Political Accountability is regarded a necessary condition for all political systems, and can be defined as “a process of being called to account to some authority for one’s actions and involves both answerability and taking responsibility”. Bearing responsibility, as the stronger form of accountability requires officials to resign from office when a serious mistake is committed; while answerability, as the weaker form of accountability and the seemingly more usual case in Hong Kong, does not require office holders to bear responsibility. It does however, require the official who made the mistake to explain and defend their actions when questioned on forums such as committee meetings, news conferences, and the Legislative Council (Legco). …show more content…
It essentially deals with the appointments of the fourteen principal officials within the government. In 2008, Donald Tsang proposed an extension of the POAS to including the appointment and roles of the Deputy Directors of Bureaus and political assistants, as the fourteen principal officers were deemed “too thin” to engage in communication and liaison matters. Applying elements of the traditional agency theory put forward by Horn, the POAS will be described and evaluated in this essay. It is concluded that the implementation of the POAS is ineffective in bringing a more accountable government for Hong Kong, as evidenced by…. Traditional Agency …show more content…
This system mainly deals with the appointment of fourteen Principal Officials who are selected from both inside or outside the civil service. These fourteen positions include the three Secretaries, namely the Chief Secretary, the Financial Secretary and the Secretary for Justice; and eleven Bureau Directors e.g. the Secretary for Education, the Secretary for Transport and Housing and so on. These officials are also joined by five additional Principal Officials who were identified as civil servants under the Basic Law Article 48(5) i.e. the Commissioner against Corruption, the Director of Audit, the Director of Immigration, the Commissioner of Police and the Commissioner of Customs and Excise, whereby their conditions of service remain the same. Under the POAS, the Chief Executive has the right to first nominate candidates that he thinks fit for the fourteen Political Officials posts, to the Central People’s Government who has the power over official appointment. However, unlike the previous system, where the Principal Officials were civil servants hired on permanent and pensionable terms; the Principal Officials under the POAS will be employed on contract, where their contract term will not exceed that of the Chief Executive whom they were nominated
Chief Mangan was the spearhead of new plans, however, the approval was still relied on by the Chief and his staff, he needed to permit administrators and first line officers to create general views and projects themselves. Hand-picked one for each department, Mangan gave them roles and duties to present to their staff regardless of where they ranked in that area. This was so that all departments could become one under one umbrella with different job duties to make the organization run smoothly. “While Mangan expanded the managerial duties, because civil service regulations controlled promotion throughout all levels of the department except for the Assistant Chief and Chief positions, he had little authority to replace supervisors who were not up to these new roles. As a result, Mangan identified individuals in the department who were innovators and gave them authority to design new programs, regardless of their rank” (Cordner, 2016, p
The main job of our bureaucracy is to implement all government policies, to use the laws and decisions made by the rightful elected officials and put them into practice. Some bureaucrats implement policy by writing rules and regulations on formal documents, whereas others try to directly please the public’s people by giving business loans in exchange for positive campaign supporters or by honoring veterans to gain popularity points with the public. This particular tactic of bureaucracy is called public
In this paper, I will discuss the individuals that make the policies that are being implemented as well as those individuals that are being held accountable for seeing these policies
There are nearly 20 million people that are employed by the government in various positions in the United States of America and with just as many varying ways of implementing bureaucracy and appointing individuals to hold public administration positions. Managing the appointments of all of these public officials under one umbrella of how to properly perform governmental tasks is not an easy feat. The only way for America to accomplish what the electorate has set out for them to do is for public administrators to agree on core principles and values, and like history these values are always evolving. “Although we think in terms of institutions and principles, in the final analysis, organizations and governments are not charts and words on pieces
This paper will attempt to accomplish three tasks, 1) engaging in a brief overview on Representative Bureaucracy and discussion of the theory both in the passive representation and the active representation; 2) examines principal-agent theory that contributes to the understanding in representative bureaucracy in different views, and 3) explore diverse public values in representative bureaucracy such as democracy, responsiveness and equity, to establish an understanding of how representative bureaucracy approached the significant theoretical as well as practical matters in public administration. Representative Bureaucracy can be applied to strengthen the representativeness and responsiveness in practical decision-making environment by representing minorities’ interests.
