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PUBLIC CALLS FOR accountability abound, and reviews, reports, inquiries and tribunals are a mainstay of Irish society where patients on trolleys, misspent public funds, and increasing numbers of homeless families and children make headlines.
Yet such calls with a focus on identifying guilty parties, spurred by outrage and playing to an emotional audience, reduce accountability to a blame game and deprive all of us of the benefits proper accountability systems and practices can achieve. They prevent learning because fearful and defensive people do not disclose all the facts. Our services and systems will not get better this way.
The knee-jerk yet understandable question “who did this?” must be accompanied by “how did this happen?”, “how can we make it right?” and “how can we avoid this in future?”
Of course wrongdoing must be identified and followed with appropriate individual and collective consequences, including punitive ones where malfeasance is involved. But rectifying and learning creates much more long-term value than punishment and deterrence alone ever will.
Checking authority and privilege
To achieve this we need to be clear about the nature of accountability and how it can be used to help deliver intended outcomes. Accountability is the obligation of those in power to explain and justify judgements, decisions, actions and inactions to their stakeholders.
Thus, accountability is an important tool to check the authority and privilege of those we elect or appoint to represent, make decisions for, or provide exclusive services to others.
It cannot be an afterthought, but must be central part of the design of the job or position because we must balance authority and privilege with appropriate amounts of accountability and responsibility.
With too little accountability, we create monsters – people whose behaviour is not controllable and who can use their exalted position for self-serving purposes. With too much accountability we create fools – people who do not have the wherewithal to achieve what they and others expect of them. Creating monsters or fools serves no one.
Externally imposed, top-down accountability isn’t working
The quicker and more deliberately accountability moves from evaluation to understanding to learning, the more value it creates. Effective accountability systems and practices have three time orientations: the past (to understand and learn), the future (to design effective systems and approaches), and the present (to guide effective and appropriate behaviour). All of them require serious attention in our private and public organisations.
The most important services we rely on – health and social care, housing, courts and policing, education, utilities – are the result of processes that require coordination and contribution from many individuals, often working for different organisations. Important outcomes increasingly depend on long and complex activity chains. Internal accountability is too often aligned to formal reporting lines that do not cross organisational boundaries, and external accountability comes into this picture usually only after things have gone wrong.
What is needed are comprehensive accountability regimes that include everyone involved. An important part of this is mutual accountability that is enacted along task interdependencies, not simply based on formal reporting lines. Yet such an approach requires profound cultural and behavioural changes which necessarily disrupt established practices and run counter to ingrained habits and personal preferences. Are we ready to pay such a high collective and individual price?
The alternatives are either externally imposed, top-down and often suboptimal one-size-fits-all solutions, or the status quo – and that is patently not working.
We cannot rely on traditional approaches to accountability to change the way important responsibilities are discharged in our society. If we remain content to use accountability to simply assign blame we ignore what would actually help create the outcomes we desire now and into the future.
Martin Fellenz is Associate Professor in Organisational Behaviour at the Trinity Business School, Trinity College Dublin, and works with many Irish and international private and public organisations on accountability, governance and organisational change.
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Tribunals and inquiries are pointless and cost the taxpayer many millions. They are a blessing to any lawyer and other legal people involved, but a burden to the rest.
Not only do they cost a lot, they also seem to only do half the job. While they might investigate who was responsible, they fail to actually put the responsible people behind bars. In many countries politicians can be jailed for corruption or false expenses. Not in this country. They are treated like superstars (in the eyes of the court) and can get away with anything, like the minister for finance claiming he did not have a bank account.
What we need is a form of tribunal/inquiry that can lock the responsible politician up for up to a life scentence, see their pension stripped and fined a large amount (maybe cover the cost of the tribunal/inquiry). This would put fear back in politicians, which has been non existent so far.
@Andy K: And then nobody would do anything for fear of doing something wrong.
You missed the point of the article in that if you fall into the trap of a blame game a) the truth never comes out and b) the organisation grinds to a halt.
We need transparency not an emotional response to “lock ‘em up”
By all means people should be jailed for corruption but 99% of failures and losses are due to organisational flaws, genuine mistakes or good ‘ole fashioned incompetence – not malice. You can’t jail people for failure
@Kevin McDonnell: 96% of random stats are made up on the spot!
