Part 4: Contemporary concerns about public accountability

4.1
It is not entirely clear how much trust and confidence New Zealanders have in the public sector. However, what is clear is that there is a concern about declining levels of trust in governments globally. Many governments have improving public trust and confidence high on the political agenda.

4.2
Understanding the concerns raised about public accountability and why they are raised might provide important insights into the effectiveness of the current system.

The state of public trust and confidence

4.3
International surveys, such as the Edelman Trust Barometer and other research, show a trend towards greater distrust of government in many democratic countries.⁶¹ For example, the 2019 Edelman Trust Barometer, observes that "[t]he past two decades have seen a progressive destruction of trust in societal institutions" and that, in 2019, the general population distrust government and the media.⁶²

4.4
In 2017, Foa and Mounk discussed the growing public dissatisfaction with political systems in the United States of America and falling levels of trust in major liberal institutions. Using data from the 1930s to the 1980s, as well as more recent surveys, Foa and Mounk found that, in many countries, including New Zealand, only a minority of younger citizens now believe it is essential to live in a democracy.⁶³

4.5
Transparency International describes New Zealand as a "high-trust society",⁶⁴ and international surveys tend to show that New Zealand institutions have higher levels of public trust than other countries. For example, the latest OECD Social Cohesion Indicators show that, on average, fewer than half of the people surveyed trust their national government. New Zealanders have the sixth highest level of trust at 59%.⁶⁵

4.6
However, surveys in New Zealand provide more mixed results. A 2016 survey by Victoria University of Wellington's Institute for Governance and Policy Studies (IGPS) found that New Zealanders had low trust in government institutions and that trust had declined in the last three years.⁶⁶ IGPS carried out the survey again in 2018 and 2019. The results showed a substantial increase in New Zealanders who trusted central and local government goals but confirmed that net trust (trust less mistrust) was still negative for particular groups such as government ministers and members of Parliament.⁶⁷

4.7
Every year, the New Zealand State Services Commission carries out a survey about New Zealander's satisfaction with public services. The latest Kiwis Count survey showed that "New Zealanders have high trust in, and satisfaction with, their public services", with 80% of respondents trusting public services based on their personal experience. However, only 50% trust the public sector brand (the perception of government).⁶⁸

4.8
The Kiwis Count survey found greater trust in the public sector compared with the private sector but also some large variations between regions and ethnic groups. Māori and Pasifika, in particular, have lower trust in the public sector.⁶⁹

4.9
An earlier study by the State Services Commission looking at changes in public trust and confidence over time found that public trust and confidence in government declined from 1985 to 1998. This decline did not appear to be related to government performance, which improved during this period.

4.10
The authors noted that these findings were similar to earlier studies in the United States.⁷⁰ Some of the reasons put forward to explain the apparent decline include globalisation, improved technology, the role of the media and social media, changing citizen expectations, and the many events where public accountability has failed or has appeared to fail.⁷¹

4.11
Many commentators (including O'Neill) point to the subjectivity and variability of these surveys of public trust and the resulting measurement difficulties between international institutions and over time. Public trust and confidence can depend on many factors.

4.12
It was also pointed out to us that public perceptions of trust can differ significantly depending on whether the survey is about government institutions, public services, politicians, or political parties.

4.13
Despite the apparent potential for imprecision and inconsistency in these surveys, Bannister and Connolly observe that "the desire to increase trust in government remains a continuing feature of the political landscape".⁷²

Concerns about public accountability

4.14
In New Zealand, crises that have been reportedly associated with significant "accountability failures" include Cave Creek (1995), the Pike River Mine (2010), and the CCTV Building (2011). More recent examples include the public accountability questions raised as part of the 2015 review into issues at Child, Youth and Family Services.⁷³

4.15
There is also ongoing media commentary about the perceived lack of public accountability, including an Otago Daily Times editorial about some public organisations becoming less transparent.⁷⁴ Edwards, in a recent opinion piece, also asked "How much accountability is there in New Zealand politics and public life?" His answer was "[n]ot enough, it seems, going on recent controversies".⁷⁵

4.16
In looking at the New Zealand public sector, Transparency International in its National Integrity System Assessment – 2018 update, observes that:

… [a]ccountability relationships within the public sector, among agencies, departments, and their ministers, are clear at the operational level [but the] executive's accountability for the impact of policies is not well institutionalised [and this] exposes the government and the public to the risk that policy failures are not recognised and corrected.⁷⁶

4.17
Below, we consider what New Zealand and international literature says about public accountability concerns that have arisen from changes in society and the public sector.

