GOOD GOVERNANCE

Good Governance is defined as the existence of effective mechanisms, processes and

institutions through which citizens and groups articulate their interests, exercise their legal
rights, fulfil their obligations and mediate their differences. It has 8 characteristics:

1. Participation: Citizens must have a voice in decision making, either directly or through
legitimate intermediate institutions. Such participation needs to be informed and organized.
This requires freedom of association and expression on the one hand and an organized civil
society on the other.

2. Rule of Law: Legal frameworks should be fair and enforced impartially. Human rights must
be protected, particularly those of minorities. This requires an independent judiciary and an
incorruptible police force.

3. Transparency: This means that information should be freely available and directly
accessible to those who will be affected by any public decisions. This requires that adequate
information be provided in a manner that is easy to understand and monitor.

4. Responsiveness: The institutions and processes involved in governance should serve all
stakeholders within a reasonable timeframe.

5. Consensus orientation: This means that there must be mechanisms that enable the
mediation of the different interests in society to reach a broad consensus on what is in the
best interest of the whole community and how this can be achieved. It also requires a broad
and long-term perspective on what is needed for sustainable human development and how
to achieve the goals of such development.

6. Equity and Inclusiveness: This means that all groups, but particularly the most vulnerable,
should have opportunities to improve and maintain their well being.

7. Effectiveness and Efficiency: This means that processes and institutions produce results
that meet the needs of society while making the best use of resources at their disposal. This
includes the sustainable use of natural resources and the protection of the environment.

8. Accountability: This means that governmental institutions, the private sector and civil
society organizations must be accountable to the public and to their institutional
stakeholders. Most importantly, an institution must maintain accountability towards those
who will be affected by its decisions or actions.

PROMOTING GOOD GOVERNANCE

Promoting good governance involves two elements, Assessment and Enforcement.

Assessment involves establishing identifying deviations from expected standards and
determining corrective measures.

Enforcement refers to the enactment of preventive and corrective measures wherever

deviations are witnessed. This can be achieved by adopting regulation or inculcating
self-regulation. Regulation produces immediate results but is effective only till supervision is
maintained. If supervision is withdrawn, people often revert to their old, poor behaviours.

This makes it vital to inculcate willingness within each participant to introspect upon their
own actions and self-regulate themselves. This can happen when people act out of a sense
of responsibility, rather than only when they are answerable to others. Therefore, it becomes
important to promote an ethical quality of governance, based on a strong value system.

ETHICAL GOVERNANCE

Ethical governance refers to a system where the conduct and the objectives of each of the
participants are closely aligned with the collectively determined values, ideals and
aspirations of the nation. In the Indian context, such values are most significantly expressed
in the Preamble, the Fundamental Rights, the Directive Principles of State Policy and the
Fundamental Duties enshrined in the Constitution.

Since ethical governance is value-based, it faces two crucial problems:

i) Adopting and inculcating values is not easy. Consistent adherence to a value will require
discipline, hardships and even sacrifice.
ii) Values can be subjective in interpretation. This means that even if we agree upon the
same value, the manner in which we interpret it may differ. Each such difference has the
potential of causing friction and conflict.

To overcome these problems, it becomes important to promote probity in governance. The

foundation of probity is based on understanding and upholding the distinction between
answerability and responsibility and relying upon the latter rather than the former.

ANSWERABILITY vs RESPONSIBILITY

Answerability refers to the obligation created upon an individual or institution to provide

justification for its actions or decisions. Such an obligation is based upon external criteria,
such as laws, orders, rules etc. This makes it easy to identify deviations and, if required,
impose material or professional penalties. As such, answerability is highly objective and
easy to enforce. However, answerability is of limited value without the presence of adequate
authority, knowledge or time.

Thus, an essential component of ethical governance is a sense of responsibility.

Responsibility also involves an obligation to justify ones actions but such an obligation is
self-imposed. This makes it more dynamic and wider in scope than answerability.

Since responsibility is self-determined, it tends to be subjective in nature. This makes it

difficult to arrive at a standardised evaluation of what would constitute responsible conduct
and to impose penalties to prevent a reoccurrence of misconduct. The only penalties that
can be imposed are feelings of shame, guilt or regret. Even these penalties cannot be
imposed without self-realisation. This makes it difficult to enforce responsibility and
necessitates the establishment of accountability.
The basic features of public administration are:

Nature of functions: Public administration provides a comprehensive range of functions.

While the private sector provides services only where adequate returns are assured, public
administration provides any service which is considered vital for society. However, some of
the services provided by public administration may be monopolistic in nature, making it
difficult to bring about appropriate improvements in their quality.

Consistency of treatment: Since every citizen is treated as equal in a democratic welfare

state, public administration has to ensure that it is uniform and consistent in the execution of
its functions.

CONCEPT OF A PUBLIC SERVICE

In 1996, the UN adopted an International Code of Conduct for Public Officials' which refers
to a Public Service as the class and the tasks of officials who act as the delegates of the
elected officials. The elected representatives embody the legitimacy to define public interest
while the public service provides the expertise to ensure that public welfare is maximised.

The Code provided three basic tenets of a public service:

1. A public office is an office of trust, implying a duty to act in public interest. The ultimate
loyalty of public officials shall be to the public interests of their country, as expressed through
the democratic institutions of government.

2. Public officials shall be fair and impartial in the performance of their functions. They shall
not give any undue preferential treatment to anyone, improperly discriminate against anyone
or otherwise abuse the authority vested in them.

3. Public officials shall strive to perform their duties effectively and in accordance with the
law. They shall ensure that public resources are administered in the most efficient and
economical manner.

