Category: Accountability

Introduction

This assignment, it will discuss what accountability is, why it is important within adult nursing, looking into capacity in an analytical aspect, whilst maintaining confidentiality within the assignment. Enabling the reader to get a better understanding of capacity whilst looking at it through legal, ethical, and professional accountability. Capacity is both decision and time specific. We cannot decide what is in a person’s best interests just because of their age, their looks, or how they behave. Capacity according to the NHS (2016) discusses “that capacity is the ability to use and understand information to make a decision, and communicate any decision made. A person lacks capacity if their mind is impaired or disturbed in some way and this means the person is unable to make a decision at that time”. If someone has to make a decision for a person because they cannot make it for themselves, they must decide what is in the best interests of that patient, get the patient’s family involved to understand the patient’s wishes and allow the patient to have some control in what they want and to listen to their needs. The NMC (2015) states “accountability is the principle that individuals and organizations are responsible for their actions and may be required to explain them to others.” The RCN (2016) mentions that accountability is also a part of the delegation. If you delegate a task out to a member of staff, both the registered member of staff and the member of staff being given the task must ensure that it is both appropriate and will not cause the patient any harm. Furthermore, the RCN (2016) states the importance of accountability within not just the adult field of nursing but all parts of nursing; is ensuring that we act within the best interests of our patients and about challenging our senior colleagues if they give us a task that we are not comfortable in performing confidently; ensuring that patient safety is our utmost fundament within our profession.

Confidentiality is an important aspect within health care. And throughout this assignment, it will keep anything that has happened within practice confidential. RCN (2016) states that confidentiality is what underpins the trust between patients and healthcare workers. Disclosing information about patients/clients to somebody who has no right to the material, is very serious which could lead to a breach of trust from the patient/client and is misconduct within the profession. A patient came in for orthopedic surgery, although they could give consent and were deemed to have the capacity to have their blood pressure taken with their permission. They had learning difficulties which meant as healthcare professionals we needed to do the two-stage test to ensure that they had the capacity to make the right decision to go ahead with the surgery. RCN (2016) describes stage one as looking at whether the patient has an impairment or whether their brain has an abnormal functioning; and stage two looks at whether the impairment of disturbance, disallows the patient to make a decision when they are needed to.

Legal accountability

The mental capacity act came out in 2005 which was then implemented in 2007. Social care institute for excellence (2016) states that the mental capacity act 2005 is made up of five principles. These 5 principles enable healthcare professionals to make the wisest decision when it comes to supporting a patient’s decision-making. Principle one is to presume capacity unless proven otherwise, principle two is about allowing the individuals to be supported in making their own decision, principle three in allowing people to make unwise decisions, principle four is about the person’s best interests, and principle five is about going for a less restrictive option when it comes to a person’s care. The reason the mental capacity act 2005 was brought out was that it was found that people were consenting to procedures that they did not fully understand nor have the full capacity to make a decision. Brown. R, Barber. P and Martin.D (2015) states “in stark contrast with the mental health act 1983 the mental capacity act begins by establishing five key principles to be followed whenever working within the framework of the act.” Furthermore, Brown. R, Barber. P and Martin.D (2015) go into more detail about the five key principles as:

1. “A person must be assumed to have capacity unless it is established that he or she lacks capacity
2. A person is not to be treated as unable to make a decision unless all practicable steps to help him or her to do so have been taken without success
3. A person is not to be treated as unable to make a decision merely because he or she makes an unwise decision
4. An act done, or decision made, under this Act for or on behalf of a person who lacks capacity must be done, or made, in his or her best interests
5. Before the act is done, or the decision is made, regard must be had to whether the purpose for which it is needed can be as effectively achieved in a way that is less restrictive of the person’s rights and freedom of action.”

When a healthcare professional is determining a person’s capacity, they must ensure they receive enough information to make an informed decision, not overload the person with too much information that might make them confused, and the amount of information given needs to reflect to the decision being made.

However, Dimond (2016, pg.13) enables to look at mental capacity in more detail, because it mentions that just because a person lacks the mental capacity to make a particular decision it does not mean they suffer from a mental disorder.

If a patient lacks mental capacity, is under continuous supervision, and not free to leave, then deprivation of liberty should be put in place, to ensure that a patient is receiving treatment within their best interests of them. Dimond. B (2016, pg.253) mentions that the deprivation of liberty safeguards “was enacted as a result of the decision of the European Court of Human rights (ECHR) which held, in the Bournewood case, that the liberty of those lacking the requisite mental capacity who were admitted to hospital under the common law doctrine of necessity was not protected as required Article 5 of the European Convention on Human rights.” Furthermore Dimond. B (2016, pg.254) goes on to mention that “a person can only be deprived of the liberty by the MCA if:

· The deprivation is authorized by an order of the court of protection under section 16 (2)(a) of the MCA (and P is not ineligible because he comes under the MHA as set out in Schedule 1A to the MCA); or

· The deprivation is authorized in accordance with the deprivation of liberty procedures (DOLs) set out in Schedule A1 (and P is not ineligible because he comes under the MHA as set out in Schedule 1A to the MCA); or

· The deprivation is carried out because it is necessary in order to give life-sustaining treatment, or to carry out a vital act to prevent serious deterioration in the person’s condition, while a decision as respects any relevant issue is sought from the court.”

Social care institute for excellence (2016) speaks about principle five of the mental capacity act. When a person is making a decision on behalf of someone they need to take into consideration, whether we can choose to determine or proceed in a way that would restrict a person’s rights and freedoms of action, or whether it is needed to actually decide to proceed at all. In all cases when it comes to making a decision on behalf of someone, we should always weigh up whether what we are deciding is going to help the person in any way. Trying to go for the less restrictive option for them.

When a patient has not got any family or friends that can help make them an informed decision when it comes to their treatment. An IMAC which are independent mental capacity advocate may be considered if health care professionals needed to propose a medical intervention or change a person living arrangements. For example, if they were not safe on their own and may need to go into a care home. Brown. R, Barber. P and Martin.D (2015) mention that the IMAC were a late addition to the Mental Capacity act 2005. They were not brought into the act until 2007. They have been available since April 2007 in England. Only people who have been trained to provide ‘best interests’ advocacy, should only be appointed to cases where an IMAC is required. Their role is to support and represent the person concerned, establish a person’s wishes and feelings, and to ensure that the Act’s principles and best interests’ checklists are followed.

Ethical accountability

Merriam-Webster (2019) describes ethics “as a plural in form but singular or plural in construction: the discipline dealing with that is good and bad and with moral duty and obligation.” Going on to state that both morals and ethics have some distinction in how they are used. Morals is one’s individual’s values in which they consider what is right or wrong in their eyes. Whereas ethics introduces more of moral principles.

Edward.S (2009) mentions that as a nurse we can face many more ethical problems than other members of society have to face. Whilst we are nurses, we come into contact with many different people with ethical beliefs and moral education. This means that sometimes we may need to change different ways of responding to moral problems, which could differ to our own ethical beliefs. Our nursing acts need to be direct to moral ends. Allowing to bring our states which not only do our patients value them but are of importance to them. Examples of these states are feeling well, being free from pain, feeling calm, and feeling that one has a good quality of life or quality that has improved and not deteriorated. Principles of health care ethics is narrowed down into four principles. These principles are respect for autonomy, the principle of nonmaleficence, the principle of beneficence, and the principle of justice. The principles of ethics when it approaches to healthcare is about looking at a person’s view, looking at a different view, and giving our own opinion based on what we think. Furthermore, Edward.S (2009, pg. 57) mentions “to say that a person has autonomy, or equivalently, is autonomous, is to say that they have the capacity for self-government. In other words, they are capable of making their own decisions about matters which concern their own life.” They then go onto say that sometimes as healthcare professionals we can overwhelm the patient’s with too much information, even if the information is relevant, is not respecting a patient’s autonomy. The importance of autonomy is attached to the law. Meaning if patients want to reject even life-saving treatment then they should be able to freely make that decision.

Tringle. J and Cribb. A (2014, pg.23) states “that ‘habitual ethics’ the ethical judgments that individuals make as a matter of course; the values that are built into ways of working. Any shift in the philosophy or culture of nursing which entails that normal practice and expectations are changed has an enormous impact. Practice can be enhanced (or made worse) for literally thousands of people. Generally speaking, much less rest upon prolonged agonizing about particular cases, however difficult they are.”

Ethical issues that can cause setbacks to patients when it comes to capacity is that they may not have the knowledge or the understanding to consent when it comes to procedures. Tingle. J and Cribb. A (2014) state that patients are unable to consent to something fully if they are in incomprehension of the knowledge provided to them, misleading in what they are told, or simple cannot grasp the information being mentioned to them. Sometimes as healthcare professionals we speak in medical terms that many people who do not understand medicine will acknowledge what their health professional has told them. Sometimes patients do not always ask what terms can mean and ask for them to reiterate. However, sometimes it can be harder for healthcare professionals to explain a complicated matter in terms that are both perfectly clear to the layperson and, at the same time, both accurate and complete.

Professional Accountability

Chitty. K and Black. B (2011) states that for many years a lot of people are looking into whether nursing is a profession. Some people believe that nursing is an emerging profession, whereas many others see nursing as a fully-fledged profession. The code by the NMC (2015) states “nurses, midwives, and nursing associates must act in line with the Code, whether they are providing direct care to individuals, groups or communities or bringing their professional knowledge to bear on nursing and midwifery practice in other roles, such as leadership, education, or research. The values and principles set out in the code can be applied in a range of different practice settings, but they are not negotiable or discretionary.” The code admits that the standards they have produced within the code are not just the standards they have produced, but what they have been told by members of the public, of what they expect from healthcare professionals when they are being taken care of within a health setting. Further stating that health professionals if they want to be within the profession must be committed to the professional standards, as it is of great importance and the foundation of the practice. The NMC (2015) goes onto say “they can work in diverse contexts and have different levels of autonomy and responsibility. However, all of the professions we regulate exercise professional judgment and are accountable for their work.”

Although accountability is important and as professionals, we must be responsible for any actions we implement, we must abide by the law at the same time. Cornock.M (2014) states one must be able to answer any of the judgments they make, according to the code of conduct. They are accountable to anything they do as a professional at all times, whether it is on or off duty. Liability for one’s actions is different to being accountable as what evidence they provide will be judged and, if deemed to be liable could ensure a penalty being given to the healthcare professional. As healthcare professionals, we have a degree of autonomy in the way we undertake our practice. Allowing professionals to make our own clinical decisions and commitment. He looks into whom, as healthcare professionals are, we accountable to. Saying that we have many people we are accountable to, our patients, our employers, the NMC, and society.

Chitty. K and Black. B (2011) discusses that due to nursing being so dynamic, many of the changes in nursing see many of the legal aspects in nursing care evolving to help protect not only the patients but the healthcare professionals.

