Accountability and public scrutiny – it seemed to go OK!

June 30, 2010 by
Filed under: Public policy, The RSA 

Thanks again for the many helpful comments on yesterday’s post. The speech seemed to go down well and some of the points I picked up from the blog were the best received.

After describing the reasons why the traditional bureaucratic form of scrutiny is having the rug pulled from under the scrutineers’ feet, I went on to describe the four features of what might be called ‘post bureaucratic’ or ‘big society’ scrutiny.

First, a much deeper and more imaginative commitment to public and user engagement in scrutiny. Like for example the award winning panel in Cheshire West and Chester which put huge efforts into engaging young people themselves in an assessment of services for ‘looked after children’.

Second, scrutiny has to offer a different order of evaluation – more rounded and in depth – than can come from other forms of performance assessment. Local government Secretary of State Eric Pickles has talked about ‘armchair auditors’ using new data sets like those now available on central and local public spending. Scrutiny has to show it can complement these forms of DIY accountability.

Third, scrutiny needs to spend less time on exploring whether policy solutions work and more on whether agencies are defining the problem adequately. A focus on problems inherently leads to a viewpoint which is both more ‘joined up’ and which sees the vital importance of public mobilisation.

Fourth, this focus on problems builds a bridge from scrutiny about the past to deliberation about the future. If scrutiny is going to be seen as relevant and worth funding it has to as much about getting policies right for the future as about reflecting on performance in the past.

I started my speech by talking about the RSA idea of a ‘social aspiration gap’ between the future citizens want and the one they will create relying on existing forms of thinking and behaviour. Ordinary scrutiny describes aspects of that gap. Post bureaucratic scrutiny can help to close it.

PS Hats off again to the Coalition for its boldness on prisons policy. It makes me feel embarassed and slightly ashamed of New Labour’s almost complete unwillingness to confront public opinion and the press on this issue. Another tough question for those Labour leadership hustings?

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2 Comments on Accountability and public scrutiny – it seemed to go OK!

  1. Huw Yardley on Fri, 2nd Jul 2010 7:24 am

    2. I was a delegate at the conference on Weds and I just wanted to say yes, I think your speech did go down well. It was excellent: a really useful guide to the challenges scrutiny faces, and how it should meet them. I am grateful also to your blog for the handy summaries of the speech which will save me attempting to recreate it from my own inadequate notes when I do an article so that my colleagues – Clerks of Commons select committees – can share your wisdom…

    HY
    Clerk, CLG Committee

  2. Debbie Hepplewhite on Fri, 2nd Jul 2010 7:47 am

    3. I would like to mention the need for all forms of scrutiny and accountability. One aspect that I suggest is sorely lacking is where more ordinary mortals have proper mechanisms through which to evaluate and comment on those in authority over them, and to provide feedback on the policies and laws which affect their lives.

    My perspective is from the teaching profession where I have experienced and witnessed huge inequality regarding opportunity to raise issues which cause unhappiness and dissatisfaction – and where guidance, laws and inspection are desperately in need of the views and experiences of the people who are severely pressurised to comply with ludicrous levels of bureaucracy and evidencing.

    I am suggesting that we need secure and sensible systems of ‘upwards evaluation’ which are seen as a necessary entitlement for everyone to have ‘fair comment’ opportunities.

    Accountability presents as an issue of those in authority holding mere underlings to account and it is time that this was changed in perception and in systems.

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