Public Accountability of Provider Agencies: The Case of the Australian ‘Centrelink’
| Date | 01 March 2002 |
| Published date | 01 March 2002 |
| DOI | 10.1177/0020852302681003 |
| Author | Richard Mulgan |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
Public accountability of provider agencies: the case of
the Australian ‘Centrelink’
Richard Mulgan
Introduction: executive agencies and accountability
One of the major international innovations in public sector institutional design of
the last decade has been the institutional separation of purchasing and providing
functions previously carried out by line departments (OECD, 1995: 32). This split
may take a number of different forms (Department of Finance, 1995), including
the allocation of providing functions to new executive agencies which are institu-
tionally separate but still remain part of the executive branch of government. The
legal status of such agencies may vary from that of designated units within the
controlling departments (as with the United Kingdom ‘executive agencies’) to
that of separate departments or statutory authorities (‘crown entities’ to use the
New Zealand term). Though, strictly speaking, the term ‘executive agency’ can
be reserved for providing agencies without separate statutory status on the United
Kingdom model (e.g. Wettenhall, 2000: 81), it will be used here to cover any type
of government agency, including statutory authorities, established with the sole
purpose of providing state-funded services under contract.
In Westminster-style jurisdictions where executive agencies have been intro-
duced, notably the United Kingdom and New Zealand, controversy has sur-
rounded their political accountability, particularly the effect of the new structure
on ministerial responsibility (Martin, 1994, 1997; O’Toole and Chapman, 1995;
Pyper, 1995; Barberis, 1998; Hodgetts, 1998; Polidano, 1999). To what extent, if
any, has the break between purchasing ministers and providing agencies led to a
corresponding change in the accountability of ministers to Parliament? Have
agency heads taken over the accountability for service provision, leaving minis-
ters accountable only for purchasing issues and matters of general policy? Or is it
business as usual, with ministers still being held accountable for details of service
provision? No clear consensus has emerged, either in theory or practice. When
crises have occurred, ministers, officials and public alike have sometimes been
left floundering in a tide of mutual recrimination as each side points the blame at
the other (Barberis, 1998; cf. Gregory, 1998).
Professor Richard Mulgan is on the staff of the graduate program in public policy at
Australian National University. CDU: 65.012.3(94)
International Review of Administrative Sciences [0020–8523(200203)68:1]
Copyright © 2002 IIAS. SAGE Publications (London, Thousand Oaks, CA and New
Delhi), Vol.68 (2002), 45–59; 022637
02_IRAS68/1 articles 8/3/02 10:52 am Page 45
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