Taking accountability as a leader for the failure will help inspire credibility among the leader’s peers and direct reports.
Did you ever put your hand on a hot stove when you were a child? If you did, it was probably the first time you were accountable for your actions. By touching the stove when you weren’t supposed to, you faced the consequence of being burned. If people weren’t accountable for what they did, society couldn’t function the way we need it to. In life, it’s important to have objectives.
In this paper, public administration in the United States cannot be stressed enough. The value of this department, public administration should be accountable for the function of both the government and the people. In the United States, we used to have an old traditional model of administration which is not implemented anymore. Then NPM was established but “the primary reason why the NPM did not win as resoundingly as it promised in developed and developing countries is that its debate was unable to establish visible ‘public service ethos’ or the ‘civil service culture’ which are distinct from those of the Old/traditional Public Administration it sought to replace (Manning). Today, we are in the governance period.
This article mentions the importance of accountability especially because it is done voluntarily. Being accountable isn’t a required trait but it is so important
The next point that we going to look at; are the reform in the nineteenth century. At this time the last module of the bureaucratic system has been attacked that it is technically inefficient, it is solitary to remember that it was it self an improvement compare to early reform. It is recommended to: abolition of patronage and the substitutions of recruitment by open competitive examination under the supervision of a central examining board; reorganization of official staffs of central department in broad classes to deal with intellectual and mechanical work respectively; and filling higher post by promotion from inside based on merit.( Hughes, Owen) In this period of time the public administration organization recruitment policy has developed, the understanding of bringing in high skill workers reflected the development of the world education standard. It is obvious that in this particular method the public administration performance would increase the reflection of that comes directly from the devoted workers. It is true that to step up the hierarchy ladder in the traditional module of public administration organization will required times and services. The work forces will rely purely on their experience and the length of time they have services the particular organization in order for them to increase in rank or being promoted.
...r pillars of public administration are equally important in the process of public administration and complement one another in the provision of quality public service. When public administrators have economy in mind they focus on the best combination of available resources to provide optimum public service. To ensure that public service is not limited to only a section of the public, the issue of equity is taken into consideration so that public interest is realized. Efficiency and effectiveness additionally go hand in hand in ensuring that allocated resources are used in the best possible manner to attain set goals. Thus whereas the first three public administration pillars – Economy, efficiency and effectiveness are concerned with how public service is provided the fourth and most recent addition (Equity) concerns with for whom public service is provided.
The activities required in an bureaucratic organization is distributed in a fixed way as official duties
6.It is political direction, that gives public administration it’s special character. Politics is at the core of the public administration and at higher echelons the civil servants must have the text and mature understanding to work and live with politicians. This speciality of public administration marks it out clearly from business
Then there are three principals of accountability which I am to look at, which are fallacy, assumption and trust. Fallacy, is when people fall pray into fallacy accountability, meaning they not only assume others are flawed, but that they can do nothing to change those flaws except to punish people when they make mistakes or failure to deliver (partners in leadership, 2009. Accountability). Then there is accountability assumption which speaks of an individual assuming that their partners or people in general are doing their level best to fulfil their expectations. And lastly there is accountability trust, and this involves an individual looking at oneself and hold his/herself accountable when things go wrong, there must be something that “I” as an individual am doing wrong.
Responsibility has to do with defining proper conduct; accountability with compelling it. The former concerns identification; the latter concerns power. The issue of responsibility is a practical one and the answer to this can come from an examination of the society’s needs to know and the media’s abilities to inform. The issue of accountability is a political one the answer to which can come from an analysis of centres of power-government, media organizations and public influence.