A Brief Account of Accountability

The development of scientific management, effectiveness, and efficiency in the private sector can be dated to the early twentieth century and credited to the work of Fredrick Taylor. The adaptation of these same technologies in the public sector, specifically human services, is of recent origin. They have penetrated the human services because of increased demand for these services, rising expenditures, changing political priorities and unclear accomplishments of the human service professions. This demand for criteria for measurement of accomplishment has been termed accountability.

Accountability in some form has usually accompanied the delivery of human services in the public sector. But the shape of accountability has greatly changed and in direct proportion to its prominence. Robert Haveman notes:

Until the late 1950's or early 1960's, public expenditure analysis was not generally recognized as a distinct field of economic inquiry... The neglect of public expenditure analysis by economists has been reflected in federal government practice. Prior to the late 1950's, it was the rare government expenditure program whose benefits and costs were evaluated either before its establishment or while in progress.

Full: A Brief Account of Accountability