Conclusion

Within this assignment, I have learned about what an independent mental capacity advocate is, and what their role is within the mental capacity act 2005. What the five principles are of the mental capacity act 2005, and how they can be applied within a practice? I understand more about the importance of accountability, what the law states, and what the NMC state. Learned more about what ethics are and how sometimes it can be challenging within the profession as sometimes people can have completely different beliefs and morals to you. That we need to not enforce our own beliefs and ethics but to help our patients to make wise decisions based on the information we give them and allow them to maintain their best interests. I understand now what liability is and what it could mean within my future career. At the moment I am a student nurse, and whilst in practice, I will discuss, understand and analytically go through anything I do whilst under the supervision of my mentor. Reflect and see if we were to go back and redo our actions, whether what we do we would it make a difference to the patient’s experience and the care they receive. As student nurses we have a great opportunity to look into different areas of practice, it can help us to understand that whilst on one ward something may work, other times it may not work on a different ward. Occasionally we have to ask other healthcare professionals whether what we think is correct, would they do the same as us? Sometimes we have to change how we act with different patients as some patients may need a little bit more help and understanding than others. As a student nurse, I am able to step back and see what fellow nurses and mentors might do in a situation and ask questions. Now that I have a theatrical background into the subject of capacity I can now try and apply this to my practice. With capacity, I now understand that just because someone lacks capacity does not mean they have mental health problems. That when we are trying to make decisions for someone with a lack of capacity, we still want to involve both the person and their family/carers to get the best interests for them. That we can use a two-stage test that will help us to make an informed decision about whether a person has the capacity or not. I would say at the start of this assignment I would have been bondy level one as my knowledge in this area was nowhere near as good as my knowledge is now. I believe that once I put this knowledge and understanding within practice my bondy level will go up to a bondy level 2. Many of the sources within this assignment was credible sources, as the NMC and RCN are very well known and respected when it comes to nursing practice. The books I used were also credible because they would not have been able to be published if they were not reliable sources. However, sometimes with books, they can be outdated.

References

1. Chitty, K. and Black, B. (2011). Professional nursing. Maryland Heights, Mo.: Saunders/Elsevier.
2. Cornock.M (2014) Legal principles of responsibility and accountability in professional healthcare [online] Available at: https://oro.open.ac.uk/49089/3/Legal%20principles%20of%20responsibility%20and%20accountability%20in%20healthcare.pdf [accessed on the 24th of March 2019]
3. Dimond, B. (2016). Legal Aspects of Mental Capacity: A Practical Guide for Health and Social C. 2nd ed. John Wiley & Sons.
4. Edwards, S. (2009). Nursing ethics. New York: Macmillan.
5. Martin, D. (n.d.). Mental capacity act 2005 – a guide for practice. 3rd ed.
6. Merriam-Webster (2019) Ethics vs Morals: Is there a difference? [online] Available at: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/ethic [accessed on the 24th of March 2019]
7. NHS (2016) Assessing Capacity [online] Available at: https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/consent-to-treatment/capacity/ [accessed on the 18th of March 2019]
8. NMC (2015 updated 2018) Delegation and accountability [online] Available at: https://www.nmc.org.uk/globalassets/sitedocuments/nmc-publications/delegation-and-accountability-supplementary-information-to-the-nmc-code.pdf [accessed on the 26th of February 2019]
9. NMC (2015) updated 2018) The Code [online] Available at: https://www.nmc.org.uk/globalassets/sitedocuments/nmc-publications/nmc-code.pdf [accessed on the 24th of March 2019]
10. RCN (2016) accountability and delegation [online] Available at: https://rcni.com/hosted-content/rcn/first-steps/accountability-and-delegation [accessed on the 26th of February 2019]
11. RCN (2016) Capacity [online] Available at: https://rcni.com/hosted-content/rcn/first-steps/capacity [accessed on the 18th of March 2019]
12. RCN (2016) Confidentiality, Consent and Capacity [online] Available at: https://rcni.com/hosted-content/rcn/first-steps/confidentiality-consent-and-capacity [accessed on the 18th of March 2019]
13. Social care institute for excellence (2016) Mental Capacity Act (MCA) [online] Available at: https://www.scie.org.uk/mca/introduction/mental-capacity-act-2005-at-a-glance [accessed on the 24th of March 2019]
14. Tingle, J. and Cribb, A. (2013). Nursing Law and Ethics, 4th Edition. John Wiley & Sons.

The Importance of Accountability and Continuity

“I am a soldier first but an Intelligence Professional second to none.” As a soldier, I am held to a higher standard compared to a civilian. We are trained and developed to follow the profession of arms. As a soldier, you are expected to live, speak and act in the professional army manner to adhere to army traditions, fulfilling our roles to resist the enemy at all times. You are responsible for not only bettering yourself but to help better your team as a whole. In the United States Army, once you fail any task, you are corrected for your actions and held accountable for your mistakes. Leaders decide the best punishment or corrective action to take to ensure the soldier doesn’t make the same mistake. Leaders are expected to lead by example so what you do and how you portray yourself, note that you have soldiers beneath you that look up to you to see what it takes to be successful and a good leader. In the community I serve in, maintaining my job as an intelligence analyst, I am not only held to a higher standard to have accountability and continuity responsibilities as a soldier but I also am expected to have them as an analyst in order to complete our assigned tasks to support the continuation of the ACE’s mission. We all need to be the leader we want our soldiers to be.

Continuity: ”The unbroken and consistent existence or operation of something over a period of time.” Continuity is used in all aspects of the military, whether it be under the military professionalism, operations, tactics, logistics, administration, strategy, military leadership, as well as military theory and doctrine. Continuity is provided by leaders in order to ensure the mission runs smoothly and all tasks are completed, steering away from the possibility of any major setbacks that may occur. Leaders were created and appointed their role to be able to take charge and provide logistical guidance on how a mission should be handled and completed. Continuity is a constant effort put for by not only the leader but by the entire team. Continuity allows for increased productivity and smoother operations. If a leader fails at their duties to ensure operations are followed through in a planned layout, this could significantly hinder the mission. So not only did that person fail as a leader, but they failed themselves. Lacking in the realization that continuity is important to the Army’s mission, will only make the force weaker. Continuity helps us develop plans to avoid disruption of operations.

Accountable: “(noun) Being responsible or liable for someone or something at the state of event and or situation.” Many ask why accountability is so important, especially in the realms of the Army’s statute. The United States Army appreciates soldiers that are accountable for their actions and values their continuous efforts to ensure they pay attention to detail, especially when it comes to completing the mission. What does it mean to be accountable? It means being dependable. With that, you are expected to arrive to work on time, meet deadlines, be in the right place at the right time, and always do the right thing. In accordance with the Army, the first formation of the day is the most important because it allows leaders to get accountability for everyone, provide vital information and address any issues that may come up. Without accountability, there is nowhere to know where soldiers are or to have an idea of what’s going on and/or what needs to be done. Without accountability, management would fail in the army. Accountability is enforced in the United States Army for a variety of reasons; safety, inventories, procedures, and just keeping track of personnel at all times. Accountability is what holds the army together, serving as a backbone by holding everything together to avoid chaos or commotion. It does not look good on a soldier if they cannot complete their assigned task. This shows that the soldier cannot be depended on, especially when they are needed. This doesn’t only hinder the team as a whole but as the soldier individually. This may hurt the soldier when they are trying to be looked at for furthering their career through promotions or being rewarded with favorable actions. Soldiers should want to always make a great impression on their leaders, so failing your tasks as a soldier will not be acceptable. Everything would run a lot smoother if everyone was held responsible for their actions and do as told. Not doing as told also creates a negative impact on your leadership. Being dependable is not only useful as a soldier and an intelligence analyst, but it’s also a useful trait to have as a civilian. Being late is not only unacceptable in the army, but it’s unacceptable wherever you may go. Being on time and doing what you were told is the easiest task for a soldier.

The army has several ways to correct issues involving accountability and continuity if it is a continuous problem. A soldier may receive a negative counseling statement, an Article-15, or based on the severity of the problem, even a Court Martial, which could all lead to the possibility of becoming discharged from the United States Army. Consequences establish discipline. Discipline is vital because it supports the orders to do a task efficiently. Without discipline, soldiers won’t react fast enough when told to complete a task.

Being professional also means looking professional, which in the end, a good professional soldier will have a lasting impression on their peers and superiors. Not only must we look good as soldiers, but specifically representing our MOS, being a professional will get noticed because if you are efficient in your job, your higher-ups won’t doubt you and your abilities to lead soldiers to get the mission done.

Maintaining a positive, professional relationship between soldiers and their superiors will help ensure a healthy and positive work environment. Clear and constant communication will help deter away from any misunderstandings and setbacks of the mission.

Have you ever thought about what the military would be like without certain things? The military must have certain things for it to maintain its reputation. The military always wants their soldiers and their sailors to be their best no matter the situation. The military always wants their soldiers and sailors to have accountability, discipline and respect, time management, and critical thinking skills if they are in a combat zone or working in a hospital.

Accountability is very important in the military. Accountability is defined by the DoD as the obligation imposed by law or lawful order or regulation on an officer or other person for keeping an accurate record of property, documents, or funds. Accountability is also used when someone has something to do outside of their workplace, they keep updated who they need to update. Accountability is important in the military because if someone does not know where you are and a higher-up asks where you are the leadership would be in big trouble. I plan on being more accountable by updating my leadership everywhere I need to go outside of the clinic while working at the clinic. If I have an appointment during the workday, I will send them a text when I am heading to my appointment, when I get to my appointment, and when I leave my appointment. I will make sure that I am keeping my floor leader, my ALPO, and my NCOs updated with everything that they need to know about my whereabouts. I will show up for muster earlier than the 10 minutes I am needed to do. I will make sure everyone is aware of appointments I have so they know that I have one but still keep them updated about my whereabouts. Everyone should know where you are always at so they can notify someone if they are asked about where you are at. If you are in combat, a team is accountable for everyone in the team. The squad leader must make sure everyone is there so that there is success in the mission. If someone is accountable, you can trust they will do what they claimed. Without accountability, you would not be able to put your trust in someone to complete a job for you and another member of the team or show up on time to an important event, or formation. If you keep remaining unaccountable you could face a UCMJ action under article 15. It is necessary to have accountability to make sure everyone in your unit is safe and so you make sure they are where they are supposed to be. You also want your unit on standby so they are ready for anything that may happen. Being accountable makes us stronger as an individual but also as a team. If you are accountable you are also reliable. Communication is key. Being accountable also includes being in the right uniform, and having all necessary equipment, gear, and documents that you might need for that day in order to accomplish that day’s mission. If you do not in the right uniform and don’t have any of the equipment or gear that you need how can you be accountable? Would you blame others, or would you own up to your mistakes? Accountability is something that is a trait that takes time to learn but should always use it after you have learned it so that you do not end up going to UA ever.

