[The Mississauga Muse]

bizorky, you wrote:

Nice way of putting it. I don't know if you ever worked for the big "B" at any level (your posts suggest that have had considerable experience in some shape or form), but "accountability" has always been the thorn in the side of such forms of human organization. An excellent idea in theory, difficult to put into practice, rarely resulting in complete happiness.

Yes. "considerable experience" --and will gain more. In a former life I was a discoverer. Discovery is exhilarating. It's first hand learning of something new. The difference between finding something out for yourself --or reading/hearing about it.

I'm on this personal journey --in search of accountability. And I see none. It's been FANTASTIC so far. Fantastic as in FANTASY.

Again, you wrote, "accountability" has always been the thorn in the side of such forms of human organization."

Franz Kafka, of course, would agree entirely.

Kafka novel --Franz Kafka:

"The object of his chronic dismay is something far more prevalent and insidious: at the heart of his obsessive and horrifying narratives is an unfathomable bureaucracy, one that has emerged through a combination of inertia, default, and the institution of political power, perpetuating itself by feeding upon the rights of the people it was ostensibly designed to serve."

Kafka novel... I love this description and especially the term "unfathomable bureaucracy". "unfathomable" meaning "no bottom" but also "incomprehensible".

BINGO!

And this is the best quote I've ever scooped from the Internet regarding Government and its relation to the people Government obstensively serves. Like, this quote EXPLAINED it --why it's unfathomable in terms of no bottom and incomprehensibility.

It's a quote from "A REPORT ON A NATIONAL FREEDOM OF INFORMATION AUDIT" (June 2005)

Government secrecy is driven by two key groups. Bureaucrats, traditionally sheltered from public probing, often worry that releasing information will complicate their lives. It invites scrutiny of their competency. And it could compel them to defend publicly why they have, or have not, done something. "Very often the reluctance to release information is rooted just in that or the uncertainty about what might happen if they release information. It's all about accountability and accountability is hard work," says Alasdair Roberts, a Canadian access expert at the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University.

Likewise, government politicians want to hide all but the most filtered and managed information. Consider: The first evidence of the federal sponsorship scandal resulted from the dogged
application of the federal Access to Information Act by Globe and Mail reporters seeking basic information about how the federal program operated in Quebec. It could be argued that
ultimately the access system worked, despite efforts of officials to block it.

Here's the entire report:

NEWSPAPER AUDIT JUNE 2005

"It" -- information to the public "invites scrutiny of their competency."

"It's all about accountability and accountability is hard work"

bizorky, I'm living inside my very own Kafka novel! Really.

It's the stupifying Hypocrisy of Unaccountable Governments professing to be Accountable that makes my very own Kafka novel so addictive! So exciting!

Can't put it down.

And very important to repeat what you'd written earlier about holding governments accountable.

"An excellent idea in theory, difficult to put into practice, rarely resulting in complete happiness."

Through your help, bizorky, I now understand you can't possibly expect one bureaucracy to hold another accountable. Governments who know they're being watched will react not by trying to do a better job for citizens but rather doubling their efforts at concealment.

In short, become better LIARS.

 

[bizorky]

Don't become too cynical Muse; things are not perfect, but they are not completely awful either. The publishing of this type or report is just one indicator that those prone to playing funny with money now have to watch the fun and games.

Most people in the bureaucracy are honest. Some of them do get sucked into these issues when the environment they work in is poorly structured. Go to Ottawa at the end of the fiscal year and watch as left-over budgets are drained on frivolity (legal frivolity). The budgets are emptied because there is a fear that the budgeting process will subtract the unused portion of the budget next time around. In other words, there are no great rewards for saving money. The philosophy is "if you didn't use it, you don't need it."

Accountability in budgets is eclipsed only by program accountability in terms of measuring outcomes. It is like asking whether the population is "healthier" because of the healthcare system. All those words are open to debate with respect to their meaning. And the value of those outcomes is open to subjective judgement as to whether those outcomes ought to be the desired outcomes at all. All of that is complicated by the fact that the subject of measurement - the people - are not controlled by the system in any way, and will do their own thing in terms of their health (like smoke). Add to this the incomplete knowledge about health (or sickness) which also brings a degree of open-endedness to the entire attempt to measure, or account for, the impact of the healthcare system.