Archive for category Governance Accountabilities
Holding a Legislative Majority to Account
Posted by Henry McCandless in Governance Accountabilities on August 15, 2011
In a legislature the majority’s vote can push through whatever the executive government intends. Given their track record, the federal Conservatives now with majority power require a self-regulating influence on their executive government that serves the public good. That influence is the obligation of the executive to explain its important intentions publicly, full and fairly, before the fact, with time for fair public challenge by knowledgeable people.
Public accountability means the obligation of authorities to explain publicly, fully and fairly, before and after the fact, how they are carrying out responsibilities that affect the public in important ways. The obligation could not be simpler and is an imperative if the society is to work properly. But legislators immersed in their parliamentary and adversarial processes have failed to grasp and install this imperative in the law, to make it work.
The Public Accountability of Governments
Posted by Gord Hooker in Governance Accountabilities on July 18, 2011
Responsibility creates accountability, but public accountability drives the performance. Our current laws state people’s duties and powers but don’t require the directing minds of governments and their agencies to fully and fairly explain their intentions and reasons before they act.
It took a Qatar student, in a May 2011 BBC Doha debate on whether the Wikileaks disclosures were good or bad for society, to publicly point out the problem. He asked the debating panel a dead-centre public accountability question: “How can we trust the government if we don’t know what it’s planning?” Western legislators tout “democracy” but still haven’t installed the public accountability obligation in their laws that would allow citizens to sensibly decide their trust in their executive governments.
In the Arab World, and as well emerging in the entire Middle East, we will be seeing required major change in governance pprocesses. With it may well be installation in their new laws of the needed basic components of adequate government public accountability. And it would likely be before we see it in the self-congratulating West.
The basic public explanation standards are simple and need to be installed clearly as law if they are to be met for intentions of government that would affect citizens in important ways. Legislators and citizens must require the executive government to fully, fairly and publicly answer the following questions:
- Who would gain what benefits from what is proposed, and why they should, in both the short and longer term
- Who would bear what costs and risks, and why they should, in both the short and longer term; and
- Assuming the intention were to go ahead, who would be required to meet what standards of performance and public explanation in carrying out their responsibilities.
As the first United States president George Washington put it, in 1796:
“I am sure the mass of citizens in these United States mean well, and I firmly believe they will always act well, whenever they can obtain a right understanding of matters….”
And as Dr. Ursula Franklin in her 1989 Massy Lectures clarified as the most important yet overlooked issue in public accountability:
“Whenever someone talks to you about the benefits and costs of a particular project, don’t ask, ‘What benefits?’ Ask ‘whose benefits, and whose costs?’”
But all we have produced in Canada, having no constitutional or other restriction, is a 2006 Federal Accountability Act purporting to cover off accountability but titled purposefully and fraudulently to cash in on the now-fashionable word “accountability.” The Act is instead a piecemeal collection of rules of conduct. As the government undoubtedly knew, responsibility is the obligation to act, but accountability is the obligation to explain.
We first have to clarify the meaning of public accountability. Public accountability means the obligation of authorities to explain publicly, fully and fairly, before and after the fact, how they are carrying out responsibilities that affect the public in important ways.
Installed in the law, the concept could not be simpler as a means of allowing citizens and their legislators to sensibly decide their trust in the executive government.
Holding to account means the process of extracting the needed public explanations from authorities at the time they are needed, validating them for their fairness and completeness and doing something fair and sensible with explanations given in good faith
The full title of the Federal Accountability Act describes it as “providing for conflict of interest rules, restrictions on election financing and measures respecting administrative transparency, oversight and accountability.” The government knew that measures “respecting… accountability” are related to accountability but are not the accountability requirement. Yet the title “Federal Accountability Act” would logically imply the public accounting required from authorities, particularly from the federal executive government. Therefore the Canadian federal government’s Accountability Act is no model for any country to use..
In Canada, elected representatives as municipal councilors, legislators and ministers of the Crown, and the hundreds of thousands of appointed civil servants have had no education in public accountability, let alone as a society imperative if the society is to work properly. Academics don’t teach it in their courses and in any case they don’t write for citizens.