The difference between discipline and respect is that discipline in the military is having proper military bearing even while not in uniform. Respect is something that should be given no matter what. In order to be given respect, you must first give respect to anyone. Discipline is something that you should have after joining the military. When you are in boot camp they teach you discipline and respect. Every time you messed up in boot camp they beat you. They made sure you had discipline. I will implement on being both by showing some discipline in things that I do around the clinic and taking responsibility for my actions. I will respect my leadership and everyone around me. I will follow orders from anyone that gives me orders and complete them to the best of my ability. I will help maintain my discipline and respect by making sure I hold myself to the standards that I know are the standards of the military. Discipline is something that everyone should have rather it be in the civilian world or the military. Poor discipline leads to losing sailors’ or soldiers’ life. Discipline also is making sure you are wearing the uniform properly, following orders, or to repeat tasks until they are done correctly. Discipline has to do with addressing the right people and knowing the ranks. Discipline is the most important in order to ensure the efficiency of the military organization. Respect is a key value in the military. Respect for your subordinates, peers, seniors, and officers is highly regarded. In the military anyone who wears a higher rank than what you are wearing, respect is expected but it is also expected from the same rank and lower as well. Respect is looked highly upon due to the fact that it is something that should be given to all service members. Disrespect is observed when leadership must micromanage tasks. That is where trust is lost with the subordinates. Everyone should make sure they keep their respect and discipline in check because if they don’t, they could end up going down a wrong path that they may not be able to bounce back from. Without discipline and respect in the military, there would not be any success. Everyone needs to respect their peers, subordinates, and seniors. This requires one to listen and pay soldiers and sailors the proper courtesy. Respecting your fellow soldiers and sailors means protecting him or them in all situations, covering their backside when required, and clearing the path in order for him or them to complete the mission. Discipline helps you to enhance self-control, behavior, and competence and the outcome of such nature of training means adherence to the regulations formulated for the advantage of the team. It also promotes our competency, and efficiency in any planned or unplanned military operations. One example of self-discipline is being in uniform in order to help identify each other easily. We also have discipline when we adhere to the rules that govern the operations of the military processes.

Time management and critical thinking are skills required to use while in the military. If you do not use time management or critical thinking you need to be able to find out how to use it while in the military. Time management is the process of planning and controlling how much time to spend on specific activities. Good time management enables an individual to complete more in a shorter period of time, lowers stress, and leads to career success. The ability to manage your time is very important. If you prioritize wisely, you will get more done faster. Critical thinking is important in the military because it leads to more certainty and confidence in an uncertain future. Critical thinking is the kind of mental attitude required for success in a strategic environment. I will use these skills during my days as a sailor to help plan out my day effectively and make sure I prioritize what I need to get done. I will manage my time by putting the tasks that are important first and making sure that the tasks that are least important are done last. Use critical thinking to strategize my tasks and my day effectively. I will categorize what can be used to get the same task done but see which one would get the task done faster and more effectively. Different strategies can help get the same things done but in different ways. If I found a way to make paperwork scanning go faster than what it normally takes I would try to make it goes as fast as it can go. If I could think of ways to make the clinic run smoother and more effective to help please not only the providers but the patients I would use the strategy to help make it all come together with all the work that is needed to use time wisely and thinking of things to go more strategically. Time management teaches you in boot camp because while in boot camp they teach you that if you are late to one thing and did not manage your time to be on time for an event you will be late for all of your other tasks as well. We all use time management in our own ways. People use a calendar to put down things that they need to make sure get done when they need to get done. For example, if you have a deadline on something that is very important then you must make sure that you hit that deadline by managing the time that you have to get it done. If you prioritize your tasks wisely, you will never go wrong. Critical thinking helps you learn how to think and how to judge and improve the quality of thinking. Critical thinking is also known as robust thinking because it involves many different attributes. Most importantly critical thinking is a state of mind in whose goal is better thinking. Critical thinking is always useful because it lets you use a different strategy for the same task.

In conclusion, the military always wants their soldiers and sailors to be accountable, disciplined, respectful, using their time wisely through time management and using critical thinking to get them out of difficult situations. Next time people in your chain of command say that you are not doing something right, ask them how you can improve yourself to make yourself better. Use every resource that you can use to help improve yourself for the better of the mission. The mission is what counts and matters in the military.

Nothing in life can be carried out to the fullest without accountability! Without it, it is difficult to get people to assume ownership of their own actions because they believe they will not face any consequences. Accountability is the concept of answerability by an individual or a department for the performance or outcomes of specific activities.

In the case of setting goals, the notion of accountability can be applied in two ways firstly, internal accountability is when an individual’s personal commitment to be true to their values and to fulfill their promises. It comes from the inside out and creates credibility that others trust and respect. And secondly, is external accountability which comes from the outside in, being accountable, not to oneself, but to others. It creates an environment that people feel compelled to follow, a set of social norms and standards.

On the other hand, accountability is an important value in public service. As it leads to good governance. It is about the relationship between the state and its citizens, and the extent to which the state is answerable for its actions. Accountability and works to improve productivity, performance and forces individuals to follow through and complete projects. Setting deadlines with accountability helps to make the most out of time and recording and measuring results with accountability brings opportunities to reflect on success, which in turn will help to motivate one when gains experience challenges in the future. It also helps to create achievable milestones to give something to aim for during a long-term project.

Public services are significantly involved in the use of public resources, therefore accountability becomes an essential factor. Expressively, the principles and concepts important to public sector accountability include transparency, fairness, integrity, and trust. Likewise, discuss the principles are as follows firstly, transparency includes responding to requests for information. It is about providing people with the information they need to engage in the decisions that affect them. Effective public debate requires transparency, which strengthens public sector accountability and promotes fairer and more effective, and efficient governance. In the context of this report, transparency refers to a public entity’s openness about its activities – the extent to which it provides information about what it is doing, where and how this takes place, and how it is performing. Secondly, integrity is about exercising power in a way that is true to the value, purposes, and duties for which that power is entrusted or held by public entities and individual officer-holders. Thirdly, fairness is the concept of dealing with a matter in an equitable and unbiased manner. In practice, it means that inquiry agencies act independently and with an open mind and that they consider all relevant information carefully and without undue delay.in most instances, acting fairly will also include giving the party that is subject to the grievance a chance to comment on any adverse findings against them before a final decision is made. Moreover, the essence of trust is consistency between what is said and what is done.

“An education system needs both school accountability and school autonomy to raise attainment.” Do you agree? Explain your reasons.

The state of the school system has increasingly become a concern for societies. The questioning on which systems work more efficiently to advance the cognitive and non-cognitive skills of students has installed the endeavour to seek reforms that increase attainment. Thus, Institutional measures have taken a centre stage: accountability and autonomy. The tenor of findings of the impact of autonomy has differed over time, and the introduction of reforms that favour accountability; like the No Child left behind act (NCLB) and 1988 UK reforms, has posed an intrinsic debate of which system is the right one. Whether there should a clear favour to a particular system or an interplay of both. Therefore, the presented paper evaluates the current evidence to determine whether accountability and autonomy are mutually inclusive factors in a school system to raise attainment. This essay will….

The process of evaluation of school performance on the basis of student performance measure, is known as school accountability. Centralized reporting in school-wide examination has been occurring, and measured, in the United Kingdom for decades (Burgess et al., 2005) and in Chile (Mizala et al. 2007). Likewise, accountability measures have been a distinctive feature of educational policy for both Democratic and Federal administrations since the 1990s (REF). School accountability operates on a set of principles and under various implementation strategies. There are three main types of accountability: 1) compliance with regulation, in which educators were accountable for adherence to rules and accountable to bureaucracy; 2) adherence to professional norms, in this system, educators are accountable for adherence to standards and accountable to their peers; 3) result driven, within this system, educators are accountable for student learning and accountable to the general public. Educators often ought to work on these systems of accountability simultaneously, attempting to balance the requirement of each. However, at present accountability systems focus less on compliance and more on showable results. The rewards and sanctions that stem from accountability can be straight forward, like bonuses for educators in high performing schools and punishment for low performance, such as closure of schools or restructuring. Accountability can also occur subjectively by community pressure on schools to improve. Thus, school accountability incentives can work through direct government action or through the provision of information.

One of the most notable accountability system is the federal No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB), which requires states to test students in reading and mathematics in grades three through eight, as well as one in high school grade. NCLB also requires science testing in at least one grade per traditional school level and states to determine what it means to be proficient on the state assessment. Then schools are evaluated based on whether students are progressing adequately toward the goal of 100% proficiency. The aim of these type of reform is the idea that making available detailed school-specific information on test performance, and linking performance to direct consequences can improve productivity in schools. Evidence suggest that NCLB had a positive effect in mathematics on elementary student performance, particularly at lower grades and typically disadvantaged population. However, this effect was not observed in other subjects. The impact of NCLB was also visible on educators, as it appears it led schools to devote more time to maths and reading, there was a particular increase in exam preparation activities. Lastly, there’s compelling evidence that NCLB increased per-pupil school district expenditure on direct instruction, a mediation mechanism that may explain the corresponding achievement gains. The relative gains of NCLB can be attributed to the direct consequences it imposes on low performing schools, as the pre-NCLB literature suggested accountability policies that simply reporting accountability measure that were unconnected to exomplicit consequences did not drive improvements on student achievement (Hanushek and Raymond, 2005).

Furthermore, much like the American system accountability in the UK relies on publicising information to hold schools accountable and thus penalise direct or indirectly that don’t perform according to standard. This occurred after the 1988 introduction of greater accountability, were schools have to publish information on their performance. However, this information was only partial. Schools report the proportion of students that achieve above a certain level in national test taken at age 16. This information is then used by the government to rank schools in a nationally published school ‘league table’ This information used by the government to sanction poorly performing school and by parents choosing a school for their child. A key issue of accountability systems is that of fairness as when measuring the impact of accountability, the distribution of pupil ability and so the proportion of marginal pupils may be endogenous. The pupil level analysis denotes that the lowest ability are the losers of this type of system. In most schools as the number of marginal pupils increases, the pupil gets less value added and have a lower chance of getting the needed qualification to continue in academia or to access reasonable school leaver jobs. The marginal pupils don’t appear to gain either except when their schools are in competition. Reback (2004) finds similar findings in a study of the US were it was examined the distributional effect of accountability at pupil level, it was found that the relative importance of a student’s performance within a school has only a very small, positive, effect on that students performance relation to his or her peers. The same study, however, discusses how the distributional effect is larger when schools have strong incentive to improve their performance. The incentives in the United Kingdom are weaker if compared to the studies carried on in the US.

A meaningful ranking of school could improve education service delivery, from transmitting incentives to educators to enhancing parental school choice. However, it ought to be recognised that it appears to be more complex to produce the right accountability system than originally thought. This is true for Chile, that has focused its education reforms on the provision of education choice, incentives and publicized school information in the form of ‘league table’. On a time, series study of the standard measure of relative performance in Chile from 1997-2004. Using several cross section to calculate commonly-used school performance measure, it was found that there is a clear trade off in the extent to which ranking generated using these measure: 1) can be shown to be very similar to ranking based purely on students socioeconomic status and 2) are very volatile from year to year. Thus, there is the possibility that while using information improve education in certain aspects of the structural system, it might not improve educational quality more broadly.

Alternatively, in recent years educational systems have moved to a more autonomous organisation and become accountable to students, parents and the public for their outcomes.

School autonomy is broadly defined as the authority of school communities to improve student learning outcomes through formal governance structures. Although there is a strong literature surrounding policies to assign more autonomy to schools, and the number of education embracing school autonomy is growing (Arcia et al. 2011; Eurydice European Unit 2007; OECD 2013; OECD 2015; The World Bank 2007), its value continues to be debated both in ideological terms and empirically. The idea that school improvement is linked to autonomy stems from the school-based decision making and restructuring reforms of the 1980’s (David & Shields, 1991; Elmore, 1990; Newman, 1991).

