Individual Civil Servants' Conceptions Of Accountability: A preliminary study

This article presents a preliminary study of how civil servants in the United Kingdom understand accountability characterized by its emphasis on individual performance and accountability. Using the interpretive approach known as phenomenography, we interviewed ten civil servants who as Senior Responsible Owners (SROs) were accountable for the delivery of IT enabled business change programmes. Our analysis revealed five attributes of accountability, each conceived at three levels in a hierarchy of increasing richness and complexity. These results challenge the notion that accountability is a unitary concept and that there is conflict between traditional and newer forms of accountability.