ACCOUNTABILITY: The Principle & The Test

Accountability as a concept is variously understood within the context of ethics and governance. Typically  it is linked to concepts such as as responsibility, answerability, blameworthiness, liability, and other terms associated with the expectation of account-giving. 

In relation to governance, accountability is central to discourses relative to issues in the public sector, not-for-profit enterprises and private corporate  worlds. In leadership roles, accountability is the acknowledgment and assumption of responsibility for actions, products, service delivery, decisions, and policies. 

Accountability includes the administration, governance, and implementation within the scope of the role or the employment position and encompasses the obligation to report, explain and be answerable for resulting consequences.

Relative to governance, accountability has been difficult to define – and sometimes there is a resistance to definition. Accountability is frequently described as an account-giving relationship between individuals.

 For example, A is accountable to B when: 

•  A is obliged to inform B about A’s past and/or future actions;
•  A is obliged to inform B about A’s decisions, to justify them, and 
•  A is obliged to cause B to suffer some form of punishment in the case of misconduct, 

Accountability can not exist without proper accounting practices and does not exist without apparent and transparent accountability. In other words, the absence of accounting, and the means to be held accountable, translates as the absence of accountability. In an organisation the accountability chain needs to be clearly articulated and the accountability test needs the be equally applied at every strata of the organisation.