Abstract
The World Bank on Governance Indicators in the aspect of ‘Voice and Accountability’ reported accountability for Malaysia had declined to 34% in 2017 from 37% in 2013. Data from the International Country Risk Guide showed a decrease in accountability since 2011 from 4.46 to 4 points out of 6 points in the year 2012. Public sector organisations like statutory bodies might also face issues of accountability. This study aims to evaluate and compare the accountability outcomes of federal and state statutory bodies through a questionnaire. The measurement for accountability based on four dimensions, namely transparency, evaluation, stakeholders' participation and complaint and response. Based on 194 responses received from top management of Malaysian statutory bodies, the overall accountability outcome has shown an above-average score of 5.97 for both federal and state statutory bodies. This shows that Malaysian statutory bodies have delivered a high level of accountability. The test for the difference between the means scores of independent T-tests also shows that there is no significant difference between the accountability level of federal and state statutory bodies. Despite the different level of obligation and legislation, both types of statutory bodies seem to deliver an equally high level of accountability outcomes.
Highlights
Public sector organisations must serve the best for the public
This study focuses on both federal and state statutory bodies, aims to determine and compare the level of accountability of statutory bodies in Malaysia
Information from Accountability Index Ranking System by Malaysian Auditor-General department for the year 2015 reported 4.2% of federal statutory bodies were rated as Excellent, 33.3% rated as Good, 50% were rated as Satisfactory and 12.5% were rated as Unsatisfactory with the performance of 4 agencies had deteriorated more than 90% as compared to their performance in 2012 (National Audit Department Malaysia, 2015b)
Summary
Accountability was vital in servicing and gain public confidence in managing the public fund. The era of New Public Management (NPM) and current New Public Governance (NPG) focused on accountability and emphasis on service delivery to the public (Hyndman & Liguori, 2016; Osborne, 2006, 2010; Osborne, Radnor, & Nasi, 2012). Accountability was viewed as a performance indicator for the public sector (Behn, 2001; Dubnick & Frederickson, 2011) and responsibilities to the stakeholders (Bovens, 2007; Lindkvist & Llewellyn, 2003). The accomplishment of high accountability was a reflection of organisation effectiveness in meeting multiple goals (Engelen, Gupta, Strenger, & Brettel, 2015). Accountability was crucial as the achievement of high performance of government’s organisations
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