decisions are made outside the
bureaucracy and compliance is compelled all through the hierarchy but has its ultimate arbiter in
bodies external to the bureaucracy like the legislature and the court. Rules and procedures are set
elsewhere and are rigid, thus receiving the checks on performance on a line-by-line and strict
pesos-and-centavos accounting
Traditional PA, Development Administration and Managerial Accountability. The first variety of
PA has encouraged the start of managerial accountability through its emphasis on the economy
and efficiency of organizations. A number of management tools developed in the United States
under the DA period still tended to focus on inputs and the staff functions. Their applicability to
a third world country at the first stages of development was hardly addressed. The techniques
were regarded as capable of being useful regardless of social conditions.
NPA and Program Accountability. The shift of development goals from simple economic growth
to more humanly appropriate objectives. A better suited technique is program evaluation. A
better suited technique can also fulfil the NPA need for equity to the extent that social impact
especially on income distribution and poverty alleviation is made part of the framework. The
project checks out its program accountability at the evaluation stage of its life. Its effectiveness
and responsiveness as it embraces a learning process rather than a blue print.
NPA and Program Accountability. Its effectiveness and responsiveness as it embraces a learning
process rather than a blue print approach. Unfortunately, few managers have regarded these
works from the perspective of accountability and have not used them for the purpose of
pinpointing responsibility for bottlenecks or failures and for improving program attainment. The
shortcoming maybe blamed on both sides: on the evaluator or researcher for his inability to
disseminate his findings to the appropriate administrator and to write actionable
recommendations based on the findings and on the administrator for his tendency to shy away
from critiques of his agency and not pass up learning points from the criticisms.
Process accountability has practically the same building blocks a lot in common with DPA where
the features are reacceptance of the necessity of bureaucracy as long as it is oriented to include
the participation of client and recipients in the process of administration and the decentralization
of decision making to local areas. Example ate the LGUs an experiment to classify them
according to their administrative capability and which will be the basis for providing funds and
technical assistance.
Process accountability is not a new concept since it is not a radical departure from previous
procedures. What is new is the participation and negotiation by units and the provision of
resources based on need, capability and promise, the last backed up by recipient individuals. The
requirement for each local area would differ according to the results of the process and therefore
what one will ask from each would be attainable. Each negotiating party can be held responsible
for the results and beneficiaries may even participate in the evaluation of performance of the
officials.
The Process of Regulating Behavior
Four Major Processes of Regulating Behaviour
 Control
 Supervision
 Influence
 Management
Control. May be external to or internalized by the regulated. External sources may be laws or
bureaucratic rules which are imposed as standards of conduct of subordinates. Disobedience to
these rules may result in sanctions by the controllers.
Influence. When A is molded by and conforms to the behavior of B without the issuance of a
command. The implicit source of influence seems to lie outside the bureaucracy and may be
rooted in one’s profession, ethical commitments and organizational affiliations. The influence is
predicated not so much on his commands and orders as on the congruence of the commitments of
his subordinates and himself which is exerted through moral and other extra bureaucratic modes.
Supervision is more open-minded allowing officials greater latitude of their actions. Its both
regulatory and assistory dimensions. The concept can be applied to any pair of agencies where
one sets the guidelines within which the other formulates its rules of action.
Management. The regulator take action as a hypothesis with certainty ruled out and allow the
regulated some discretion in his approach to the program. This would mean an accountability
that would face up errors and even embrace them as learning points for later growth
Processes Regulating Bureaucratic Behavior

Control Supervision Influence Management

Source of Power External to the External to the Internalized by Both external
regulated regulated regulated and internalized

Kinds of rules Direct General Moral, ethical Process Rules

Commands Guidelines and other extra-
programmed bureaucratic
decisions standards
Assumed High Low High Low
Predictability