Political Responsibility For Bureaucratic Incompetence: Tragedy At Cave Creek
| Published date | 01 September 1998 |
| Date | 01 September 1998 |
| Author | Robert Gregory |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9299.00115 |
POLITICAL RESPONSIBILITY FOR
BUREAUCRATIC INCOMPETENCE: TRAGEDY
AT CAVE CREEK
ROBERT GREGORY
In April 1995 a viewing platform built by the Department of Conservation collapsed
at a New Zealand wilderness location, Cave Creek, plummeting 14 people to their
deaths. The tragedy was unprecedented in New Zealand public administration. This
article examines the concepts of political accountability and responsibility in the
light of the disaster and the findings of the commission of inquiry into it. It does
so with reference to the New Zealand state sector reforms, and theoretical and con-
ceptual contributions to the understanding of (public) policy fiascos and disasters.
Although public accountability requirements were fulfilled in the case of Cave
Creek there was an unsatisfactory resolution of political responsibility. A fuller
appreciation of vindicative political responsibility is needed in tragic cases of this
kind where the humanity and justice of impersonal governmental systems need to
be at least symbolically affirmed. However, the prospects for such a wider sense of
proportion may not be enhanced in a managerialist era.
INTRODUCTION
On 28 April 1995, in a wilderness area of New Zealand’s South Island, 18
people were standing on a viewing platform when it collapsed, plummeting
them 30 metres below on to rocks in a cavern-like resurgence known as
Cave Creek. Fourteen of them died, 10 almost immediately. Another was
left a paraplegic, and the other three survived with only moderate injuries.
All but one of those on the platform at the time of its collapse were mem-
bers of a polytechnic outdoor recreation course, on a geology field trip. The
other was a Department of Conservation (DOC) staff member. The ages of
those killed ranged from 17 to 31.
The three-metres square wooden platform had been built by the Depart-
ment of Conservation about a year earlier. DOC itself had been established
in 1987, as part of a major reorganization of environmental administration,
a component of the far-reaching state sector reforms carried out by the
fourth Labour government, 1984–90. The department is required not only
to preserve and enhance selected natural resources, but also to provide for
the use of these resources by the public. It administers most of the Crown
Robert Gregory is Senior Lecturer in Public Policy and Administration at the Victoria University of
Wellington, New Zealand.
Public Administration Vol. 76 Autumn 1998 (519–538)
Blackwell Publishers Ltd. 1998, 108 Cowley Road, Oxford OX4 1JF, UK and 350 Main Street,
Malden, MA 02148, USA.
520 ROBERT GREGORY
land in New Zealand that is protected for scenic, scientific, historic, or cul-
tural reasons, or set aside for recreation. This comprises almost a third of
New Zealand’s total land area, of about 266,000 square kilometres, includ-
ing national and forest parks, with some 900 huts, and about 10,000 kilo-
metres of tracks.
A commission of inquiry into what has become known as the Cave Creek
tragedy reported late in 1995. It found that, the ‘proximate or dominant
cause’ of the collapse was the failure to build the platform in accordance
with sound building practice; and that DOC’s failure to maintain an
adequate project management system was ‘the most significant secondary
cause.’ The victims were in no way responsible for their fate.
This article examines this case in the light of some of the ideas developed
by writers on public policy failures and accidents, notably Perrow (1984)
and Bovens and ‘tHart (1996). It will connect these insights to issues of
accountability and responsibility in public organizations, especially govern-
ment departments that operate within the so-called Westminster tradition.
It will argue that in answering the question posed by Bovens and ‘tHart,
‘Who is to pay?’ (1996, p. 141), the Cave Creek case shows why account-
ability and responsibility are related though differing ideas, and why the
broader notion of responsibility requires that someone be seen to pay pub-
licly for administrative failures that produce such tragic, unintended conse-
quences.
WHAT HAPPENED? HOW? WHAT WENT WRONG? WHO SHOULD
PAY?
Cave Creek was an example of what Bovens and ‘tHart (1996, p. 135) call
an ‘instant failure’ – an episode ‘concentrated in place and time where the
evidence of failure is immediate and unmistakable, such as industrial acci-
dents, mass transportation disasters, and social breakdowns such as street
riots and prison revolts.’ The commission of inquiry, conducted by a district
court judge (G.S. Noble), found that the platform failed because it had been
incompetently constructed by a group of local DOC workers (Noble 1995).
The commission also found ‘substantial systemic failure’ within the depart-
ment: procedures that would have ensured the platform was properly built
were either not in place or had not been followed. According to the com-
mission, DOC had been ‘malformed at birth’, and while a lack of funds
was not a cause of the tragedy, the platform had been ‘conceived and built
within a [departmental] culture developed to do more with less’ (Noble
1995, p. 74).
Bovens and ‘tHart (1996, pp. 62–3) offer two main ways of reconstructing
policy events: forward-mapping and backward-mapping approaches. The
former starts from the policy conception stage and traces events through
to implementation ‘on the ground’, highlighting any mismatch between
intentions and outcomes. The latter, which according to Bovens and ‘tHart
has gained prominence since the late 1970s, also identifies any such mis-
Blackwell Publishers Ltd. 1998
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