Concerns arising from changes in the public's expectations

4.18
Roy observes that "in today's world, information is everywhere, and answerability has been diffused in many directions beyond Parliament".⁷⁷ Increasingly, one of these directions involves more direct accountability to the public.

4.19
Matthews suspects that there are now significant differences between the way the public understands accountability and the way politicians and public officials understand it.⁷⁸

4.20
Johnson, Rochkind, and DuPont found that, in the United States, a leader's perspective of accountability fell well short of "addressing the public's most potent concerns".⁷⁹ For example, leaders considered that improved accountability results from improved targets and benchmarks. However, the public considered that improved accountability addresses broad moral and ethical issues. Leaders placed reliance on transparency and disclosure, but this did not reassure the public. Instead, the public felt overwhelmed and manipulated.⁸⁰

4.21
The American-based research found a "potentially corrosive gap between the way leaders in government, business, education, health care, and other sectors define accountability and the way typical Americans think about it".⁸¹ The 2011 study found "the strategies many leaders rely on to persuade the American public that they are being ‘accountable' are almost certain to disappoint".⁸²

4.22
Scott, in discussing the many public accountability concerns that arose from the 1995 Cave Creek disaster in New Zealand, found that, despite the "rapid development of accountability systems, the demand by the public for accountability seems louder". Scott goes on to say that, arguably:

… the failure of the array of sophisticated accountability institutions to satisfy the growing demands for accountability means that the wrong approach has been taken or, at the very least, that something in the approach is missing.⁸³

4.23
This difference between what the public expects and what the public sector demonstrates might explain why Dormer, in researching accountability and public governance in New Zealand, observes that "governments, and individual government agencies, often publish significant amounts of information that is neither read nor understood by those to whom they are accountable".⁸⁴ It also clarifies why O'Neill believes that, although:

… the accountability revolution has made striking advances, in which increased demands for control and performance, scrutiny and audit have been imposed … we find in fact growing reports of mistrust.⁸⁵

4.24
Espeland and Sauder claim that, where "accountability once included many different practices, making institutions accountable now usually means making them ‘auditable,' which often involves devising indicators to measure performance".⁸⁶

4.25
One of the many issues they raise was that simplified indicators are decontextualized and depersonalised by necessity. This means that they are open to multiple interpretations and can have unintended consequences. The authors used the example of doctors in the United States whose surgical decisions are influenced by their scorecards.⁸⁷

4.26
Gill and Zuccollo, in discussing the role and limits of performance measures in a public accountability context, are aligned with the American-based research referred to above. They claim that "what managers think is important in terms of performance can often differ from what citizen and service users think is important".⁸⁸

4.27
MacCarthaigh and Boyle also believe that focusing on improving performance is not enough. They point out that "good performance cannot absolve public authorities from their duties to respect the first two functions" (democratic and constitutional accountability).⁸⁹

4.28
Botsman believes that one reason public trust and confidence has apparently declined is because the traditional way people have established trust through institutions is not well designed for a digital age. She observes that "[w]e have entered an age where individuals can have more sway than traditional institutions".⁹⁰ Botsman refers to this new form of trust as "distributed" because it emerges across individuals, is not closely held within institutions, and can be scaled globally.⁹¹

4.29
Botsman argues that:

… [t]here's plenty of trust out there. It just isn't where it used to be. Trust, the glue that holds society together, has shifted from institutional trust to a new form of distributed trust. Instead of flowing upwards to institutions, experts, authorities and regulators, it now flows horizontally to peers, friends, colleagues and fellow users.⁹²

Concerns arising from changes in the public sector

4.30
Because the way in which the public sector organises and manages itself to deliver public services has changed, many of the accountability relationships within the public sector have also changed.

4.31
In 2018, the United Kingdom's Institute for Government found that the Westminster system of public accountability (see Part 2) had not kept up with the complexities of modern government and that fundamental gaps had emerged.⁹³

4.32
Many of these complexities stem from the 1980s reforms in many countries and subsequent adjustments over time. These reforms, as we discuss in more detail in Part 6, included public sector organisations becoming more business-like, autonomous, and focused on specified activities and outputs. They also involved a changing set of relationships between the public, parliament, Ministers, and public officials.

4.33
Haque believes these changes have posed:

… a challenge to the traditional mode of accountability based on a closer public scrutiny of public service activities through parliamentary debates, legislative committees, administrative tribunals, and other democratic means.⁹⁴

4.34
For example, McLeay also observes that, in New Zealand, the rapid change in the public sector has affected the capacity of parliamentary committees to effectively scrutinise agencies' activities.⁹⁵

4.35
We were told that the 1980s reforms have led to an emphasis on holding individuals to account through a system of "single-point" accountabilities with a focus on entity outputs rather than on outcomes for New Zealanders. This approach to accountability might have improved the efficiency of public services, but we were told that it might have also led to a more risk-averse public sector with an internalised culture of silos.