The literature surrounding autonomy tends be more favourable in the post-2000 era, although one pre-2000 study was particularly optimistic regarding the impact of autonomy. The Australian longitudinal study of principals’ attitude to the major Victoria reform (Department of Education 1998) laid the foundations for school autonomy in that state for the subsequent decades. Previous to the 2000 era, student performance data were limited. The pattern of results on school’s autonomy from student’s achievement test is that students perform significantly better in schools that have autonomy in process and personnel decision. This decision often involves hiring and rewarding of teachers, purchase of supplies and budget allocation within schools and curricula content.

The OECD’s current analytical framework for assessing the impact of school autonomy on performance compromises two composite indices development from survey that accompany the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) test. Firstly, there is an index of school responsibility for resource allocation and secondly and index of school responsibility for the curriculum and assessment. Correlation analysis with the OECS’s 2012 PISA performance allows the comparison among education systems and within country. The first analysis shows that where schools in systems that are more autonomous for decision over curricula and assessment, they tend to yield better outcomes in student performance than in systems that have less autonomy for deciding on curricula. This is also true for when considering national income – showcasing a correlation of 0.58. The later, within-country relationships between schools’ autonomy In resources are far more complex and the differences are slight. Moreover, the relationship is influenced by other factors as socioeconomic level, status as a public or private school and the systems management environment – in particular its accountability framework. On the other hand, greater responsibility in managing resources appears unrelated to a systems performance.

Furthermore, the existing cross-country evidence indicates that there is an important interaction between school autonomy and the accountability introduced by external exams (cf. Wöbmann, 2007b). The evidence shows that school autonomy is beneficial in system with external exit exams (Wöbmann 2005; Fuchs and Wöbmann, 2007). Across decision-making areas, external exams turn an initially negative autonomy effect into a positive effect, for example, in TIMSS and in PISA 2000. Thus, it can be argued that in order for autonomy to serve its purpose in a school system certain level accountability ought to be introduced, as results suggests that school autonomy is better for students’ achievement when external exits exams are introduced.

Over the years , Australian federalism ‘cake’ has become more and more marble like under the banner of collaborative or cooperative federalism leading to more overlapping , ambiguity, duplication, bureaucracy and accountability deficit .

The theoretical merit of decentralised power and therefore decentralised responsiveness had created an accountability deficit.

Accountability in simple terms is to account for ones actions to those affected by them.

According to Management Advisory Board/Management Improvement Advisory Committee (MAB/MIAC) report,

‘In the context of the relationship between public servants, secretaries of departments and ministers, and ministers and the Parliament, accountability is defined as existing where there is a direct authority relationship within which one party accounts to a person or body for the performance of tasks or functions conferred by that person or body “

At this junction, it is imperative to talk about the effect of federalism on government accountability in its policy-making and solving modern day complex problems such as climate change, homelessness, indigenous welfare and so on.

Policy makers & Governments around the world have realised that lot of these that wicked problem need some form of networking such as public private partnerships , ‘ whole government approach’ where range of portfolios, departments, organisations and jurisdictions come together to deliver better quality outcomes , increase citizen participation & improve government’s responsiveness towards these issues .

However this collaborative problem-solving policy implementation creates an accountability gap

Lynelle Briggs in her paper ‘Delivering performance and accountability ‘acknowledges that these new collaboration ways can be unstructured, messy …

“It points to accountability gaps that have emerged as the new modes of policy implementation have failed to achieve the standards of transparency and accountability that the public expects from governments” (Lynelle Briggs, APSC, 2008)

Such a gap don’t exist in countries like New Zealand which follows unitary style of government where one government is ultimately responsible and accountable.

Closely linked term, which often revered as virtue, is ‘competitive federalism’ whereby different governments compete for private and public funds & resources based on their performance, utilisation, returns, and state legislation and rules their device.

There are 9 governments and 15 legislative chambers in Australia for a population based off just fewer than 25 million.

Hypothetically, if we were to construct Australian constitution afresh, will we create 9 governments (Greg Craven, 2005)… to compete vertically and horizontally amongst themselves for resources on the lame excuse that it boosts creativity?

As Dr Peter Long questions the virtue of competitive federalism (during Workshop for Unit 1), if this was the case why is it that we look up to UK and New Zealand for most of our reform ideas.

Also the theoretical advantage of competing leading to best utilisation of resources have, in reality , become ‘ race to the bottom’ in many cases driven by parochialism .( John Brumby , 2014) . US has competitive federalism which has resulted in poor states to generally stay poor and keep their people poor (Michael Pascoe, 2014).

Thus it can be again be concluded that Australia would be better governed without both cooperative and compititive federalism

Fiscal Imbalances created due to running Australian Governance as a Federal

Let’s now look at now the financial aspect of governing as no discussion is complete without a mention of fiscal impact.

The costs of running multiple tiers of governments, & the cost of managing their imbalanced roles and responsibilities interactions, compliance etc. is staggering. It was estimated to be around $40 billion in 2002. The per capita cost as of today would be much higher compared to per capital cost of running unitary style of governments like UK or New Zealand. When experts concludes that costs of running unitary style UK Government is more than that of Australia , they often forget that UK is 3 times in population to Australia .

Commonwealth raises about 82 % of tax revenue in Australia .States are responsible for at least 40% of national expenditure. This means that states are reliant on commonwealth grants to meet their obligations of delivering services such as schools, hospitals, police and public transport. (Anne Twomey 2008)

This imbalance between revenue generation and expenditure is often enough referred as Vertical Fiscal Imbalance. (VFI)

Australia has the biggest VFI in the world where nearly 40% of state and local revenue is contributed by Commonwealth grants

No state at present in Australia has the ability to raise its on revenue/taxes to just charge it on duties or tasks. .

The well-known Vertical fiscal imbalance (resulted due to central monopoly over major taxes,), Commonwealth grants, tied or untied, (SPP), Horizontal fiscal equalisation (HFE) perils, are all the creations of our flawed federal system.

This section further demonstrates that Australia would be better governed if it was not a federation. The later section makes case for alternative form where these perils will cease to exists if not completely, then at least to a greater extend

With centralisation of major taxes and revenue and its distribution to state using SPP, grants HFE principles it seems states are mostly the middleman. They are reduced to mere service delivering agencies for Commonwealth programs (Jonathan Pincus, 2008)

Commission of Audit reports acknowledges that the current Federation operations poses fundamental challenge to delivery of good, responsible government in Australia

Recommendation: Australia as Unitary or two tier government

The flaws in the Federal systems have been well recognised and various governments have tried to fix them by changing the intergovernmental arrangements or relations. The white paper on Reforms of the Federation 2015 under Tony Abbott’s government highlighted lot of the above listed issues. It recognised the imbalance and ambiguity in roles, responsibilities and revenue. It then suggested that Centre does too much, it talked about defined roles, responsibilities and some reforms around revenue and making state more sovereign on principle of subsidiarity

However it failed to answer if federalism is still fit for the purpose?

Australia is a relatively new nation compared to the rest of the world, with one of the least population mass compared to the landmass.

It is recommended the current three tie of government be reduced to two by abolishing states. Australia does not need States.

States in Australia, unlike in other countries are not formed on the basis of culture, race, religion or language but evolved from colonies for merely geographical and economic activity.

Bob Hawke repeated advocated for centralism and abolishing of state government.

This will mean that we will have one parliament with all law making powers .This will save billions of hard earned tax earners money which can be better utilised every year in modernising government with latest technology

The idea of abolishing three tiers of government was also discussed in 2020 summit however they suggested to abolish local government and replace with creation of more ( as many as 40 ) states ( future of Australia Governance in Australia 2020, Canberra 2008).

Centralism or unitary style which is criticised as lacking flexibility or subsidiarity is not always true. Unitary Governments can also have local government in the form of regional , city or district councils which are more closed to the ground to look after the needs and interests of specific groups or communities thereby providing subsidiarity.

Our twin neighbours New Zealand (who we mimic while devising lot of policies) shows that unitary style works better than federation for economies like ours. New Zealand is better and effectively governed than Australia. Look at the last decade – while we changed five prime ministers and not much changed apart from declining economy , dwindling public services , New Zealand in the same period managed to increase GST to 15% , reduced top income tax by 6% to 33%, .

It also managed to commercialise number of public enterprises.

Imagine an Australia where there is no more bucks passing, no duplication or overlapping or roles and responsibilities… No more complexity of compliance with different legislations.

That Australia will have only one department each for health, agriculture education and so on supported by regional councils devising uniform yet flexible policies and services. Therefore the best of staff from all abolished state departments will come together to form intellectual central nucleus departments whilst administrative wings / divisions may exist in the regions to deliver the policies and customise those to regional requirements.

There will be no more vertical fiscal imbalance; there will be no differential state laws and business in the country will experience a ‘seamless national market’ with the uniform laws and regulations

Lawmaking authority could be devolved to large number of regional councils ,just like state government currently delegates to local government, except this will eliminate the middle man ( state government ) leading to more efficiency, responsiveness, transparency, customisation and subsidiarity.

In conclusion, as former Prime Minister Bob Hawke once said, the time has come to rewrite the constitution and do away with federalism in its current form.

Keep it simple – is the new mantra going around the world and same applies to our government too. Any tinkering reforms to current federation such as realignment of roles , responsibilities and revenue , whist still keeping three tiers due to fear of changing too much or pragmatism , will only act as a bandage to the bleeding economy and political system. As long as the States exists, the powerful cashed up Commonwealth will always be tempted to obstruct the state affairs for electoral advantage or in the national interest as it sees “(Jonathan Pincus, 2008)

Australians are ready for change as indicated by various surveys and polls.

A survey conducted by Griffith University in 2014 reported 71% of respondents want the current system to change. Further survey instigated that year by a lobby group called Beyond Federation also found that 78% of respondents were in favour of single set of laws for the nation.

Lot of harm has already been done .The time has come to stop it. Australia will surely be better governed if it is federation no more but instead adopt compact, simpler, straightforward forms such as unitary form.

Literature 1

Sowmya Kidambi (2012), studied on “Why It Is Important for NGOs to establish their credibility when every sector is under the scanner?”

In this study, she described that as civil society organizations, nascent political formations increasingly demand transparency and accountability from the political establishment, and executive, it is ethically necessary that they develop institutional structures and systems for their own transparency and accountability. Amid this widespread call for transparency, there are many questions being raised about public resources, their use and potential misuse by non-governmental organizations (NGOs). The study suggested public auditing system should be developed so that the beneficiaries can monitor the use of funds meant for them.

Literature 2

Godwin Awio, Deryl North, Stewart Lawrence (2011) studied on “Social Capital and Accountability in Grass Roots NGOs: the case of the Ugandan community-led HIV/AIDS initiative”.

In this study, they analyzed how grass-root NGOs account for their actions and expenditure and how this accountability is disclosures to and benefits the citizens they serve. This study was based on a case study of an NGO that delivers welfare services to a Ugandan committee affected by the HIV/AIDS pandemic. The research found that by harnessing the attributes of social capital grass root NGOs can supplement format accountability obligations to funders with effective bottom-up accountability. This research addressed the lack of empirical studies of NGOs in accountability.

Literature 3

Gloria Agyemang, Mariama Awumbila, Jeffrey Unerman, Brendan O’Dwyer(2009)

They studied on “Accountability and Aid Delivery” the aims of the research project had been to investigate, through the experiences of those operating on aid projects at the NGO fieldwork level, the impact of different accounting and accountability mechanisms on the effectiveness of aid delivery. By investigating this issue and identifying the types of accounting and accountability mechanisms that enhance aid, effectiveness and those that have a potentially dysfunctional impact on aid effectiveness.

