Internal Accountability: Hierarchical Control Mechanisms

Hierarchical Control Mechanisms Accountability requires effective internal and external hierarchical control mechanisms. In Georgia, power is

not clearly allocated among branches of government for oversight, decision-making, revenue mobilization, expenditure, and reporting roles. The operation of checks and balances in practice is weak, despite their formal establishment in the Constitution, agency mandates, and legislation.

Local governments require accessible and conven-ient mechanisms that permit citizens to file requests for services and information, and to make their com-plaints known to the proper government agencies. The existence and effectiveness of several such mechanisms have been reviewed for this study, with the assumption that they facilitate answerability of local public entities and simplify the process of obtaining service and infor-mation.

These mechanisms include:

• the existence of consultation mechanisms/struc-tures in administrative services and the disclosure of information about the functions of local pubic entities, various services and tariffs (e.g. one-stop-shops or registries of all available client services);

• regular publicity and reporting to the public (e.g.

publicity of various local government reports, in-formation bulletins, or published budgets);

• the existence of mechanisms for receiving citizen feedback;

• institutionalized standards of behavior and ethics that promote a high quality of provided services;

Table 5.

Accountability Mechanisms and Structures in Surveyed Municipalities

Indicators Tbilisi Mtskheta Gori Zestaponi

1. LICs available No Yes No Yes

2. One-stop-shop available No No No No

3. Centralized registry of all services available No No No No

4. Complaints department/service available No No No No

5. Person assigned to deal with citizen complaints No No No No

6. Written instructions on services available⁶ Yes Yes Yes Yes

7. Information bulletin published No Yes No Yes

8. Service quality control mechanisms applied No No No No

9. Information quality control mechanisms applied No No No No

10. Feedback mechanisms available No No No No

11. Charter/operations manual available Yes Yes Yes Yes

12. Agency computerized No No No No

13. Electronically-driven document management system designed and applied No No No No

14. Information databases available No No No No

15. Internet access available and used No No No No

16. Programs for improvement of management designed and implemented in 2002 No No No No

17. Human resource development plan available No No No No

18. Performance evaluation indicators designed No No No No

19. Performance evaluation practiced No No No No

20. Employee performance evaluation conducted No No No No

21. Disciplinary sanctions applied No No No No

22. Ethics committee available No No No No

23. Ethics code available No No No No

• professional capacity (relevant skills and experi-ence) and competence (ability to apply the capac-ity to performance of duties) of local officials;

• the existence of centralized complaint-handling offices and the availability of complaint-handling personnel; and

• the availability of electronically-driven document management systems.

This study discovered that in the four targeted localities, almost none of the above mechanisms has been introduced and implemented in local government units. From the list provided in Table 5, only informa-tion centers, published reports/informainforma-tion bulletins, and charter/operations manuals exist.

The organizational procedures for local entities are described in their organizational charter. Under the Administrative Code of Georgia, local government entities are required to have such a charter. The behavioral, professional, and ethical standards and norms of local government and self-government public servants are regulated by the Law on Public Servants.

The application of specific disciplinary sanctions for unprofessional conduct by a public sector employee is defined by the Administrative Code of Georgia, as well as by the Law on Public Servants. In addition, every local agency is required to adopt an organizational charter, stating specific ethical and professional norms.

However, the provisions of this charter are not common knowledge in local government bodies.

Institutions also possess written instructions about the provision of administrative services. Yet, there are no internal documents or written instructions made available to citizens regarding procedures for obtaining specific services or information from local government agencies. That said, information on the functions of local public entities, services, and tariffs is disclosed to different degrees, depending on the locality. Local executive branches in all four cities possess documented lists of all client services available. However, no registry of such services is available in these institutions. Moreo-ver, the lists are not publicly accessible.

No surveyed city has a one-stop-shop. However, in cities with functioning LICs, citizens do have access to such information.

Although all jurisdictions possess written instruc-tions for the turnover of documents (for public access), no filing system appears to exist. The quality of a

re-sponse to a request or complaint depends largely on the extent to which it has been thoroughly and accurately documented. For such documentation, the existence of an electronically-driven document management system is essential. However, none of the jurisdictions surveyed possess such a system. All records are manually recorded (not in electronic format) and extremely poorly organ-ized. There are no citizen opinion of feedback mecha-nisms available within local government institutions, and local governments do not exercise any mechanism for studying client satisfaction or recommendations for service improvement.

Generally, only in extremely rare cases are electronic databases developed or utilized by local governments.

Even in such cases, there is no public access—nor is any access provided for other departments of the same institution. Therefore, information exchange, monitor-ing, and control mechanisms are weak within agencies, just as they are “outside” the administrative world.

The capacity of local government agencies largely depends on the level of information technology utilized for agencies’ operations. Lack of accurate (electronic) documentation is one of the major challenges in en-hancing the quality of local government output and local government-citizen contact. The availability of advanced information technology (ICT) facilitates in-stitutional accountability; the level of ICT in Georgia’s public agencies is low in general. A study conducted in ten Georgian cities in 2003 revealed that only 18 percent of local government servants use ICT in their work; of these, over 90 percent reside in Tbilisi (Local Government Training Needs Assessment 2003).

While Tbilisi clearly stands out in regard to ICT use in virtually every sector, the level is still extremely low.

None of the surveyed local governance agencies operates an electronic website, uses e-mail for management and communication purposes, operates electronic websites, or possesses electronically-driven document manage-ment systems.

An agency’s efficiency and effectiveness greatly de-pend on the day-to-day activities of individual officials.

In this regard, the existence of professional incentives is an important component for local government per-formance. This study examined whether professional merit can serve as a basis for promotion by examining the application of employee performance evaluation procedures. All surveyed agencies indicated that they have implemented procedures to evaluate local public

servants’ activities: in Gori and Zestaponi, for instance, reviews theoretically occur every six months. However, no specific records were found in research, thus putting the validity such internal evaluations into question.

The effectiveness of complaint-handling mecha-nisms comprises a key aspect of an agency’s respon-siveness and accountability. The existence of centralized complaint offices, ethical panels, internal quasi-judicial systems, or the availability of designated complaint-handling personnel, represent efforts oriented toward promoting accountability. However, none of rhe above was found in any local government units. Furthermore, it appears as though no employee is specifically respon-sible for handling citizen complaints in any surveyed agencies; no official offers duty hours (e.g., per week) for citizens.

Although attempts were made during interviews, this study had no success finding information on the number, type, or issue of requests and complaints.

Moreover, it is important to note that records of citi-zens’ requests and complaints are not organized into groups reflecting how successfully responses had been made.

In addition to answerability mechanisms, the avail-ability and application of ethics and disciplinary sanc-tions for illegal or inappropriate acsanc-tions and behaviors of municipal agencies and employees are important components of any accountability system. Although all surveyed organizations operate under officially recognized, basic ethics standards, provided for in the organizational charters, no specific code of ethics nor ethics panel was found to exist. International experi-ence suggests that ethics panels are vital for internal accountability—as mechanisms through which, for example, sanctions for unprofessional conduct can be imposed and enforced. Respectively, no appeal to an ethics panel can be considered as an option for addressing the unprofessional or abusive conduct of municipal employees.

In short, this study revealed that, despite the exist-ence of disciplinary sanctions “on paper” in all surveyed jurisdictions, no disciplinary sanctions have been used in any surveyed local government unit—with the excep-tions of “warnings” for “being late.” In 2002, in Tbilisi, Gori, Zestaponi, and Mtskheta, no employee was fired or otherwise reprimanded: a) for violating disciplinary regulations; b) for violating ethical norms; or c) due to procedural actions connected to citizens’ complaints.