Nor have accountable elected and appointed officials, boards and civil servants had training in publicly and adequately accounting for their responsibilities. This lack of understanding can be perpetuated and exploited by people in power.
We won’t have adequate public explanation obligations in the law until citizens see the need and require their elected representatives to install it. Canadians can be said to confront nothing, yet its citizens will readily grasp the importance, as the Qatar student did, of having valid answers to the three basic public explanation standards. This is because it would help them to sensibly and fairly decide their trust in their government’s motivation and ability to actually improve fairness in society.
The key is for citizens as activists to present the three public explanation standards to their elected representatives, ask them if they agree with the standards (and if not to say why) and ask what their elected representatives personally commit to doing to have the standards installed in the law.
At Election Time Vote for Accountability, Not Control by a Prime Minister
Posted by Gord Hooker in Authorities' Accountabilities, Governance Accountabilities on April 21, 2011
In the recent BBC TV Doha debate on whether Wikileaks is helpful or harmful to society, a Qatar student rose to ask the debaters that included two Americans likely instructed by their State Department, “How can we trust a government if we don’t know what it’s planning?” Dead centre as a public accountability question, with a Qatar student leaving behind Canadians mired in ritual after-the-fact accountability.
In 1796 George Washington wrote to a friend, saying:
“I am sure the mass of Citizens in these United States mean well, and I firmly believe they will always act well, whenever they can obtain a right understanding of matters…..”
After two hundred years of inadequate government accounting worldwide, Dr. Ursula Franklin of the University of Toronto’s Massey College, whose insight into the workings of society are unmatched, made the point clear in her prestigious 1989 Massey Lectures:
“Whenever someone talks to you about the benefits and costs of a particular project don’t ask, ‘What benefits?’ Ask ‘whose benefits, and whose costs?’”
It took Dr. Franklin to show us the need to have government adequately explain before the fact. Answering the who question is central to the needed explanation. Dr. Franklin’s word “project” includes any intention of an authority that would affect citizens in important ways.
To make sensible decisions in their civic duty, legislators and citizens need full and fair public explanation of executive government intentions before the fact, at the time it is needed. This means government intention assertions of who is intended to have what outcomes and why they should, and who would bear what costs and risks, and why they should, in both the short and longer term. This allows sensible public challenge of government’s intentions and reasons. Public accounts and budget statements don’t help legislators decide from among alternatives, and performance audits after the fact don’t prevent intentions reasonably seen as running counter to the public good.
Set in the law, the requirement that all authorities produce full and fair public explanation of their intentions before the fact is likely the strongest single force for fairness in society.
It is a self-regulating influence on authorities because knowledgeable people and organizations will audit the fairness and completeness of the public assertions and make their assessment public. The result will likely raise or lower public trust in the authority, with loss of public trust meaning loss of power.
The standard of explanation needed by legislators and citizens requires the executive government to publicly explain, in what can be called an “equity statement,” each of its specific intentions that would affect the public in important ways:
- Who would gain what benefits from what is proposed, and why they should, in both the short and longer term
- Who would bear what costs and risks, and why they should, in both the short and longer term; and
- Assuming the intention were to go ahead, who would be required to meet what standards of performance and public explanation in carrying out their responsibilities.
“Affect the public in important ways” is not vague. It is the equivalent of significance in published financial reporting.
Senior civil servants cannot claim that producing an equity statement for each major government intention is too costly: it requires no more information than the officials must have themselves to do their jobs properly. What they know, they can report.
Those opposing an apparent government intention can set out publicly their own equity statement for the intention, leaving legislators and citizens to judge which assessment is fairest.
This public explanation requirement cuts through ideology, spin and partisan ranting. The simple obligation to explain is unassailable, totally nonpartisan, and tells no one how to do their job. It is simply explanation. Citizens can then make their own decisions on the fairness of what the government intends.
Legislators and citizens alike will find this reporting structure and content reasonably complete and easy to understand. Knowing the intentions, they can then more sensibly and fairly decide their trust in the executive government’s ability and motivation.
Because public accountability is nonpartisan and not political policy, but is a society imperative if the society is to work properly, the Governor General can hold up signature of a Bill that doesn’t make clear who will publicly explain, how, for the discharge of important responsibilities assigned by the Bill.