This study aims to contribute to the formulation of NGO accounting and accountability policies that will be effective in improving the efficiency and effectiveness with which aid funding is transformed into a reduction in human suffering in impoverished nations. The insights provided throughout this study, and the recommendations outlined above, provide and suggest many avenues of further research into the impact of accountability mechanisms on the effectiveness of aid delivery and the development of new accounting and accountability mechanisms.

Literature 4

Edward Mac Abbey (2008) studied, “Constructive regulation of non-government organizations”

This study found that a key role of Civil Society Organizations, such as NGOs, is to develop community capacity to link with formal sector institutions. Regulation of NGOs themselves can legitimize their role, improve their professional standards, and assure accountability to the public. Care should be taken not to excessively regulate, which restricts innovation and outreach of NGOs. Constructive regulation should include simple registration, self-help regulatory mechanisms, and formal regulation of important services such as microfinance. Drawing on experience in Bangladesh and Dominican Republic, the author demonstrated how regulation can improve the effectiveness of development intervention of NGOs.

Literature 5

Brendan O’Dwyer, and Jeffrey Unerman (2008), studied on “The paradox of greater NGO accountability: A case study of Amnesty Ireland”

In this study, they analyzed that despite mounting public, governmental and corporate interest in issues of non-governmental organization (NGO) accountability, there were few academic studies investigating the emergence of accountability mechanisms in specific advocacy NGO settings. Drawing on the theoretical constructs of hierarchical and holistic accountability, this paper addressed that research gap by investigating recent developments in accountability practices at the Irish section of the human rights advocacy NGO Amnesty International.

Through analysis of a series of in-depth interviews with managers in Amnesty Ireland, supported by extensive documentary scrutiny, this study examined reasons why Amnesty’s historical reliance on internal forms of accountability had been augmented with a range of ad hoc external accountability mechanisms. It was widely perceived that this trend could, somewhat paradoxically prove counterproductive to the achievement of Amnesty’s mission. The paper considered the possible implications of these findings for the development of NGO holistic accountability practice more generally.

Literature 6

Glen Lehman (2007) studied on “The accountability of NGOs in civil society and its public spheres”

In this study, the author analyzed that in the past two decades, globalization had brought about many unexpected changes in the assumed role of governments. Part of this had included the role and rise of non-government organizations (NGOs) that had grown in number and power to fill services that governments were either unable or unwilling to provide. The prominence of NGOs in third-world countries fills a void of humanitarian services that were often lacking, but in all nations, they had increasingly become potential vehicles for ideology instead of assistance, subject to capture by both sides of politics. In this respect, a new question and a new challenge face those who look for the accountability of NGOs in the public sphere—Are NGOs doomed to fail by the environment that made them necessary? The possible role for NGOs can be evaluated by examining alternative of ways of thinking about the “civil society”. More particularly, NGO contributions involve examining connections with accountability in a world in which public intervention and social awareness had been trivialized. A reinvigorated civil society can help to reconcile the role of NGOs to an authentic and effective accountability.

Literature 7

Brendon O’Dwyer, and Jeffrey Unerman (2007), worked on “From functional to social accountability: Transforming relationship between funders and nongovernment development organization”.

The purpose of this paper was to analyze the evolving nature of the accountability relationship between a group of Irish non-governmental development organizations (NGDOs) and their primary governmental funder. The empirical content of the paper was derived from a series of in-depth interviews with senior individuals working within the Irish NGDO sector, along with a comprehensive analysis of documentary sources. The study find out that lack of resources, organizational commitment, guidance, and expertise from the governmental funder had contributed to an attitude of skepticism among many NGDOs towards both the partnership rhetoric and the accompanying adoption of the central tenets of social accountability, particularly downward accountability to beneficiaries. The limitation of study is that research was based on a detailed analysis in a specific context which may limit its wider applicability. Nevertheless, it added insights to the developing academic literature on NGO accountability, with particular reference to their broader social accountabilities.

This study provided in-depth, highly informed insider perspectives on the evolving nature of these relationships, especially in the context of attempts to promote more partnership-based approaches to the delivery of development aid.

Literature 8

Jeffrey Unerman, Brendan O’Dwyer, (2006) ‘Theorising accountability for NGO advocacy’, Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal, vol. 19 Iss: 3, pp.349 – 376

The purpose of this study was to develop a staged theoretical argument regarding whether NGO can be considered, responsible and accountable for the direct and indirect consequences, on a wide range of stakeholders flowing from their advocacy activities. The paper found that the advocacy activities on NGO may be considered to cause widespread and often unintended negative impact upon the lives of many either stakeholders who are close to or remote from.

This study was primarily theoretical so it can be benefit from empirical studies to assess its applicability in practice. It also has the scope to be applied in assessing the responsibility and accountability of a range of other entities for their advocacy – such as businesses, religious bodies, political parties, and academics.

Literature 9

Rob Gray, Jan Bebbinqtan, and David Collison(2006), studied on “NGOs and civil society accountability, making the people accountable to capital”.

The research finds that the essence of accountability lies in the relationships between the organization and the society and/or stakeholder groups of interest. The nature of this relationship allows us to infer much about the necessary formality and the channels of accountability. In turn, this casts a light upon taken-for-granted assumptions in the corporate accountability and reminds us that the essence and basis of success of the corporate world lies in its withdrawal from any form of human relationship and the consequential colonization and oppression of civil society.

Literature 10

Andrew Goddard, Mussa Juma, Assad (2006), conducted study on “Accounting and navigating legitimacy in Tanzanian NGOs”

This research established the importance of accounting in the process of navigating organizational legitimacy. Two principal strategies were employed by organizations in navigating legitimacy – building credibility and bargaining for change. The paper contributed to the limited empirical research into accounting in NGOs in developing countries and to grounded theory, accounting research.

The principal finding that in the NGOs studied the primary purpose of accounting was its symbolic use in navigating legitimacy and that it had a minimal role to play in internal decision making, was an important finding for practice as well as for understanding and knowledge. Finally, the paper sheds light on accountability in NGOs by narrating how the phenomenon is constructed and perceived by organizations and stakeholders.

Literature 11

Rob Dixon, John Ritchie, and Juliana Siwale (2006), studied on “Microfinance: Accountability from Grassroots”.

This study focused on accountability at the grassroots in microfinance NGOs with a social mission. It reveals potential for further personal, community and socially constituted accounting research within microfinance in particular. This study was based on a series of semi-structured interviews and live observation of the client-loan officer interface and internal meetings provided triangulation on accountability relationships in the midst of crisis. Data were analyzed using NVIVO, a qualitative computer software package.

The findings showed that tensions between vertical and horizontal accountability in practice can be directly translated into heightened pressure and stresses on both the non-governmental organization (NGO) and its loan officers, which constrain overall accountabilities to other stakeholders and disguise other potential dysfunctions.

Literature 12

Alnoor Ebrahim(2003), studied on “ Accountability In Practice: Mechanisms for NGOs”.

This paper examined how accountability is practiced by nongovernmental organizations (NGOs). Five broad mechanisms were reviewed: reports and disclosure statements, performance assessments and evaluations, participation, self-regulation, and social audits. Each mechanism, distinguished as either a “tool” or a “process,” was analyzed along three dimensions of accountability: upward–downward, internal–external, and functional–strategic. It was observed that accountability in practice had emphasized “upward” and “external” accountability to donors while “downward” and “internal” mechanisms remain comparatively underdeveloped. Key policy implications for NGOs and donors are discussed in this study.

Literature 13

Paul Jepson, Governance and accountability of environmental NGOs, Environmental Science & Policy, Volume 8, Issue 5, October 2005, Pages 515-524

The issue of the governance and accountability of environmental non-government organizations (ENGOs) is gaining in prominence in academic and public discourse. Ideally each sector of society should be characterized by a distinct accountability regime, but faced with calls for greater accountability there is a risk that ENGOs might apply accountability regimes uncritically from the business or private sector. This could undermine the independent change-agent role of ENGOs and therefore weaken aspects of the democratic system.

This paper argued that ENGOs and the NGO sector in general, need to develop and debate a distinct and credible accountability regime that strengthens and defines their role in society. In support of this goal a framework for conceptualizing a legitimacy-based approach to accountability is described. This was based on the observation that NGO capacity for impact was founded on different types of legitimacy that together establish and maintain public trust. One role of governance is to maintain and strengthen these legitimacy assets by establishing and over-seeing accountability streams that recognize that public trust is built on the cumulative evidence of legitimacy.

Literature 14

Glen Lehman, “The accountability of NGOs in civil society and its public spheres, Critical Perspectives on Accounting”, Volume 18, Issue 6, September 2007, Pages 645-669.

In the past two decades, globalization has brought about many unexpected changes in the assumed role of governments. Part of this has included the role and rise of non-government organizations (NGOs) that have grown in number and power to fill services that governments are either unable or unwilling to provide. The prominence of NGOs in third-world countries fills a void of humanitarian services that are often lacking, but in all nations they have increasingly become potential vehicles for ideology instead of assistance, subject to capture by both sides of politics.

In this respect, a new question and a new challenge face those who look for the accountability of NGOs in the public sphere—are NGOs doomed to fail by the environment that made them necessary? In other words, are they doomed to fail because they are unelected and unaccountable, and unlikely to rise above the limitations of the current system that made them necessary in the first place? The possible role for NGOs can be evaluated by examining alternative of ways of thinking about the “civil society”.

This draws together interpretative strategies from philosophers such as Stanley Aronowitz, Carl Boggs, Craig Calhoun, Timothy Luke, Randy Martin and Charles Taylor. From their work, an on tic dialectical thinking is developed and can be used to assess whether NGOs can truly fill the democratic vacuum, and contribute towards the good society. More particularly, NGO contributions involve examining connections with accountability in a world in which public intervention and social awareness have been trivialized.

Literature 15

Sanjaya Chinthana Kuruppu (june, 2015) submitted a thesis on “The accountability trap: understanding meaning, practice and stakeholder salience in an NGO”.

In this study the researcher had studied that There is a great concern for “what forms of accountability are manifest and hence privileged” (Gray and Laughlin, 2012 p. 241). At the heart of these questions are issues of power and how through the operationalisation of accountability, certain aspects of accountability are elevated over others. As such, this thesis adds to theory in a number of ways. This study extended on mainly philosophical expositions of accountability in terms of a relationship between a ‘self’ and an ‘other’ (Roberts, 1991; Messner, 2009). Contextualized empirics from a Sri Lankan case study highlighted how certain forms of accountability will inherently dominate because of underlying and generally taken for granted notions of how to be accountable and who really matters. The way in which DEVPA (name of an NGO) created a sense of self within a diverse stakeholder context demonstrated how the ‘self’ is always a reflection of an ‘external other’. A core theoretical insight provided by the case evidence is the extent to which stakeholder salience matters in shaping DEVPA’s sense of self. Future theoretical explorations may observe how other NGOs and different types of organizations may be influenced by stakeholder salience in different ways; thus highlighting how accountability can be manifested in diverse forms.

