Accountability and secrecy in the Australian Intelligence Community: the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security
| Published date | 01 March 2019 |
| DOI | 10.1177/0020852316687646 |
| Author | Richard Bolto |
| Date | 01 March 2019 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
International Review of
Administrative Sciences
2019, Vol. 85(1) 137–153
!The Author(s) 2017
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DOI: 10.1177/0020852316687646
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International
Review of
Administrative
Sciences
Article
Accountability and secrecy
in the Australian Intelligence
Community: the
Parliamentary Joint Committee
on Intelligence and Security
Richard Bolto
Australian National University, Australia
Abstract
The Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security is a significant, evolving
and little-known accountability mechanism. As the basis of a case study, publicly available
committee documents offer valuable insights into accountability practices within an
unusual area of government. These documents highlight a range of accountability
exchanges and broader relationships, as well as some of their defining features.
Exploring critical institutional factors requires conceptual clarity about accountability
and what makes it effective or ineffective. An accountability forum can thus be examined
as a social mechanism through which the key stages of accountability unfold, at least in
theory. Secrecy is a potentially significant intervening variable in this case, but by apply-
ing democratic and constitutional perspectives on accountability, some more general
strengths and weaknesses are evident.
Points for practitioners
While this institution and the Australian Intelligence Community are distinctive and
interesting, empirical and normative understandings are limited. The relationship
between accountability and secrecy is also significant but not particularly well under-
stood. Accountability studies tend to have a strong conceptual focus, although some
scholars have explored ‘good’ or ‘poor’ accountability. Focused on developing an eva-
luative framework concerning accountability within a secretive context, this study aims
to contribute to these knowledge gaps, institutional concepts of accountability and
emerging empirical work.
Corresponding author:
Richard Bolto, Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University, JG Crawford Building, 132
Lennox Crossing, Acton, Canberra, Australian Capital Territory, 0200, Australia.
Email: richard.bolto@anu.edu.au
Keywords
accountability, intelligence, national security, secrecy, transparency
Introduction
Australia’s Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security (PJCIS)
comprises an interesting case study in public sector accountability, both in terms
of accountability practices and how they can be assessed. Accountability is a popular
concept often lauded by officials and the public, but not necessarily clearly defined,
put into practice or a panacea for poor decisions (Dubnick and Justice, 2004).
Potential trade-offs are widely debated with regard to performance, autonomy or
innovation. However, another important tension exists between accountability and
secrecy. For intelligence services,protecting sensitive capabilities, operations,person-
nel and international relations are centralconsiderations. Yet, a lack of transparency
can compromise accountability when the sharing or receiving of information is a
critical step in rendering an account or holding someone accountable. This tension
presents a central ‘dilemma’ regarding the practicalities of secretive accountability
(Thompson, 1999). For example, the PJCIS hopes that while classified evidence ‘may
not allow the presentation of the level of detail that the committee would like to be
able to present’, its reports will nonetheless ‘serve to assure the parliament, and the
public, that the administration and expenditure functions ...are being monitored by
the committee to the extent that the committee finds possible’.
1
Despite this interesting tension, the accountability literature largely overlooks
intelligence communities. The quite separate national security literature, meanwhile,
lacks strong conceptual approaches to accountability and its effects. The Australian
Intelligence Community (AIC) has received little attention in either literature,
although there are exceptions. For instance, Weller (1999) notes that intelligence
agencies require secrecy to be effective but suffer from the typical shortcomings of
any bureaucracy, with added potential to be ‘inefficient and self-serving’ and even
undermine society or political systems. Hence, there is a compelling need to balance
secrecy against structural, legal, institutional and professional forms of oversight.
Weller also noted steadily increasing and broadening oversight, then heavily focused
on one AIC agency: the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO).
This article explores the PJCIS over its first decade (December 2005 to
December 2015). It sheds light on relevant accountability practices and evaluates
the PJCIS’s strengths and weaknesses. Institutional and conceptual background is
followed by an overview of a methodology based on archival research, and then
discussion of democratic and constitutional aspects of accountability. It is thereby
possible to tease out and examine exchanges and relationships. As Bovens (2007a:
462) suggests, ‘the key question is obviously what the actual effects are of the
various types of accountability and how to judge these effects’. Ultimately, a
number of accountability gaps are evident but resulting more from structural con-
straints. While internal arrangements and individual approaches to accountability
138 International Review of Administrative Sciences 85(1)
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