For the same reason, it is open to auditors general, who stand outside the accountability relationship between the executive government and legislature but serve that relationship, to propose to the legislature that it require government to give before-the-fact public explanation for what it intends along the lines of what is proposed here as a standard.
Federally we have a litany of government intentions not meeting standards of public explanation before the fact that legislators and citizens have the right to see met. In BC, for example, we have a premier forced to resign over this issue, in the case of his executive government’s refusal to adequately and publicly explain its HST intention.
The refusal of an executive government to give full and fair public explanation before the fact is legitimately and in common sense the basis for a non-confidence motion.
Henry McCandless was a Principal in the Office of the Auditor General of Canada for two decades, author of the 2002 book A Citizen’s Guide to Public Accountability, and is General Convenor of the Citizens’ Circle for Accountability (www.accountabilitycircle.org).Premier Must Serve Public Accountability
Posted by Henry McCandless in Governance Accountabilities on March 23, 2011
Citizens deserve to know what government’s true intentions are
(Op-ed printed by the Victoria Times Colonist 3 March 2011)The premier, as first minister of the Crown, has the most important role in the province. The premier has a common-sense accountability duty to citizens that has been ignored by all first ministers ever since the parliamentary system was created.
That duty has three parts.
First, to ensure that the executive government explains to the legislature and citizens publicly, fully and fairly — before the fact — what it intends to bring about, for whom and why.
Second, to publicly state the government’s intended performance and management control standards for each major intention, were it to go ahead.
Third, to publicly state later what came of government’s actions and how the available learning had been applied
BC government history is strewn with failure in public accountability. Yet it is one of the simplest and most powerful concepts for regulating fairness in society.
Public accountability sensibly means the obligation of authorities to explain publicly, fully and honestly, before and after the fact, how they are carrying out responsibilities that affect the public in important ways.
Holding to account means the process of obtaining (extracting as necessary) the needed public explanations from authorities at the time they are needed, having the explanations validated for their fairness and completeness, and doing something fair and sensible with explanations given in good faith.
Without needed information from the executive government before the fact, citizens cannot sensibly decide their level of trust in the government. For example, standardized financial statements after the fact and spending activity plans are not the public explanations that citizens need to identify their government’s true intentions and how the intentions would affect them.
If B.C. is to work properly, citizens must have valid trust in their government, not simply blind partisan trust — or mistrust. This means that the Premier can be expected to ensure that the executive government’s explanations to both the legislature and citizens meet a standard of public explanation that citizens are entitled to see met. This requires the standards to be installed in the law. The auditor general can then tell the Legislature the degree of compliance with those standards.
The standard of public explanation needed for legislators and citizens requires the executive government to explain, in what can be called an “equity statement,” its specific intentions that would affect the public in important ways:
- Who would gain what benefits from what is proposed, and why they should, in both the short and longer term
- Who would bear what costs and risks, and why they should, in both the short and longer term; and
- Assuming the intention was to go ahead, who would be required to meet what standards of performance and public explanation in carrying out their responsibilities.
“Affect the public in important ways” is not vague. It is the equivalent of significance in published financial reporting. Senior civil servants cannot claim that producing an equity statement for each major intention isn’t worth the cost. It requires no more information than government officials must know themselves to do their jobs properly. What they know, they can report.
Those opposing an apparent government intention can set out publicly their own equity statement for the intention, leaving legislators and citizens to judge which assessment is the fairest.
This public explanation requirement cuts through ideology, spin and partisan ranting. The obligation is unassailable, totally nonpartisan, and tells no one how to do their job. It is simply explanation. It lays out the intention explanations and the implications for citizens, who can then make their own decisions on the fairness of what government intends.
Legislators and citizens alike will find this reporting structure and content reasonably complete and easy to understand. Knowing the intentions, they can then more sensibly and fairly decide their trust in the executive government’s ability and motivation.
Set in law, the requirement for full and fair public explanation before the fact from all authorities is likely the strongest single force for fairness in society. It is a self-regulating influence on authorities’ intentions because knowledgeable people and organizations will audit the fairness and completeness of the assertions and make it public. The result will likely raise or lower public trust in the authority, and loss of public trust means loss of power.
