Local Governance and Problems for Accountability Both to Citizens and Consumers - Essay Example

? Local Governance Creates Problems for Accountability Both to Citizens and to Consumers The report critically analyzes the argument that local governance creates problems for accountability both to citizens and to consumers. The argument is evaluated vis a vis the current scenario in UK's Bridgend county. More specifically, the administration of the Bridgend County Borough Council in South Wales and their new initiative of improving the lives of the children in the county. The relationship between the local governance of the county and accountability is discussed in detail. Some of the issues analyzed in the report include the ideas around accountability, ideas around the change of accountability to public services, accountability around citizens and accountability around consumers. The report looks into the new initiative by the Bridgend County Borough Council called  Children and Young People's Partnership and the implications this new program may have on the council’s accountability. Furthermore, the chances of a accountability disequilibrium arising out of a discord between the demands made by the citizens and consumers, and the probable  deficiencies in supplying those demands by the council, is detailed in the report. TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction…………………………………………………………..4 Children and Young People…………………………………………4 Bridgend County Children & Young People’s Partnership……….5 Bridgend County Borough Council and Accountability…………...7 Accountability of Partnerships………………………………………7 Problems Created by Accountability of Partnerships……………...8 Ideas Around Accountability………………………………………...9 Ideas Around the Change of Accountability to Public Services…..10 Accountability Around Consumers…………………………………11 Accountability Around Citizens……………………………………..13 Conclusion…………………………………………………………….14 References…………………………………………………………….16 Introduction Bridgend County Borough Council was established under the Local Government Act 1994. With a total population accounting to 130,000 people it was formed on 1st April 1996. Bridgend basically aims at improving the living conditions of everyone and providing them with a quality life. They also aim at protecting and improving the pathetic condition of our environment (Bridgend County Borough Council, 2011). Children and young people are the future of every country, so the upbringing and the condition of the young brigade should be of prime importance for everyone. Bridgend County Borough Council aims at amending the lives of both the children and the young people. With the Children And Young People's Partnership, they have been working very hard to make the Bridgend County's children and young people's life better by involving not only the children and the youth but also teachers, care takers, parents, local authority, and voluntary committees. Children and Young People The partnership aims at giving full opportunity to every child and youth to flourish and prosper. The Bridgend County Borough Council intents at giving all the children and young people of the county of Bridgend benefits to lead a good life with the help of the following Seven Core Goals :- · Have A Flying Start To Life: This means that they are born into a secure and a loving family who takes care of all their needs and requirements. · Be Healthy And Free From Exploitation: This means that they do not get exploited in any way from anyone and remain healthy and secured. · Access Play, Leisure, Sporting And Cultural Activities: By this we mean that they are given the right to enjoy their lives and be allowed to participate as per their will, irrespective of their talent and abilities. · Have Access To Appropriate Educational And Learning Opportunities: This means that they are given full encouragement and support to study and learn. · Be Listened To And Treated With Respect : By this we mean that they should be treated with respect and be listened and participate in the decision making process related to them. · Not Be Disadvantaged By Poverty: This means that they should be given all the opportunities regardless of their family income. · Live In A Safe Home And Community: By this they mean that they should get emotional support from their families as well as from their community. They should be given a safe and a secure environment to grow and prosper. Bridgend County Children & Young People’s Partnership The Bridgend County Borough Council has set a partnership between the children and the young under the name of "Bridgend County Children & Young People’s Partnership". By this partnership, it aims to improve the present conditions of not only the children and the young people of the County of Bridgend but also their families and relatives (Bridgend County Borough Council, 2011). With this partnership, the Bridgend County Borough Council wants all the children and the young to know about their rights and use them properly to make the best of what is available to them. It also encourages them to make the best use of their talents, have a caring attitude towards everyone and lead healthy and a safe lives. The partnership between the children and the youth is of great benefit for everyone. By taking the feedback from them and knowing what they want, the authorities plan out as to how they will work and make their lives easier and happier. It listens to the problems of the children and the young and understand what they want. With their partnership, it aims of achieving high goals of making the County of Bridgend a better place to live in as the future of a nation depends upon its youth and children. They aim to achieve this by following the following key points: · Proper respect should be given to every child and youth irrespective of their cultures and backgrounds. · Value them along with their talents and experiences. · Render services in such a way that they are easier to get and can be availed by everyone whenever they need. · The prime motto is to help the ones who are the most vulnerable like the ones with single parent, the ones who are disabled, those who are suffering from communication or behavioral difficulties or the ones coming from the minority groups or with refugee status. Bridgend County Borough Council and Accountability It must be realized that children and the young people are the gifts of God and thus one should take proper care of them. They are the future. If one do not take proper care of them then in the near future, it will affect the country. The partnership which is being brought about by the Bridgend County Borough Council will be beneficial, nonetheless it will also allow the council to shirk some important responsibilities which otherwise the Bridgend County Borough Council needed to shoulder. This is because partnerships generally assist in lessening the accountability on one entity alone; in this case the one entity happens to be Bridgend County Borough Council. By pulling in the youth, the Council may have in a number of ways, become successful in lessening its accountability of the children's welfare in Bridgend county.   