ATCnet
The Accountability Project

Universal Accountability for Government ... Conceptual Overview

COMMENTARY

Peter Burgess

ATCnet ... Universal Accountability for Government

Conceptual Overview

Successful accountability is an integral part of management and an integral part of government and not just an afterthought.

The ATCnet project for universal accountability enables government to implement a commprehensive accountability system for government at a modest cost, and do it with a level of independence that gives the report and feedback local and international credibility.

The ATCnet accountability program is a natural outcome of the widespread criticism of government and the official development assistance (ODA) community) concerning the allocation and use of scarce public and ODA resources. While the government and the ODA institutions say they have progressed towards better systems and procedures, the public as a key stakeholder in both government and ODA performance remains unconvinced. At the same time, public perception of development progress is limited to information flows that are heavily influenced by media perceptions (and maybe a media agenda) than by objective factual information.

The ATCnet accountability program is facilitated where there is good accounting and accounting reports are prepared on time and using generally accepted principles of accounting. But the accountability program goes far beyond the process of account validation called “audit”. The accountability program reflects some of the conceptual thinking of value for money audit that have emerged in the last few years to respond to concerns over the limitations of conventional audit.

The ATCnet accountability program for Government gets information about Government initiatives into a public dialog with both fact and perception accessible to all. Public policy translates into legislation and government programs. The ATCnet accountability program enables the result of policy decisions to be tracked into legislation and programs and into resultant outcomes and evaluated from the perspective of the stakeholders.

The ATCnet accountability programs for Government incorporates benchmarks that relate government legislation, program support and public finance and investment to specified accomplishments and outcomes. The benchmark techniques have been used effectively to focus resources on emerging issues that need attention to avoid future serious problems.

Experience of government accounting system reform shows that accountability has rarely been improved in the way that was projected in justifying reform initiatives. ATCnet experience suggests that this is because these reforms are usually undertaken in a context that limits the potential for a favorable outcome and fails to address some of the key broader issues that are important. Good accounting is far easier when there are adequate resources

Good accounting does not necessarily lead to better decisions. It can help, but there are other very important elements that go into decision making

Good accounting can be based on manual systems just as well as high tech computerized systems

The ATCnet accountability program has a focus on enabling value adding development investment, and uses this as the basis for performance assessment. No other evaluation program is based on this methodology. Under this methodology good outcomes that make the best use of available resources are valued more favorably than procedurally perfect activities that achieve little or nothing.

The ATCnet Accountability Program is independent of government and independent of the ODA institutional structure. The ATCnet accountability program is based on universal principles of accountancy and economic value assessment that have global applicability.

The ATCnet accountability program is unique in its attempt to put resource allocation and resources use into a overall consistent evaluation assessment