@Brown Boots: Ha ha – correct
99% is a term of speech rather than a literal fact
@Kevin McDonnell:
I would suspect the actual stat is a lot higher than 99%
@Kevin McDonnell: Sorry if it seemed like it, but I didnt say we should lock people up for ‘failure’.
But, if you are in charge, and scandal after scandal appears and you do not seem like you are trying your best to fix it then you should be jailed as you failed your duty. Much like our garda commissioner, who is being called for to ‘step down’ rather than hold her accountable for failure (and possibly corruption).
You cannot expect people to have a position of power and, when the county needs you turn your back and pretend like you did nothing, as doing nothing is not punishable.
In most countries if you see someone dying but you did nothing, you commited a jailable offense and will go to prison if convicted.
We do not elect politicians to stand around and twiddle their thumbs in a crisis. They chose to be elected, so they should be responsible.
@Andy K: I don’t think a person chooses to get elected. I think a person puts themselves forward for election, because they think that they could make a change for the better. The electorate choose to elect that person or not. If the electorate choose unwisely then they are the ones who suffer.
@Jonathan Kennedy: There are too many ‘pillars of society’ in our communities created by the establishment and leaving no room for people who actually do most of the work.
@Andy K: We have a system for locking up people who commit crimes, The courts. I would not be happy with giving politicians the power to jail people. And if someones actions regardless of how reprehensible are not a crime they should not be jailed. So to have some sort of tribunal with those powers they would have to have the same safeguards and procedures as the courts such as the presumption of innocence and rules of evidence, in other words simply a duplication of the courts, and how much would that cost?
@Brown Boots:surely not!
“What is needed are comprehensive accountability regimes that include everyone involved. An important part of this is mutual accountability that is enacted along task interdependencies, not simply based on formal reporting lines.”
Great. How exactly do you implement that principle? Why do I suspect that the answer involves consultants from academia, oh I don’t know, Organizational Behaviour or something?
Forget it Martin.
It’s not fixable.
When you realise that ALL the people in the public and civil service ARE the unions you will understand this.
Give it up and go back to bed.
I have been reading articles like this for forty years, about hospital waiting lists, housing problems and so on and on.
As the welfare society marches in step towards communism, they will vote for more and more free stuff from the government (tax payers).
Everyone in society wants all the good things and want to watch sky tv while they are getting it.
The more people on benefits, the more people to vote for more and greater benefits.
It’s a vicious circle and will eventually destroy the economy and society.
@Cram Wood: all the people in the public sector aren’t in the unions. Most if not all the mangers are not. They make decisions that the staff have to implement even if they think it is wrong. Staff member may do exactly as they are told and it can hit the media with people calling for them to be fired. The staff member didn’t do anything wrong.
Mistake also happen along with technical issues. This happens in the public sector too. Advertisement campaign announcement may say be booked and the software might not be ready, doesn’t matter has to go live. Then you there is a fault. Who is to blame? The guy who said it wasn’t ready, programmer, project manager for underestimating or the minister that decided it had to go live?
@Kal Ipers: Our County Council say that they are ‘Putting People First’, they don’t state however which people they are talking about as it becomes clearer that the executive is not listening.
@Chris Kirk: Nothing you said has anything to do with what I said.
The Church & State colluded in the cover-up of abuses in the Institutions – including many deaths of children.
Church & State design an Indemnity Deal that absolves those who participated in the cover-up.
Church & State design a Commission that partially allows abuse victims to give their testimony.
The Commission issues a damning report, revealing the Church & State colluded in the cover-up of abuses in the Institutions – including many deaths of children.
Not only should officials in the gov, councils, hse etc be resposible for their actions. What about the thugs on the streets who are breaking into cars, houses, assault etc & getting away with it because they weren’t loved enough when they were a baby. Now they are on drugs, booze, mental issues because of it, It’s a get out of jail card for them. No one care about the person on the street who has suffered because of these thugs, They get offered nothing. The thugs get offered everythin they want. Then they don’t turn up for the help. These thugs are from all walks of life. Immigerants both legal and illegal, irish, rich, poor doesn’t matter where you live. There are thugs in your estate, appartment. your road, town, village. It’s a revolving door for the thugs regarding accountability. If they are taken to court they’re out the revolving door before the garda is finished writing up the report. I may be off the point of the article but everyone is responsible for their own actions from the top right down to the bottom.
