Meredith A. Newman, Ph.D.President, American Society for Public AdministrationProfessor and Chair, Florida International University

Service Delivery in Times of Crisis: Questions of Accountability

We should never forget that we are here as public servants. And public service is a privilege...We must stand up together and answer a new call to service to meet the challenges of our new century (President Obama)

Address one of the less visible administrative challenges that becomes exacerbated in times of crisis – Accountability

Emotive skills essential to collaborative governance

Focus is on service delivery and first-responders

Three questions:1. Accountability to whom?2. How do workers reconcile conflicting accountabilities?3. How is accountability measured?

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Q.1: Accountability to Whom?

• Bureaucratic accountability

• Legal accountability

• Political accountability

• Professional accountability

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Within this “multiple masters” context, lines of accountability become blurred as workers find themselves facing more than one set of legitimate accountability expectations simultaneously

Two other elements of accountability: accountability to various parties and accountability for results

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Accountability to CitizensAccountability relationships are understood as two directional. First-responders recognize that they are accountable:

“Upwards” – to their bureaucratic and political masters

And “downwards” – to the firefighters riding the truck and to the citizens whom they assist

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Wild Fires, Russia, August 2010

Igor Komarov7

Accountability to Agency Rules

• These jobs are inherently discretionary• Tension between needs of citizens and limits of rules• Face-to-face contact with recipients of services• Relationships are personal and emotional, rarely

cold and rational

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Earthquake in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, January 2010

Justin Stumberg, U.S. Navy 9

Mine collapse in Chile, August 2010

UPI 10

Q. 2: How do workers reconcile conflicting accountabilities?

The exercise of discretion, and the moral and value judgments that accompany it, may render the goal of reconciliation misplaced, even irrelevant

Rather than seeking to reconcile competing accountabilities, first-responders seek first to save lives and property

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Flood in Queensland, February 2009

William West/AFP/Getty Images 12

Q. 3: How is Accountability Measured?

Accountability, like merit, may be in the eye of the beholder

Problems of verification and “many hands”

Competing definitions of success

First-responders can decide to make their work harder, more dangerous and less officially “successful” in order to respond to the needs of the individual

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Earthquake in Padang, Indonesian, October 2009

International Federation of Red Cross /Red Crescent  14

Floods in Pakistan, August 2010

Akhtar Soomro/Reuters 15

Emotive Skills

Expressing compassion

Centrality of person-to-person interactions in the citizen-state exchange

Symbols of competent caring on the part of the government are important

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BP Oil Spill, Louisiana, USA, 2010

Chuck Kennedy, Official White House Photo 17

Bushfires in Victoria, Australia, 2009

18Cate Swannell

Nature of first-response blurs and confounds simple models of accountability

If we are to find new ways to share responsibilities, we need to recognize the complexities of these accountability relationships

And the importance of technical as well as emotive skills in service delivery

Public service is a privilege – let us find ways to bring it together in order to meet our big challenges

Conclusion

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