Accountability in Human Services Collaboratives--For What? and To Whom?

If the hollowing out of the state means not only privatization but, more generally, the leakage of authority emanating from elected law makers, then certain administrative arrangements can be part of the hollowing out process. One such arrangement is the human services collaborative, a school-linked health and social service program. The logic of collaboration is to give more programmatic discretion, including policy discretion, to line-level professionals. Is this sort of hollowing a good or a bad thing? Good, because it gives power to people who are close to the problems and the solutions. Good, too, because it delegitimates legislative efforts to control public administration through narrowly defining funding categories and closely overseeing expenditures. Because financial controls are among the few tools of legislative control of administration, the desirable aim of protecting, legislative power also has had the unintended consequence of making financial accountability a virtual synonym for the whole concept of accountability. The article distinguishes two meanings of accountability, accountability for such things as results and accountability to various parties. Accountability for must be settled before the system of accountability to can be properly designed.