For example, if there is a complaint raised by the citizens of Bridgend that their children are not given any platform for cultural activities such as theater or music contests, the Bridgend County Borough Council might shake off their accountability by saying that the youth of the county should have taken the initiative to organize a cultural event for the children. Accountability of Partnerships The local government has always followed a particular trend to deliver the public services inferred up on it (Bang, 2005). The trend which it follows is of 'partnerships'. From ancient times partnerships have been very common among individuals to deliver services. Moreover governments also prefer partnerships to deliver the local services to public. These partnerships are of many types and categories, between the different bodies at different levels like the local authorities, private sector, voluntary sector etc. In the year 2002, the researchers in a study found the local partnerships numbering to 5,500 with 75,000 board members. They spend a total of ?4.3bn annually. The number of partnerships is increasing at a very high rate rate which raises questions on its working. Since these partnerships is between the authorities delivering public services and they use all the public resources and power, therefore they are accountable to the people or the authorities elected to check their work. Therefore it must be properly looked into as to how Bridgend County Borough Council work and if they are performing their duties properly or not. Accountability makes one responsible as he or she is answerable to someone. In local democracy, the councilors are accountable to the citizens who elected them. Similarly the contractors and the officials whom these councilors employ are accountable to the councilors. With the partnership between children and the youth of the county, the council may have actually breached one of its seven core aims which it has set out to achieve. The aim of ensuring the children are free from exploitation may not be realised, since the council itself might be exploiting the children by passing the responsibility of managing the welfare of children to some other entities such as youth or the state government. Problems Created by Accountability of Partnerships Accountability is the main feature of a democracy. In a democratic country, the citizens have all the rights to know about the various processes of the government (Papadopoulos, 2003). Through accountability the government is liable to give an account of what it is doing and how it is doing. It makes the whole system transparent and enhances the functioning of the government. It is a way to control or manage the exercise of political power. Accountability on one hand has a lot of benefits as it makes the government and the authorities answerable but partnership makes it weak. Partnerships are beneficial as it not only quickens the work process, but also creates problems in accountability (Moxham, 2010). Everyone thinks that joint responsibilities are better but joint accountability always creates problems as the partners try to shrug off their responsibilities on the other partner. In case any problem is there, then starts the blame game. Everyone puts the blame on others. Thus joint accountability on the whole is nothing but an easy way out of not doing the work and being paid for nothing. Local governance does help in decentralizing the power, however decentralization of power in many cases creates problems in accountability. In case of Bridgend County Borough Council, the new Children and Young People's Partnership is a good step towards improving the quality of life for children in the county, but the accountability implications are ignored by the county to a a great extent. Ideas Around Accountability Accountability means taking responsibility of what you are saying and doing. It says that we should mean and do what we say. It makes one answerable to the consequences or the outcomes of his or her actions. Accountability makes the person answerable to the authorities who have been elected to check whether the task assigned is properly done or not. The one who is liable to give an account has to tell what was to be done and what he has done and what not. Accountability is not an ideal demand (Leuenberger and Wakin, 2007). The accountability of a local government depends the democracy of that nation. It is a very old and a common saying that 'With Responsibility comes Accountability'. If you have been chosen for a particular work then you are responsible for it and accountable for as well. You are answerable for each and every action of yours. Accountability makes one responsible. Moreover accountability is of various types like Political Accountability, which makes the elected leaders accountable to the people who elected them. Other important types of accountability include Consumer Accountability, Legal Accountability and Managerial Accountability. The nature of accountability is very complex as the number of accountabilities are many and one person can be accountable to many people or organizations. As there are many different types of partnerships, similarly there are many types of accountabilities. There are different levels of accountability depending on the different partnerships. Moreover, accountability can also be of the consumers, organizations and citizens. Ideas Around the Change of Accountability to Public Services The leaders or the representatives elected by the public are accountable for providing proper public services. However being accountable is not the only solution. Earlier when no inspection was done on how the elected representatives are delivering their services, then there was a lot of mistrust among the public and criticism for the public services. In the last 20 years, the rate of inspection has increased and it has improved the quality of services offered and also questioned the accountability of many (Hood et al, 2000). Many inspection programs were held. In some, the organization itself inspected everything and in some cases, special inspection teams comprising of trust worthy individuals was formed to inspect about the whole situation and submit their report on it. Public Accountability means that the authorities are obliged to explain properly in the public as to what and how they will be carrying