4.36
As noted in Part 2, a central feature of the Westminster system is that public officials are accountable only to their Minister.⁹⁶ This anonymity from the public's gaze helps public officials provide Ministers with trusted and free and frank advice, which is fundamental to their working relationship. However, researchers have observed that the anonymity of senior public officials has diminished as they have become more exposed to Parliament, the media, and the public.⁹⁷ As a result, the level of free and frank advice has diminished, and other tensions have emerged in the relationship.⁹⁸

4.37
For example, Paun and Harris, in 2013, observe that the relationship between senior public officials and responsible Ministers in the United Kingdom government has become, at times, difficult, operating in a "messy, unpredictable and opaque fashion that serves nobody's interests" – including the public. They suggest more clarity is required about who is accountable for what.⁹⁹

4.38
In New Zealand, James has noted that the relationship between chief executives and Ministers has also become strained as the former's anonymity, in particular, has diminished.¹⁰⁰ However, chief executives are not only more exposed to Parliament, the media, and the public. They can also face multiple accountabilities, including to many Ministers, boards, central agencies, the Auditor-General, and the Ombudsman, as well as their legal and professional accountabilities.

4.39
To complicate matters further, for certain activities, some chief executives are not accountable to the Government and Ministers at all. For example, under section 5 of the State Sector Act 1988, the State Services Commissioner must act independently of the Minister of State Services when dealing with certain matters relating to individual chief executives. The Commissioner of Inland Revenue and the Government Statistician are also chief executives with statutory independence for certain activities.

4.40
According to Ryan, all public officials are increasingly working in policy networks with a wide range of stakeholders, including the public. This has meant that public officials "must act in ways that go beyond the traditional prescriptions and proscriptions" and that are sometimes "different from those presupposed by logical derivation from classical Westminster conventions".¹⁰¹

4.41
These (and other) concerns suggest that traditional forms of public accountability might be struggling to keep up with the public's changing expectations and the realities of modern government. Mulgan suggests that a sole channel of public accountability through a single chain of ministerial responsibility is unrealistic in a modern society.¹⁰² In the next Part, we discuss how approaches to public accountability can be better planned for, managed, and evaluated.

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61: Committee of Experts on Public Administration (2015), "Building trust in government in pursuit of the sustainable development goals: What will it take?", fourteenth session, 20-24 April 2015, pages 3 and 4.

62: Edelman Trust Barometer (2019), pages 2 and 4.

63: Foa, R and Mounk, Y (2017), "The signs of deconsolidation", Journal of Democracy, Vol 28 No 1, pages 5 and 6.

64: Transparency International New Zealand (2018), New Zealand national integrity system assessment – 2018 update, page 11.

65: OECD (2019), Society at a glance: 2019 OECD Social Indicators, OECD Publishing, page 125.

66: Institute for Governance and Policy Studies (in association with Colmar Brunton) (2016), "Who do we trust?" School of Government, VUW, page 2.

67: Institute for Governance and Policy Studies (in association with Colmar Brunton) (2018), "Institute for Governance and Policy Studies, School of Government, VUW Public Trust Survey", School of Government, VUW, page 9.
Institute for Governance and Policy Studies (in association with Colmar Brunton) (2019), "Who do we trust in 2019?", School of Government, VUW, pages 9 and 14.

68: State Services Commission (2019), Kiwis Count: 2018 Annual Report, page 5.

69: State Services Commission (2019), Kiwis Count: 2018 Annual Report, page 6. State Services Commission (2018), Kiwis Count: December 2017 Annual Report, pages 9-10.

70: Barnes, C and Gill, D (February 2000), "Declining government performance? Why citizens don't trust government", SSC Working Paper No 9, page 8.

71: Barnes, C and Gill, D (February 2000), "Declining government performance? Why citizens don't trust government", SSC Working Paper No 9, pages 16-20.

72: Bannister and Connolly in Committee of Experts on Public Administration (8 April 2015), "Building trust in government in pursuit of the sustainable development goals: What will it take?", fourteenth session, 20-24 April 2015 (item 3 of the provisional agenda), page 4.

73: Investing in New Zealand's children and their families, final report of the Modernising Child, Youth and Family Panel for the Ministry of Social Development, December 2015, page 7.

74: Editorial (February 2018), "The perils of secrecy", Otago Daily Times.

75: Edwards, B (2017), "Bryce Edwards analysis: The unaccountability of elites", Evening Report, 23 May 2017.