Stakeholder salience has been discussed in this work (implicitly, at least) in terms of discussions of how ‘upwards’ stakeholders are prioritized and catered to, implicitly and explicitly subordinating the concerns of ‘downwards’ stakeholders (see, for example, Goddard and Assad, 2010). This thesis extends present studies by adopting a stakeholder salience lens to explain some of the dynamics of changing power, legitimacy and potentially urgency (Mitchell et al., 1997; Neville et al., 2011) has driven changes in the way that DEVPA interacts with its stakeholders.

Fundamentally, the thesis adds to theory by discussing stakeholder salience as a key driver of DEVPA’s evolving role. In doing so, the thesis again elucidated a distinction between an ‘organizational self’ and an ‘other’. In addition to highlighting the dynamics of ‘self’ and ‘other’, this study also adopted a theoretical framework based on Bovens’ (2010) exposition of accountability as a virtue and as a mechanism. In this study it is argued in chapters how the logic of accountability and governance at DEVPA were shaped by salient stakeholders and their demands.

Subsequently, discussed how the processes of accountability and governance were also driven by salient stakeholders’ concern. Explained in a chapter how logics, processes and practice at DEVPA were bound by the fundamental calculative nature embedded within operationalisations of accountability. These calculative practices are responsible for creating and perpetuating power differences among stakeholders by capturing the language and the means by which NGOs relate to their stakeholders. As the ‘language’ of accountability and governance (e.g. logics and processes) is constructed by powerful stakeholders, as discussed earlier, the voices of ‘downwards’ stakeholders are automatically subordinated. Governance studies have tended to concentrate on private sector structures and processes and government/public institutions (Brennan and Solomon, 2008).

Work exploring governance at NGOs remains much more limited (Steffeck and Hahn, 2010; Steffeck et al., 2010), this despite accountability and governance being considered as interwoven (Tandon, 1995) and important to examine concurrently (Buriss et al., 2008).

This study adds to the literature by unpacking governance structures and systems alongside and with accountability systems. Despite a significant transformation in DEVPA’s role, governance structures are relatively hierarchical despite a proclaimed need for being more nimble. Furthermore, despite a willingness to adopt and integrate a participatory approach to decision making and project interventions, ultimately, the demands of powerful stakeholders pressured DEVPA into more centralized control structures.

Ultimately, the thesis confirmed theoretical findings from prior studies and shows how NGOs are caught in an ‘accountability trap’ to satisfy demands of ‘upwards’ stakeholders. The strength of this conclusion lies in the empirics of the case study. It is also discussed that the process of DEVPA’s evolving role within the Sri Lankan context from a ‘direct implementer’ to a ‘policy advocacy’ based NGO. Despite a significant change in the organization’s operational focus and interventions, the underlying form of DEVPA’s accountability and governance did not transform, restricted by the necessity to ‘calculate’ impact and justify the NGO to external stakeholders (see, for example, O’Dwyer and Unerman, 2008).

Literature 16

S. S. Ghonkrokta and Anu Singh Lather (February, 2017) “Identification of Role of Social Audit by Stakeholders as Accountability Tool in Good Governance”

In this study the authors studied that in the recent years social audit is being viewed as a promising approach to improve the performance and social accountability in private as well as in public sector. A number of state governments have also initiated social audit exercise and government of Delhi is probably the pioneer in social audit. Organizations have developed procedures, standards and methods to achieve social audit as it has been useful in many ways in improving performance and accountability, but it is only the stakeholders who can truly appreciate the benefits and role of social audit.

In this study the construction of a standardized Likert scale questionnaire undertaken to assess the role of social audit as perceived by stakeholders. In the process of constructing the instrument, this paper attempted to clarify the actual role of the society and civic engagements as is perceived and expected by stakeholders. Social audit creates confidence in society regarding government initiatives, promotes transparency and efficiency, improves social, ethical and environmental performance, enhances inclusion, facilitates monitoring and ensures accountability.

A Clarion Call for Inclusive Responsive Leadership Accountability

For centuries, leaders have been lauded for their excellence. Whether decision-making, driving execution, or pursuing results, their collective expertise has helped the world successfully navigate industrial and technical revolutions, world wars, economic recoveries, and a multi-generational workforce (among other notable achievements).

However, as globalization expands, many of those acclaimed leaders have failed to cultivate inclusive work environments; inspire and empower talent; and foster employee congruence, engagement, and belonging.

This behavioral contrast reveals that several of these leaders operate under “self-perceived effectiveness” or, an (over)estimate of the degree to which one perceives his/her/their positive impact on the workforce and workplace. Meaning, they believe that their vocal, ideological, and/or perhaps financial support of/for/toward diversity and inclusion wholly and equally equates to being behaviorally invested and/or possessing agency in the same. As such, leaders expect beneficiaries (or stakeholders) of said support to perceive them in a favorable light and view their effectiveness likewise.

Psychologists remind that self-perception and others’ perceptions of self can differ significantly. An overestimate of influence on leadership’s part can undermine their credibility from the beneficiaries’ part. Thus, creating mistrust, distrust and skepticism — key hurdles in the quest to build an inclusive ecosystem.

Leaders must be reminded that great leadership is shaped by, and interdependent on, followership.

“The world is moved not only by the mighty shoves of heroes, but also by the aggregate of the tiny pushes of each honest worker.” — Helen Keller

Stakeholders today expect more from their leaders. They require leaders to exercise more connectivity and responsiveness to diversity and inclusion than ever before — not in terms of lip service or feigned action — but true dedication and sustained commitment. Inclusivity requires greater accountability.

Leadership accountability, especially as it relates to diversity and inclusion, must be 360 degree and multi-dimensional if it is to truly be effective. Mono- and dual-dimensional accountability (or top-down, 90 degree and lateral, 180 degree) tends to omit the voices and feedback of a fully diverse constituency. Leadership governance in a traditional sense reinforces historic, systematic, and institutionalized beliefs and repeats behaviors that work counter to truly inclusive environments and ecosystems.

To appreciate where this call for inclusive responsive leadership accountability derives, one must examine closely the symmetric relationship between diversity and leadership.

Diversity and Leadership

The spread of globalization has given rise to a number of diversity-related issues within the workplace. Driven by internal as well as external pressures to do something — anything — to appropriately address said issues, diversity practitioners and their human resources counterparts, draft leaders to take both proactive and reactive action in redress of the same. Sadly, at times, this is done with little to no lasting effect.

This is because diversity (in whatever its implementation: diversity and inclusion; inclusion and belonging; valuing, inclusion, belonging and equality, etc.) suffers from a crisis of identity. For decades, it has sat juxtaposed between moral obligation and punitive scourge; from “the right thing to do” to “do what is right, or else (no bonus, raise, promotion, etc.)”. Since then, it has been sanitized, gentrified and weaponized; becoming a target of resentment for some, a profit generator for others, a symbol of pride for a few.

Leadership, like diversity, is also fluid in its definition, role, and execution. In fact, its nearly 400 definitions, approaches, concepts, and theories makes it, too, a contest to assign sufficient weight to the obligatoriness of it.

Together, their fluid identities present a ‘wicked problem’ in that they are complex yet enduring issues of indeterminate scope and scale. They are both difficult to explain, inherently impossible to solve, and evenly create a struggle for diversity stewards and diversity-adjacent gatekeepers to accurately assess and measure.

Struggle notwithstanding, great leadership in diversity is necessary. As such, systems and solutions that help leaders move from saying the right things to behaving differently is correspondingly needed.

Leadership’s Disconnect with Diversity

Before design of inclusive accountability frameworks can take form or shape, some hard truths must first be acknowledged.

Organizational culture begins and ends with leadership.

Leaders talk favorably of a positive workplace culture, but are perceived as inauthentic and disingenuous when their words and actions contradict.

Inauthenticity leads to prolonged mistrust and distrust, leaving stakeholders feeling psychologically unsafe and emotionally taxed.

Psychological unsafety leads to fear; emotional taxation leads to withdrawal. Both lead to exclusion.

Exclusion over time and en masse leads to litigation. (Thus, putting the organization and all of its stakeholders at risk and/or crisis.)

Research by the Boston Consulting Group echoed these truths, in part.

“…Most company leaders — primarily white, heterosexual males (age 45 or older) —still underestimate the challenges diverse employees face (across the entire employee life cycle, from recruiting and retention to advancement and leadership commitment). These leaders control budgets and decide which diversity programs to pursue. If they lack a clear understanding of the problem (how big the problems are or where those problems lie), they can’t design effective solutions.”

“When asked if they see obstacles to diversity and inclusion at their company, more than a third of diverse employees said yes. Half of all diverse employees stated that they see bias as part of their day-to-day experience at work. Half said that they don’t believe that their companies have the right mechanisms in place to ensure that major decisions (such as who receives promotions and stretch assignments) are free from bias.”

The 2019 Edelman Trust Barometer revealed that

“Employees are ready and willing to trust their employers, but the trust must be earned through more than ‘business as usual.’”

Stakeholders want and expect their leaders to not only speak up or out, but to proactively take action and lead change. Therefore, accountability frameworks must be built to not only be inclusive (to incorporate the ‘voice of the stakeholder’) but responsive and introspective, to meet the needs and expectations of constituents as well.

If accountability systems and solutions were tailored accordingly then, psychological safety would be established, trust would be integrated into the fabric of the organization, and diversity would be more uniformly applied throughout the organization.

A Leader’s Stakeholders

Accountability, by definition, means “answerability” (or the “justification of one’s actions”). Leaders have six core constituencies to which they must answer: employees, customers, communities, investors, regulators, and self. Individually, they have specific value needs and wants from leadership. Collectively, they have expectations around and accountability requirements for the same (as identified in the following table).

Mining feedback from each stakeholder can help leaders identify the attitudinal, behavioral and action-based blindspots that have rendered them unsuccessful at fostering inclusive ecosystems. The activity can also inform diversity and human resources practitioners’ efforts in (re)structuring leadership accountability in a way that delivers more stakeholder-expected value. However, culling this information alone will not drive leadership behavioral change.

The Leadership Intelligence Vacuum

One of the greatest misconceptions about leaders is that they intrinsically know how to lead. Various studies support this posit.

• 44 percent of managers felt unprepared for their role (Grovo)
• 47 percent of managers don’t receive any training when they take a new leadership role (Inc)
• 60 percent of new managers underperform or fail in their first two years (ATD)
• 71 percent of companies do not feel their leaders are able to lead their organization into the future (InfoPro)
• 87 percent of managers wished they’d had more training before becoming a manager (Grovo)
• 93 percent of managers feel they need training on how to coach their employees (Globoforce)

Because promotions and successions are traditionally based on the achievement of results, moving up the ranks through hard work, smart decision-making, and consistent delivery without ever having any people management or development requirements attached is not abnormal. Yet, upon reaching the pinnacles of leadership, leaders are idolized as being prolific at leading the workforce as they are the workplace. To match this myth, they adopt a stylized persona, image and language of leadership to present the appearance of seamlessly fitting into the role. Over time, these leaders come to perceive (and inevitably believe) themselves to be effective (hence, perceived effectiveness). In contrast, others (stakeholders) view them as being inauthentic and untrustworthy — “talking the talk” rather than “walking the walk” — especially in relation to diversity. Moving leaders from saying the right things to behaving differently ought to begin and end with Leadership intelligence (LQ).