The Premier’s decision on what degree of usefulness the executive government’s public explanation will be doesn’t require “study” by senior civil servants and funded academics. What is proposed here is simply common sense, as the precautionary principle applied to civics. But the Premier’s decision will help to show the degree to which that office serves fairness in the province.
Henry McCandless was a principal in the Office of the Auditor General of Canada for two decades and is general convenor of the Citizens’ Circle for Accountability (www.accountabilitycircle.org).
Recall in BC
Posted by Gord Hooker in Governance Accountabilities on January 1, 2011
Recall Should First Require MLAs to Account
A recent Victoria local newspaper editorial seemed to argue that recall of a Member of the Legislative Assembly (MLA) of British Columbia should happen only if he or she has done something egregious and, if not, voters should wait until the next election. Simply re-fighting the last election through recall attempts is hard to show if the citizen charge against the MLA is failure to meet a performance standard that citizens have the right to see met. A question that has to be answered through full and fair public explanation by the MLA is whether there were valid external forces on the MLA beyond his or her control that limited the elected representative’s achievement. Upholding party solidarity simply to achieve or maintain power is not a valid external force.
In the case of Ida Chong, for example, she is a member of the executive government that had ultimate responsibility for how the highly-criticized Harmonized Sales Tax (HST) proposal became law with inadequate or no public explanation of the intention and of the reasons before the Cabinet made its decision. The HST introduction process is a main issue for the proponents of recall of Ms. Chong.
But before a recall attempt is launched, as it now has been for Ida Chong, targeted MLAs should be asked to publicly account for their performance and be given the chance, giving two explanations:
They should first set out their understanding of the performance standards for themselves in serving the public good that they think citizens can reasonably expect them to meet. They should then set out the extent to which they think they have met the standards and, if it is the case, they should further set out what they think stood in the way or still stands in the way of them achieving what they intended to achieve and did not. Simply “working for” something is too vague to be full and fair public accounting.
For example, in the case of the HST, the B.C. executive government did not give legislators and citizens a fair and complete public explanation before the fact of who, exactly, would benefit from the HST, how they would benefit, and why they should, and who would bear what costs and risks from the HST and why they should, both in the short and longer term. This is the essence of full and fair public accounting for a government intention that would affect citizens in important ways.
In other words, the government did not explain its intentions and reasons publicly, fully and fairly, to a standard of explanation that citizens are entitled to see met, that would allow fair and competent public challenge of the government’s intentions both in the Legislature and by the public.
Thus, at the personal accountability level, the question becomes what the individual targeted MLA did or failed to do to help ensure full and fair government explanation of proposals and what, if anything, stood in the MLA’s way. This is because, if a government’s true intentions are made public, they become subject to what a noted American activist termed the Dracula Test. That is, disclosed true intentions reasonably seen by citizens as not serving the public good will tend to self-destruct, while those seen by most as serving the public good will likely enhance citizen trust in the government.
So, did the MLA simply vote the way he or she was told, to serve party solidarity and to stay in line with the party’s rewards and punishments system? If so, do MLAs call this influence a force beyond their control? And did they, or were they able to, before the Cabinet vote, give their constituents an ideology-free full and fair explanation of the government’s intentions and their implications for citizens?
In any case, the obligation of a targeted MLA to publicly, fully and fairly account once the recall attempt is known should be the law — as should the obligation of recall proponents to act sensibly and fairly on an MLA’s assertions given in good faith as a condition for successful recall.
Henry McCandless
Public Trust Depends on Public Accountability
Posted by Henry McCandless in Accountability of Public Administration Academics, Authorities' Accountabilities, Corporate Accountabilities, Governance Accountabilities, Media Accountabilities on November 17, 2010
Without public trust in authorities, society doesn’t work properly.
The argument for requiring full and fair public explanation by authorities on how they are carrying out their responsibilities is straight-forward: If authorities are required to explain publicly, fully and fairly, before taking their decisions:
- what specific outcomes they intend to bring about, for whom, and why,
- the performance standards they intend for themselves and those they oversee,
their decision-making will be fairer for all those who would be significantly affected by their decisions. Read the rest of this entry »
Choosing the next Premier of British Columbia, who is the political head of the Province and who controls the Province’s executive government
Posted by Gord Hooker in Governance Accountabilities on November 15, 2010
The current premier is resigning. Jack Knox, in his November 7 2010 column in the Victoria B.C. Times Colonist newspaper, appears to regard ”star quality” as the major criterion for BC citizens to apply in choosing the next premier. He surely had tongue in cheek, but his article reads otherwise.
