The Black Box of Bureaucracy: Interrogating Accountability in the Public Service

In: Australian journal of public administration, Band 73, Heft 4, S. 450-466

Abstract

Bolstering accountability among civil servants has been at the centre of public governance reform efforts for well beyond the past decade. A critical gap has been the lack of empirical understanding of the actual accountability practices, especially below the deputy minister level. This article presents initial findings from a larger research study comparing Canada, Australia and the Netherlands aimed at addressing this gap. The study seeks to understand both how, and for what, individual executive, managerial and working‐level public servants are held to account. The research tests an adapted version of Aucoin and Heintzman's and Bovens, Schillemans and 't Hart's respective frameworks on the purposes of accountability. The results suggest that while there is evidence that all four normative purposes of accountability examined – democratic control, assurance, learning and results – are reflected in the actual practice of accountability, practice is wanting in some respect with regard to each of the four.