LQ qualifies leadership figures to serve self, others, and organizations with more unvarying success. When exercised in concert, the amalgam of LQ traits, characteristics, qualities and acumen architect the heads (consciousness), hearts (emotions), hands (behaviors), and feet (actions) of leaders in meaningful ways. Ways that naturally align with stakeholder needs, wants, expectations and requirements of/from leadership.

Moreover, marrying these quotients with existing accountability measures creates Critical Success Factor (CSF) and Key Performance Indicator (KPI) benchmarks that target specific aspects of leadership performance and track the full scope of impression and impact for improvement.

For example, adding a Communications Quotient (CoQ) and a Social Quotient (SQ) to the leadership accountability framework can assess a leader’s ability to read, listen, and relate to others, while simultaneously weighing their capacity for using inclusive language. Further, incorporating the Appearance Quotient (AQ), Behavior Quotient (BQ) and Situation Quotient (SQ) into the framework ensures that leaders are seen as speaking, behaving, and acting situationally appropriate (particularly in times of conflict and crisis). Finally, including Networking Quotients (NQ) and Culture Quotients (CQ) as accountability metrics can serve as indicators that a leader’s lack of exposure to diverse people and perspectives perpetuates systemic bias.

Once areas of improvement are highlighted and identified, diversity and human resources practitioners can then inform, train, and coach leaders on specific interpersonal and intrapersonal development (using Leadership Intelligence as a rubric). As these leaders self-actualize, they will likely accept and willingly invest in an inclusive responsive accountability framework that helps them align their words, actions, and behaviors with stakeholder perception.

Applying Inclusive Responsive Accountability

It is widely understood that what is learned is rarely applied. Raising awareness of an area of improvement does not automatically mean said improvement will actually take place. For accountability to adhere, it should be positioned as a tool of empowerment and effectiveness. It should inspire ownership of personal and professional growth, development and improvement.

Activation of the aforementioned recommendations requires a connection to — and must work in tandem with — the execution of organizational strategy, goals, and objectives. There should be clear linkages between the health, wellbeing, and overall success of the organization and the maturation of leadership. Addressing the latter will directly underwrite the former. When leaders are fully realized so, too, are the organizations (as well as the people) they lead and serve.

To date, leader effort has been the primary benchmark of inclusive leadership. Historically, awards received, events sponsored, conferences attended, speeches given, photo ops taken, and press mentions have indicated the level of investment leaders have made toward inclusion and likewise, how far the proverbial diversity needle has moved. Firstly, because endeavors toward inclusion tend to be synonymized with engagement in the same, this type of accountability evaluates promises and attempts equally (rather than accurately weighing pledges in comparison to behaviors and actions). Secondly, the measurement is one-dimensional; giving organizations and leader stakeholders false positives of leadership sentiment, commitment, and delivery of outcomes. Finally, the practice gives little to no pause for individual self-reflection or emotional/behavioral course correction if/when needed. Inclusive leadership is best achieved when leaders operate through a filter of mindfulness and reflection.

The suggestion here is to incorporate the whole of the individual leader — thoughts, emotions, behaviors, and actions — into the accountability equation. Marrying this new formula to developmental, remedial, and preventive practices codifies the requirements of diversity and inclusion into the shared culture of the leader, leader stakeholders and the organization. Moreover, it rebalances performance scorecards to appropriately respond to the ever-changing yet codependent demands of the workforce, workplace, and marketplace.

Case in point, introducing the tenets of LQ in the early stages of the leadership journey establishes a code of inclusive conduct by which leaders can be expected to think, emote, behave, and operate in relation to others, especially those of difference.

Embedding LQs as CSFs and KPIs throughout leaders’ immersive tenures creates performance milestones which leaders and their accountability partners may use to signal progress (or lack thereof) against stakeholder engagement and experience objectives as well as strategic, operational, administrative goals.

Using LQs to flag asymmetric changes in organizational performance and stakeholder sentiment as they occur in real-time can assist leadership oversight in correspondingly addressing and correcting disconnects between leadership thoughts/emotions and behaviors/actions that adversely affect operational outcomes.

As illustrated, the new formula builds clear outlines of expectations, capabilities, measurements, feedback, and consequences for inclusive responsive leadership accountability. It combines the traditional assessment of strategic execution and follow-through with mindfulness and self-reflection, engagement and experience, behavior and action; collectively functioning to better align leaders’ words with their actions (not efforts).

A Clarion Call

Regardless of political rhetoric, changing laws, or civil debate, diversity and inclusion are societal mainstays. According to Pew Research Center, within 25 years, America’s population will be its most heterogenous in history. By mid-century, there will be two billion elderly and two billion young people in the world, living and/or working under the same roof. Each representing one of five races, seven generations, 63 genders, 4200 religions, over 5000 cultural ethnicities, and nearly 6000 languages. As such, in today’s (and tomorrow’s) highly intersectional workplace and marketplace, inclusive leadership is a non-negotiable.

The more diverse the world becomes, the greater the responsibility to and expectation of the people and systems connected to it. In its 2017 Corporate Social Responsibility Study, Cone Communications reported that nearly 80 percent of Americans believed organizations “had an obligation to take actions to address and improve important social justice issues, regardless of their relevance to everyday business”. Further, of the ‘Top 10’ concerns Americans expect organizations to support, racial equality, women’s rights, immigration, and LGBTQ rights were respectively ranked #2, #3, #5 and #8 in greatest significance. Collective sentiment is so strong that an average 82 percent of Americans are recorded as “willing to reward or punish organizations based on their response to said issues.”

Although, organizations do not operate on their own accord. The degree and extent to which they internally and externally respond to matters of diversity and inclusion is largely — if not wholly — reliant on leadership. (The body follows wherever its head leads.) Without thoughtful, emotionally-engaged leadership putting in work to align values, build mindful strategy, and take socially responsive actions, organizations fail. Without practices and systems in place to ensure said leaders respond appropriately to and deliver on their commitments to cultivate inclusive ecosystems, society fails.

A clarion call has been issued: “Stand up. Speak out. Be real. Be true.” Is your leadership equipped to answer?

Conclusion and Recommendations

The primary objective of this research is to analyse how the EP oversight role in the EU budget discharge enhances accountability. After assessing the 2017 EU budget discharge, a number of conclusions have been drawn; these conclusions are rooted on two ends; the accountability elements and the oversight tools employed by the EP in executing the 2017 budget discharge procedure. A mixture of both theoretical and empirical findings.

Overall, ex-post oversight of the budget allows parliaments to hold the executive accountable for the use of public resources and promote improvements in their management. Financial accountability is enhanced by the alignment of parliament’s legal powers, oversight tools and EP mobilization of all EU institutions, their roles and contributionsto the ex-post budget evaluation; as keys to the promotion of checks and balances. The budget discharge procedure itself serves as an independent accountability mechanism; a determinant of EU financial accountability; and a distinguished stand-alone parliamentary oversight tool; as it enables the EP to effectively oversee, scrutinise, supervise and control the implementation and management of EU budget. The 2017 discharge entails that the EP has successfully exercised its control over EU budget.

The 2017 discharge procedure by the EP providesa platform for the researcher to mirror through trends of past budget discharges carried out by the EP as well as reflecting on the future discharges. In the record of EP discharges so far, the current discharge (2017) presents a considerable decrease in the levels of errors. This is highly reflected in the ECA’s audit report which shows a ‘clean opinion’ regarding the EU accounts as the expenditure error levels have declined in 2017; ranking as the lowest as compared to all other years. Regarding revenue, no error was detected. All policy departments have implemented their specific budget allocations correctly and with great success in accounting for revenues and expenditures. It is with no doubt that such positive developments are primarily triggered by more viable resolutions given by the EP whenever they issue a decision for each discharge year as well as by the EP (mainly CONT)’s ability to issue follow up on the previous discharges to verify that implementation for the particular year has taken into consideration the previous observations and recommendations into practice. Also, cooperation, and checks and balances between various MEPs committees enable the EP to fully exercise its budget oversight role. The Commission have shown high levels of compliance by taking heed of the EP requests for information and a call by EP on additional information (responding to questions posed by CONT – hearings). Taking from the 2017 results of discharge, one would conclude that, the present state of EU financial accountability is good and that the EP is doing well in its budget oversight performance.

The oversight tools mostly used by the EP in 2017 budget discharge include the committee system, questions, debate, CONT hearings and plenary hearings and vote in Plenary. In requesting for information, the EP utilized the Committee system and questions. In the discussion phase, the EP employed hearings in Parliament and debates in CONT and in Plenary. The EP’s multi- streams scrutiny tools make it possible for the EP to extricate political oversight from administrative issues; thus, its function becomes more relevant in guaranteeing accountability.

Results show that, theCommittee system within the EP exists as an essential aggregate oversight instrumentused in all the phases of discharge (information, discussion and consequence phases. These committees’ offers an administrative input revealed in MEPs specialized committees in different policy departments. Henceforth, the interaction between the EP and ECA plays a significant role in enhancing EU budget accountability, and in strengthening EP’s capacity to deliver its oversight function. Findings in the 2017 discharge show that, the committee arena is the key driver to EP-initiated accountability; with the CONT playing a leading role. Different Standing committees within the EP Plenary provide checks and balances for each other by giving opinions, exchanging views, voting, debating and making amendments.

Regarding the information element, the audit report by ECA is the most powerful document that the EP uses in determining the EC position in accounting for EU finances and budget implementation. The EP work closely with ECA. The technical input by ECA and other internal audit institutions is a valuable tool that is often utilized by the EP when carrying out 2017 budget discharge.

Discussions in the form of hearing procedures and parliamentary debates were the powerful tools by the EP Committees as they demonstrated their oversight capacity in requesting for further clarification and justification from the executive (hearings); as well as coordination between committees in which provision of checks and balances is inevitable through debates. This proves that EP worked independently.

Consequential, the EP granted discharge of the EU budget to the EC and other 6 bodies, after observing EU ‘Consolidated Accounts’ and ECA audit opinion; debates and hearings and questioning the Commissioners; ‘Council recommendation’, and vote in parliament. EP demonstrated its full oversight capacity by giving their opinions and recommendations for future budget, most importantly the next financial framework. The EP through its responsible Budget Control Committee; the CONT emphasised more on the ‘enhanced budgetary performance information’ in the budget; increased participation of all EP committees; a more transparent and streamlined Member States financial accounting mechanisms to avoid further drawbacks; and enhanced cooperation among all MEPs committees.

However, apart from a more positive view in EU budget accountability and effective EP oversight role on the 2017 discharge, some shortcomings has been observed. Errors have been identified in some Member States financial accounts. ECA identified errors that were not identified by National Internal Auditors. This lagging behind in Member States compromises the entire EU budget performance as actual implementation is primarily the duty of EU Member Countries, with almost 75% EU funds in the hands of states.

Concerning the problem identified in 2017 budget implementation; which is the lagging behind of Member States in terms of budget implementation; the blame was laid to indirect involvement of Member States in budget implementation. The ultimate implementation responsibility lies in the hands of the EC; thus, the EP held the EC responsible not the Member States. It is therefore, recommended that the EP has to partly shift the implementation responsibility directly to the Member States and also to introduce tight measures against non-compliers and Member States’ annual financial statements (EU funds) has to be directly audited by independent external auditors. Also the EP could possibly oversee and carryout a discharge function for each Member State independently, as a way of enhancing compliance by Member States.