Knox’s column nonetheless underscores the issue of what the most important criteria should be for selecting someone who is the publicly-accountable top role occupant in the province — not just someone well known and admired as a “star” personality.
Earned legitimate heft as a premier comes from the public’s trust – which is missing, the loss based, for example, on several executive government actions: the government’s legislated Harmonized Sales Tax intentions and how the tax came to be BC law that has caused citizens to seek its repeal; important government appointments such as a wrong special prosecutor, and inadequate management control of its agencies having responsibilities ranging from child safety to fairness to the elderly, where management control means having effective processes that cause to happen that which should and cause not to happen that which shouldn’t. Read the rest of this entry »
Municipal Accountability: a city council’s refusal to account
Posted by Henry McCandless in Accountability of Public Administration Academics, Authorities' Accountabilities, Governance Accountabilities on June 30, 2010
In the August 19 2009 edition of a Victoria BC local newspaper, the Oak Bay News, I had set out the problem of the mushrooming and unfettered deer population in Victoria and what I saw as the Oak Bay municipal council’s responsibility. In that op-ed I stated:
“If Council members say they can do nothing because removal (of the deer) is a provincial matter, they can be expected to meet with other municipal councillors, the deer-housing golf clubs and responsible provincial ministry and wildlife protection officials and come up with an effective action plan within four months. This would be exposed to the public for challenge and would include options such as removal or culling and the reasons for it. Oak Bay Council owes homeowners a public explanation of its intentions and reasons with respect to the deer.”
Seeing no public response from the council members, I wrote on April 16 2010 to each of the seven Oak Bay councillors specifically asking them to publicly explain to Oak Bay residents their action plan to deal with the problem.
My August 2009 op-ed, April 2010 letter to the Councillors and the response are set out below.
Parliament Prorogation vs. Accountability
Posted by Henry McCandless in Governance Accountabilities on February 1, 2010
We need more than rallies objecting to prorogation as “undemocratic.” Rallies won’t change a government’s underlying agendas. A huge banner at the Victoria rally proclaimed: “Canadians Wake Up.” Wake up, indeed, but then to do what? Rules against prorogation won’t change a government’s intentions. Nor is it the issue of when the Prime Minister is to be “let out of the penalty box” on his prorogation decision. We have prorogation because citizens have never set performance and public explanation standards for their elected representatives.
Having the House work properly and earning citizens’ respect for its MPs doesn’t require rules as much as a self-regulating influence on those making governance decisions that will serve the public good. The missing influence is public accountability, which means the obligation of government to give full, fair and public explanation before the fact of its intentions, for whom, and its reasons. This allows knowledgeable public challenge of them, which can lead to loss of public trust.
Causing self-destruction of an authority’s intentions through loss of citizen trust is more powerful than oppositions trying to build up restraining public “pressure.” Authorities with more power can simply crank up their driving forces. Intentions tend to self destruct if enough informed citizens see the underlying real intentions as leading to harm or injustice.
The Public Accountability of a Government Board
Posted by Henry McCandless in Governance Accountabilities on October 22, 2009
This posting is to illustrate first steps taken by citizens holding to account members of a governing board. In this example it is the board members of a major Canadian provincial government agency, the Vancouver Island Health Authority (VIHA). VIHA is charged with healthcare on Vancouver Island and running the facilities for it, under the direction of the provincial Health Minister. The Minister has ultimate responsibility and public accountability for how the province’s several health authorities carry out their tasks. Each authority is the face of the Minister for that area of the province. What health authority board members intend and do, or fail to do in their duty, affects citizens in important ways.
Below is the third-stage letter from the Citizens’ Accountability Group formed on VIHA to each individual member of the board, again asking for their view of their own public accountability. Each earlier asking was rebuffed. The letter exchange below shows that the Board members feel accountable only to the Minister, which means that they do not feel publicly accountable to the citizens they affect — only to the official who appointed them.
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