PUBLIC SERVICE VALUES

In the contemporary context, the roles and expectations from a public servant have become
increasingly complex. This can make it difficult to determine what would constitute public
welfare in a given situation. Thus, to assist them in maintaining consistency in their service
standards, public servants employ a wide range of values.

The foundational values for a public service are best exemplified by the Seven Principles of
Public Life given by the Nolan Committee (Standards in Public Life-1994):
1. Selflessness: Holders of public office should take decisions solely in terms of the public
interest.

2. Integrity: Holders of public office must avoid placing themselves under any obligation to
people or organisations that might try inappropriately to influence them in their work. They
should not act or take decisions in order to pain financial or other material benefits for
themselves, their family, or their friends

3. Objectivity: Holders of public office must act and take decisions impartially, fairly and on
merit, taing ure ist evidence and without discrimination or bias.

4. Accountability: Holders of public office are accountable for their decisions and actions to
the public and must submit themselves to the scrutiny necessary to ensure this.

5. Openness: Holders of public office should act and take decisions in an open and
transparent manner. Information should not be withheld from the public unless there are
clear and lawful reasons for so doing.

6. Honesty: Holders of public office should be truthful.

7. Leadership: Holders of public office should exhibit these principles in their own behaviour.
They should actively promote and robustly support the principles and be willing to challenge
poor behaviour wherever it occurs.

However, there can always be differing interpretations regarding which values are most
important in a given situation. Thus, identifying the appropriate values and knowing when to
prioritise one over another becomes critical. This is facilitated by understanding that the
foremost task of a public servant is dedication to public service.

DEDICATION TO PUBLIC SERVICE

In a general sense, dedication is the quality of being able to give or apply one's time,
resources, attention on self entirely to a particular activity, cause or objective. It reflects a
sense of deep-rooted commitment to devote oneself towards such a cause,

But while commitment suggests that one is bound or obligated through a formal agreement
(rules, orders, procedures etc.), dedication is inspired by a sense of duty and responsibility.
This implies that even if there is no formal agreement, the individual will remain devoted
towards the task. This produces significant motivation within an individual towards achieving
his goals and magnifies the extent of measures he would take to achieve them.

Dedication to public service reflects a similar sense of devotion by internalising within

oneself the ideals of public welfare. This ensures that the public servant remains motivated
even if the task assigned to him is tedious, difficult or hostile. It keeps the officer immune to
hardships and temptations, deriving satisfaction from effective fulfilment of the task itself.

● An officer who is genuinely dedicated to public service:

● is willing to go beyond the call of duty.
● places public welfare above his own interest or even safety.
● seeks neither rewards nor recognition for his efforts.
● derives satisfaction from the effective fulfilment of the task itself.

IMPARTIALITY
The advantages of a neutral administration are:

i) It ensures reliability and professionalism. In the absence of neutrality, administration would

become politicised. This would create a spoils system where officers become excessively
dependent upon political patronage. Such an administrative system would be extremely
resistant towards any changes in political ideologies, even though they reflect the changing
aspirations of the people.

ii) It ensures public confidence in the dedication of the administration towards fulfilling their
current aspirations and the confidence of the Ministers in the loyalty and advice of their
officers.

iii) It ensures high morale and improved performance within administration, since officers are
certain that they would be appreciated for their merit rather than for their political
connections.

Although an officer should remain politically neutral, he must not become programme
neutral. This means that he must display a certain level of commitment towards programs,
schemes and orders that he believes will promote public welfare and ensure their success
by using his expertise at the stage of policy formulation and implementation.

In other words, an officer is duty-bound to obey orders but not to obey them blindly. He must
use his discretion to assess the nature of the order and then choose the most appropriate
response.

If the order is illegal, he is duty-bound to disobey the order and if it is questionable, to seek
clarification or ask the superior to reconsider the order or give it in writing. In situations
where there is a genuine difference of opinion, an officer is duty-bound to follow orders.
However, he can place his concerns, reservations or suspicions on record for future scrutiny
by institutional mechanisms such as the Legislature, CAG, Judiciary, Media etc. However,
this requires strength of character and a genuine desire to promote public rather than
personal welfare.

ACCOUNTABILITY

Accountability can be understood as the institutionalised (legal & procedural) mechanisms

that ensure:

i) Answerability-which refers to seeking justification for an action or decision.

ii) Enforcement which refers to the imposition of sanctions and penalties if the justification is
found unsatisfactory.

iii) Responsiveness- which refers to determining the extent to which an action was taken in
response to the genuine needs of the public rather than only for administrative convenience.
Answerability only allows the monitoring and questioning of officials to judge their actions but
does not provide any deterrent to prevent a reoccurrence of the same misconduct.
Accountability supplements such monitoring with sanctions, thus reducing the chances of
such misconduct being repeated.

The features of accountability are

● It is based on Directives in the form of LRR, orders etc.
● It is objective in nature- this makes it easy to identify violations and impose
punishments.
● It travels downwards, implying that it depends upon the presence of a Superior
Subordinate relationship.
● It is enforced by external agencies, individually and collectively.

The advantages of accountability are:

● ensures standardisation and consistency in administrative actions.
● It prevents misuse of discretion and authority.
● promotes compliance and obedience.
● It safeguards citizens from arbitrary administrative actions.

Administrative accountability can be enforced through mechanisms internal or external to

administration. The internal mechanisms are largely individual in nature and refer to the
authority vested in an administrative superior to transier, order a departmental enquiry,
suspend or dismiss from service, reduce in rank withhold increments or promotions,
appraise performance etc.

The external mechanisms are enforced by four agencies and are used to enforce
accountability collectively upon an administrative system.