Accountability in the Regulatory State

TLDR

Accountability has long been a central theme and problem in constitutional scholarship, yet traditional mechanisms to Parliament and courts are inadequate in a complex administrative state with dispersed discretion, and the new public management revolution has further fragmented the sector, exposing these accountability challenges. The article argues that reconciling public lawyers to these changes requires recognizing the potential for additional or extended accountability mechanisms to supplement or replace traditional functions. It develops two extended accountability models—interdependence and redundancy—to address these gaps. The new public management revolution has fragmented the public sector, thereby exposing accountability problems.

Abstract

Accountability has long been both a key theme and a key problem in constitutional scholarship. The centrality of the accountability debates in contemporary political and legal discourse is a product of the difficulty of balancing the autonomy given to those exercising public power with appropriate control. The traditional mechanisms of accountability to Parliament and to the courts are problematic because in a complex administrative state, characterized by widespread delegation of discretion to actors located far from the centre of government, the conception of centralized responsibility upon which traditional accountability mechanisms are based is often fictional. The problems of accountability have been made manifest by the transformations wrought on public administration by the new public management (NPM) revolution which have further fragmented the public sector. In this article it is argued that if public lawyers are to be reconciled to these changes then it will be through recognizing the potential for additional or extended mechanisms of accountability in supplementing or displacing traditional accountability functions. The article identifies and develops two such extended accountability models: interdependence and redundancy