76: Transparency International New Zealand (2018), New Zealand national integrity system assessment – 2018 update, page 135.

77: Roy, J (2008), "Beyond Westminster governance: Bringing politics and public service into the networked era", Canadian Public Administration, Vol 51 No 4, page 546.

78: Matthews, D (2011), Foreword, in Dubnick, M and Frederickson, H, Accountable governance – Problems and promises, page xi.

79: Johnson, J, Rochkind, J, and DuPont, S (2011), Don't count us out, Public Agenda and the Kettering Foundation, page 6.

80: Johnson, J, Rochkind, J, and DuPont, S (2011), Don't count us out, Public Agenda and the Kettering Foundation, pages 11 and 12.

81: Johnson, J, Rochkind, J, and DuPont, S (2011), Don't count us out, Public Agenda and the Kettering Foundation, page 6.

82: Johnson, J, Rochkind, J, and DuPont, S (2011), Don't count us out, Public Agenda and the Kettering Foundation, page 6.

83: Scott, G (2001), Public management in New Zealand – Lessons and challenges, New Zealand Business Roundtable, pages 155 and 157.

84: Dormer, R (2018), "Accountability and public governance in New Zealand", unpublished summer research paper for the Office of the Auditor-General, pages 31-32.

85: O'Neill, O (2002), "Lecture 3: Called to account", Reith lectures: A question of trust, BBC, page 14 of transcript.

86: Espeland, W N and Sauder, M (2007), "Rankings and reactivity: How public measures recreate social worlds", American Journal of Sociology, Vol 113 No 1, page 2.

87: Espeland, W N and Sauder, M (2007), "Rankings and reactivity: How public measures recreate social worlds", American Journal of Sociology, Vol 113 No 1, page 18.

88: Gill, D and Zuccollo, J (2012), Role and limits of performance measures: Report of the Performance Measurement Research Project for the Technical Working Group, New Zealand Institute of Economic Research, page 5.

89: MacCarthaigh, M and Boyle, R (2014), "Civil service accountability: Challenge and change", Institute of Public Administration Research Paper No 12, page 9.

90: Botsman, R (2017), "Trust in 2030 – from institutions to individuals", World Economic Forum, Annual Meeting of the Global Future Councils, 10 November 2017.

91: Gome, A (2017), "In trust we don't", edition 4 of The Press, PwC Australia, 12 December 2017.

92: Botsman, R (2017), "Trust in 2030 – from institutions to individuals", World Economic Forum, Annual Meeting of the Global Future Councils, 10 November 2017.

93: Guerin, B, McCrae, J, and Shepheard M (2018), "Accountability in modern government: What are the issues?", a discussion paper from the Institute for Government, April 2018, page 5.

94: Haque, M S (2001), "The diminishing publicness of public service under the current mode of governance", Public Administration Review, Vol 61 Issue 1, pages 71-72.

95: McLeay, E (2001), "Parliamentary committees in New Zealand: A House continuously reforming itself?", Australasian Parliamentary Review , page 55.

96: Stanbury, W T (2003), Accountability to citizens in the Westminster model of government: More myth than reality, Fraser Institute, page 11.
Roy, J (December 2008), "Beyond Westminster governance: Bringing politics and public service into the networked era", Canadian Public Administration, Vol 51 No 4, page 545.

97: Hare, L (2004), "Ministers' personal appointees: Part politician, part bureaucrat", New Zealand Journal of Public and International Law, Vol 2 No 2, pages 326-329.
Ryan, B (2006), "Beyond Westminster: Thinking the Aotearoa/New Zealand way of governing", Policy Quarterly, Vol 2 No 3, pages 40 and 41.

98: Hare, L (2004), "Ministers' personal appointees: Part politician, part bureaucrat", New Zealand Journal of Public and International Law, Vol 2 No 2, pages 326-329.

Ryan, B (2006), "Beyond Westminster: Thinking the Aotearoa/New Zealand way of governing", Policy Quarterly, Vol 2 No 3, pages 40 and 41.

99: Paun, A and Harris, J (December 2013), "Accountability at the top", an Institute for Government publication, pages 4, 5, and 6.

100: James, C (2002), The tie that binds, Institute of Policy Studies and the New Zealand Centre for Public Law, pages 24-31.

101: Ryan, B (2006), "Beyond Westminster: Thinking the Aotearoa/New Zealand way of governing", Policy Quarterly, Vol 2 No 3, pages 42-44.

102: Mulgan, R (1997), "The processes of public accountability", Australian Journal of Public Administration, Vol 56 Issue 1, page 26.