It just appears that crisis management is the only response. There is homeless then build more houses. No discussion as to who and how the people are in a housing crisis. There is often a chain of bad policies that lead to individual misery of the most vulnerable in society. Instead of preventing homelessness or healthcare waiting lists there is a big emphasis on reducing the problem highlighted by statistics. Blaming individuals instead of changing the causes is the approach. Although cultural definition of white collar crime has to be discussed and addressed in the same way drink driving culture has been addressed. The poor handling of the Garda situation only serves to confirm that it is OK as long as you’re not caught out.
@Melissa O’Callaghan: The fact that we have a homelessness problem in a country with over a quarter of a million empty houses beggars belief
Weird for an associate professor to write an article purely based on his opinion. So the point behind it is… The feds knew internal affairs were onto them all the time, yeah?
The State sets up these Commissions ,to kick the can down the road,with the reasonable hope of the citizens forgetting about the issue.Setting up a Commission with no powers to compel witnesses to give evidence ,Setting up Commissions with their own Establishment supporters from one from the fee paying Preparatory Colleges with a proven track record of giving the desired result
Setting up Commissions with incompetents ,who are doomed to fail .the last reason because the other alternative involves the word Corruption,Perjury has to have a penalty
@Brian O Reilly: yes, but don’t expect any punishment to be meted out, unless you are a penniless shoplifter grabbing a sandwich to stem the hunger
So we need Goldilocks accountability then . Accountability in this country just doesn’t happen and when it’s tried everyone jumps on the gravy train to make money for themselves. Mo tribunals mo money !!! It’s a system that’s rotten to its core
I loved it when the Troika came to Ireland, for the first time ever the government was made to feel accountable.
And too many times where attempts to make criminal wrong-doers answer for their crimes, only to see them walk free and later sue the state (the people) for costs, also makes monsters. Of the people, who are sick of it. Corruption creates revolution which in turn creates monsters on both sides.
WE are not talking about monsters and fools ,what we need to be talking about is well paid professionals getting it right ,duty of care ,responsibility ,leading by example.The political system has allowed this mediocre mindset to flourish, the example should come from the top down but in ireland this is delibertly not allowed to happen .what we have is our institutions and public bodies reduced to diluted semi functioning political apparatus .accountability and transparency has never seen the light of day since the foundation of the state .everything is thrown under the carpet untill it cant be hidden any more ,then we have the great delusion it is being delt with ,lolololol
As my grandmother used to say: ‘To many cooks spoil the broth’.!!
@Chris Kirk: as my old gran said, too many crooks spoil the broth
Problem is no accountability is applied in ireland.how do you think corruption has taken over all state institutions.when first discovered the people involved we’re not held accountable,faced no consequences and so it contiued,and management cover it up.there is no excuses for repeated incompetence,wrong doing, as in Irish public services, institutions.
@@mdmak33: absolutely, why can’t we name a few..oh I forgot whistleblowers are persecuted
Lack of accountability runs right through Irish society and is not the sole preserve of the so called empowered, it is shared from the bottom up, top down, middle to either end. The blame game is a national trait.
The blame game is done by bullies and victims, by bullies who do not want to look at fault and by victims who bullies try to poison the well around them from passing the buck to bullying because they get away with it?
Here in Ireland how people get along is written on all bar doors, pull and push lol. It is not what you know but whom and most are self serving and self protective as well?
People behaviour here is based on the self first and secondly on the group and trying to find acceptance within a group and normally the glue that binds is found in the local pub?
The thing that seems to create closeness is doing what each other is doing and having a common enemy as in the public lol. What builds groups is individuals being asked to do favours for each other not doing favours but being asked to do them, makes you think… The blame game works here very well because it is the national mentality as well as so many not knowing what they are doing but copying each other hoping it is right because of what they are told and that is the only experience they know?
It is called bluffing it???
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