out their responsibilities and in what way it will affect the public. It will not only make the public aware of what is happening in their nation but will also enhance the working of the authorities. We are responsible for our nation and our duties are not only limited to voting the candidates and electing them as leaders. We should not forget that they have been chosen and elected by us and thus they are responsible and accountable to us. We should participate in the functioning of the government to know if the representatives we have chosen are performing their duties as they claim or not. Accountability Around Consumers A consumer is an individual who uses or consumes the goods and services. They play a very important role in the economic system of a country. A consumer is the most important person for an organization as well and consumers are the purpose or the reason of their income. For the very same reason all the organizations try and advertise their products so that the maximum number of people are attracted towards them and buy their product. This is essentially the idea of consumerism (Kelly, 2007). The organizations are accountable to the consumers because the consumers purchase the goods produced by them. They invest their hard earned money and so have the right to get the best services. The basic problem with the public organizations is that they are more focused on the producer than the consumer. Thus there is a need to understand and know about the needs of the consumer and be more consumer focused. Once this is done, the scenario would change to a great extent. There would be a better and increased consumer satisfaction, the quality of the service being given to the consumer would also be improved and be more effective. Furthermore, the influence of the public would also increase over the services being provided to them. The basic problem that is being faced is to know who exactly is the user of the services. Accountability to consumers forces the organizations to give an account of the services they provide. They are answerable to many questions like what are the mechanisms, are they effective, do they work etc. To improve the standard of the services provided, one thing which is of prime importance is what the customer needs? To know more about the needs of the customers things like feedback forms, opinions, surveys etc should be taken. Another beneficial way by which the consumers can express their views is through their votes (Geissel, 2008). They can also be consulted directly and their views can be taken on a particular subject. Customer insight is also a very effective way. In customer insight, the citizens and the consumers are known properly to better understand their needs and demands and to deliver the services that meets their expectations so that they are happy (Warren, 2009). Customer insight is very effective and increases customer satisfaction to a great extent. Now the question arises as to how will one obtain the customer insight? There are many different ways of obtaining customer insight, some are: · Going through the already existing data. · Division of the customer. · Surveys and using the social media. Accountability Around Citizens The term citizen has a broader and bigger meaning than a consumer. It is so because a consumer is for sure a citizen but it is not compulsory that a citizen will be a consumer (Ferlie and Geraghty, 2005). The citizens of a country are the ones who elect the councilors. In a way the citizens are also responsible for what they get as the people who perform their duties for them are the ones elected by the citizens themselves. For successfully implementing accountability around citizens, a special organization must be set up to know the details of what a citizen wants. This organization can include people from the local community to represent the citizens of the nation. It is the civic duty of the citizens to get a hold on the authorities and maintain their control over them. They can participate in the decision making processes. Citizens have a lot of power and thus they should use it effectively and nicely to get the best results and benefits. The problems which the citizens face are that they are unaware about the role and responsibilities of the representatives they have elected (Davies and Martin, 2008). If a person does not like something and wants to raise his or her voice against it but does not have proper knowledge about it, then would he or she able to act properly? The answer is in most cases 'No'. One has to have proper knowledge about something before acting and raising the voice else he would be termed as a fool. Another barrier is that the local people are not empowered and thus the more powerful ones can suppress them and over power them. Conclusion All in all, in case of local governance, there is always a fair chance of a disequilibrium arising in the accountability equation of the demand side and the supply side. Hence, if the customers and citizens demand better learning and educational opportunities for their children, the local government of  Bridgend County Borough Council may not have the financial wherewithal to supply high class educational facilities to the children in Bridgend county. Hence, the council can get away from their accountability by blaming the state government for not allocating enough financial resources to improve educational facilities in the county. Thus, its important that the supply side and the demand side needs to be bridged, in order to build local governance which is accountable. Additionally, to ensure local governance accountability is more effective, the UK government  requires to empower the citizens and the Bridgeend county Borough Council simultaneously. This would allow a better downward accountability for the council and diminish the inherent accountability problems which local governance creates  to all the citizens and consumers of not  only Bridgend, but citizens and consumers in general. Undoubtedly accountability makes one more responsible. When you are answerable to someone, you become more responsible and carry out your duties in a better way. Local governance therefore creates problems for accountability both to citizens and to consumers. Accountability makes one answerable and thus in a way forces one to work hard, since without accountability, the ones who are accountable try to shrug off their responsibilities and find easier alternatives. References Audit Commission, 2005, Governing Partnerships. Bridging the accountability gap. London, Audit Commission. Abels, G., 2007. Citizen Involvement in Public Policy-making: Does it Improve Democratic Legitimacy and Accountability? The Case of pTA. 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