The 2017 budget discharge by the EP, and its positive developments would be a lesson to the Member States governments,parliaments, and internal auditors, for them to draw lessons from the EP, EC and ECA; in order to enhance financial accountability in their respective national budgets. Since there is a lagging behind in Member States, it could be possible that most of these democracies are not doing well in terms of their own national budgets implementation, oversight and discharge.

For improvement of oversight and financial accountability of the EU budget, there is need for strengthening cooperation between the EP and Member States parliaments and Internal Auditors. This would improve the EP’s oversight capacityand would enable easier detection of shortcomings in budget implementation and financial accounts, especially, Member States accounts. These parliaments and auditors could also offer supplementary resolutions and recommendations, to redress the shortcomings and errors identified in order to improve budget scrutiny, budget discharge effectiveness and soundmanagement of public funds.

A number of limitations have been encountered in developing this thesis. Firstly, there is data limitation. Because of time, the researcher could not collect as much data as intended; as such, this thesis relies onlyon content analysisand not on interviews and survey questions. It would be best if the researcher had a chance to interview MEPs, EC officials, members of ECA and some Member States citizens as they would give their view points based on their experiences and this allows for the verification of the information provided in the EP website. This is important since documents may sometimes provide biased opinion of the writer and only the good of the organization. However, the use of data from the EP official website produces more likely authentic data since the website is not private but public and it is subject to public scrutiny.

Secondly, focusing on one discharge year enables good data presentation since it is more focused and directed to only 2017 discharge making it manageable, however, it limits the analysis of the data and it becomes more difficult to draw conclusions for only 2017 discharge year.

Thirdly, developing more specific measures of accountability proved to be difficult. Accountability concept is much easier to conceptualize than to operationalize due to a wide array of existing theoretical literature on the subject than on the actual measurement. However, merging common accountability elements with oversight tools make it possible to successfully measure accountability.

Alternatively, the limitations encountered reflect into the expansion of the study. As the value of this thesis is clearly to set a concrete foundation into the emerging future studies in the similar subject and case. The expectation would be of a more integrated researchwhich allows for a deep understanding of the EP oversight and accountability in the budget discharge case. Hence, amore comprehensive and in-depth longitudinal comparative EP discharge analysis for several years, probably from 2013- 2018 discharges would be important and interesting to analyse the changing trends of EP discharge function in different years and to see if there is a variation in these years and developments that came as a result.

Individuals in the UK can be held criminally responsible from the age of 10. As such, perceptions that are held by the public regarding individuals at this age can differ hugely and is an important topic regarding the accountability of people’s actions in society. In addition to age, the gender of a perpetrator may very well also have an effect on people perceptions of accountability in an individual. In this study, participants will read 1 of 4 possible novel scenarios about a perpetrator who commits a crime. 2 between subjects factors were manipulated, age of the perpetrator (age 12 vs 30), and gender (Male vs female). Each participant will respond to these scenarios using a likert scale to show how accountable they thought the perpetrator was and to show this by suggesting a sentence. Here, we hope to find a main effect of age on accountability and a main effect of gender on accountability, as well as an interaction effect of both facts on accountability.

Literature Review

Accountability is defined as “being answerable to audiences for performing up to certain prescribed standards, thereby fulfilling obligations, duties, expectations and other charges” (Schlenker, Britt, Pennington, Murphy & Doherty, 1994). Tetlock developed the initial concepts of accountability and proposed that accountability is vital in linking the individual levels of behaviour to social systems, as it binds people to collective social norms, letting people know who to answer to and for what, and the grounds for their accountability (1985). Vance, Lowry and Eggett (2013) explain that accountability can be viewed in two ways, the first as a virtue and the second as a mechanism. When viewed as a virtue, they explain accountability as a quality in which an individual is willing to accept responsibility, which is a positive desirable behaviour for those who hold a position of power in the public and in government. When viewed as a mechanism, Accountability is seen as a process in which an individual is obligated to explain his/her actions to someone who can pass judgment on them i.e. prosecution, as well as subject them to the potential consequences of their actions.

Early work by E.D. Smith and Hed showed that younger defendants were more likely to receive more lenient sentences than defendants. This was further supported in Bergeron and McKelvie (2004) where both type of crime and defendant age were manipulated. Here, participants read about either a murder or a theft, and the defendant was either 20, 40 or 60 years old. In the results, they found that there was an inverted-U in the results, where 20 and 60 year old defendants were given less harsh sentences than the 40 year old defendants for the murder scenarios. In addition, Pozzulo, Dempsey, Maeder, & Allen (2009) found that female victims were perceived as more credible than male victims and this was exemplified further when the defendant was male and older. They express their concerns later on as the findings in the study suggest that female perpetrators are not held as accountable as male perpetrators and also do not received sentences that are equal in severity. They concluded that victim age, defendant age as well as crime type may influence verdict decision making. Ghetti and Redlich (2001) supports the idea that age does play a key role in perception of accountability. They found that college students perceived younger offenders as less accountable for their actions as they rated them as less culpable and less able to understand their legal situation. This is further supported in a study conducted by Varma (2006) which found that in general having any information about a young offender, regardless of the details, resulted in the public giving more favourable ratings.

When looking at Rape myth Acceptance (RMA), very few studies have looked at how blame attributions change based on the perpetrators gender. This is because it is generally assumed that most perpetrators are male and the victims are female. However, Gerber et al (2004) had a couple of findings which were interesting. The first being that both male and female offenders generally received more blame when the victim was female. The second being that female offenders appear to be more likeable than male offenders, regardless of the gender of the victim.

Evidently, previous studies on accountability have failed to look at an interaction between the two factors on defendant accountability. As they mainly focus on looking at either Gender or Age as a main effect and not an interaction, it is clear that this interaction is worth exploring and could prove to be practically beneficial. The rationale behind this study will be to see if both age and gender both affect how regular individuals perceive accountability in offenders. In contrast to crime type and outcome, which are usually expected to affect perceptions of accountability, we decided to introduce two other factors that could possibly alter perceptions of accountability further. So, this study will be looking at the effect of age on accountability in offenders in different scenarios, as well as looking at an effect of gender on accountability in the same scenarios. This study will also hope to find an interaction between age/gender and accountability in the same scenarios. This will be measured using questionnaires where participants will rate the offender’s accountability in the scenario as well as how serious they thought the crime was and to justify it with a suitable sentence. The first main hypothesis for this study is that defendant age will influence participants’ perceptions of accountability in a novel scenario. The second main hypothesis for this study is that defendant gender will influence participants’ perceptions of accountability in a novel scenario. The last main hypothesis for this study is that there will be an interaction between Defendants age and gender on participant’s perceptions of accountability in a novel scenario.

Research Plans

The main objective of this study will be to investigate what factors affect/determine the extent to which people hold others accountable for their crimes. This study will also be looking at the potential age and gender biases involved when looking at offender accountability and the sentences given to the offender due to the age/gender of the perpetrator in the scenario given to the participants. Although lay people are not usually required to decide upon a sentence for the crime given, we decided that having participants give a sentence based on the scenario would be a useful way to measure perceptions of deserved punishment. This would also be useful as it would act a second measure of accountability in participants and so if the participants perceives the defendant as more accountable, the sentences that are suggested should be harsher.

Participants

The proposed number of participants will be a minimum of 128 participants. In each condition, there will be a minimum of 32 participants. This sample size is based on Cohen (1992) where in order to detect a moderate effect size (f=.25) with a 2 X 2 between subject design with α of .05 at 80% Power, 128 participants are required. . The intended sample for this study will be mainly English speaking undergraduate students, who are mainly between the ages of 18 and 22, from a number of ethnic background representative of the general population. Only participants who complete the questionnaire will be included. Also, participants will need to be over the age of 18 and be a UK resident to take part, this will be stated in the social media advert for the study which will include the link to the questionnaire. Participants who do not will have their data destroyed and data will not be used in analysis. Participants will be recruited using a social media advert that will be shared using Facebook and Twitter, with a link being provided leading participants directly to Qualtrics.

Design

Here, 2 parallel and 2 different scenarios will be created and assigned to different participants. Participants will only receive one scenario each. Here, 2 factors will be manipulated in each scenario. The first was the perpetrators age, which was either 12 or 30 years old. These ages were chosen because in the UK, offenders can be held criminally responsible from the age of 10. The first age was chosen as it is tends to represent a midway point between pre and mid adolescence, indicating that the offender may not be fully aware of their actions and naïve. The second age was selected as it will be a fully grown adult who is often aware of the consequences of their actions and will often have a rationale for offending. The second factor that was manipulated was the gender of the offender being either Male or female. The reason for this being looked into is because most studies focus primarily on age regarding offender accountability and the majority of studies looking at gender are often RMA studies. Here, adding a factor of age as well as gender could perhaps be beneficial in looking at an interaction effect on accountability. This study will be conducted using a questionnaire/survey on Qualtrics where each participants will take part in a different condition with only 1 scenario. The 2 independent variables (IV’s) here are Gender (Male/Female) and age (12/30 years old) with 2 levels each. The dependant variable (DV) here will be offenders’ accountability i.e. how accountable people hold others for their crimes and seek to punish them. Both quantitative and qualitative data will be gathered here at an interval level. This will all be analysed using 2 X 2 complex between subjects ANOVA.

Materials/Measures

Written Scenarios

Each participant taking part in the study will be presented with 1 scenario which will be randomised for every participant. An example of a scenario is presented below with the different possible variation in brackets.

Jack (Male or female name) is a 30 year old (12 or 30 year old) male who was arrested following a fight which resulted in the victim being hospitalised with various injuries including a broken nose, fractured ribs and considerable bruising (Crime ranging from very serious to not very serious).

Questionnaires

The questionnaire will include a brief demographics section where participants will have to state their age, gender and occupation. This will be before the scenario is presented. After reading the scenario presented to them, participants will give their answer on how accountable they hold the offender using a 7 point Likert scale, where they indicated their agreement or disagreement with the statement from 1 to 7 (1= Strongly disagree and 7 = Strongly agree). For example, how much do you agree with this statement – “The crime given for this crime was completely fair and appropriate?” Participants would then express their agreement or disagreement using the 7 point scale. Participants will then be asked to give a suitable sentence to the offender in the scenario given. Participants will be asked to give a sentence as it a second measure of accountability, so if participants hold the person in the scenario more accountable, the sentence given here will reflect it as it is harsher. Qualitative data will be used to assess how appropriate participants think the punishment is and how accountable they hold the offender.

Procedure

A short social media advert will be shared on social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter where participants who want to take part simply do so by clicking on the link attached to it. Each participants will have a random scenario presented to them. After reading the information sheet and consent form, participants will read the written scenario and questionnaires to themselves and answer the questions alone.

Participants will first answer questions about themselves, such as their age, gender and occupation. Qualtrics will randomise the scenarios given for every participant and so each person will read 1 of 4 possible scenarios. After reading the scenario, participants will decide how accountable they hold the offender and decide upon a sentence for the offender, dependant on the scenario. Participants will then be fully debriefed at the end of the questionnaire where there will be helplines to contact. Qualtrics will collate all the data before it will be analysed using SPSS.