The Role of Accountability Arrangements in Social Innovations: Evidence from the UK and Slovakia

• Authors: Juraj Nemec , Marta Orviska , Colin Lawson
• Languages of publication: EN

Abstracts

EN

Our research focuses on selected accountability mechanisms in the two countries. In Slovakia these are the Supreme Audit Office (SAO) and the Ombudsman. In the UK, at the national level we chose the Committee of Public Accounts (PAC), the National Audit Office (NAO) and the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman (PHSO) and on the local level the relatively recently introduced local government system of Scrutiny and Overview. The goal of our article is to assess the potential contribution of these accountability arrangements to the anchoring of social innovation in the public sector. The theory anticipates that accountability institutions such as the SAO and Ombudsman may create feedback loops supporting public innovations. We undertook detailed checks on the concrete situation in the Slovak Republic and in the UK. On the basis of the comprehensive set of data reviewed, including reports, interviews and more generally available information, we can confidently conclude that while in Slovakia such a feedback loop barely functions, in the UK it does function on a limited but still significant scale. In the last part we provide selected arguments why the Slovak situation is less positive.

Keywords

EN

innovations; social innovations; accountability mechanisms; United Kingdom; Slovakia

• Publisher: Sciendo
• Journal: NISPAcee Journal of Public Administration and Policy
• Year: 2016
• Volume: 9
• Issue: 1
• Pages: 73-96

Dates

published

2016-06-01

online

2016-08-02

Contributors

author

Juraj Nemec

• Professor, Faculty of Economic and Administration, Masaryk University Brno, Czech Republic and Faculty of Economics, Matej Bel University Banska Bystrica, Slovakia.

author

Marta Orviska

• Professor, Faculty of Economics, Matej Bel University Banska Bystrica, Slovakia.

author

Colin Lawson

• Senior lecturer, Honorary Reader in Economics, University of Bath, United Kingdom and professor Faculty of Economics, Matej Bel University Banska Bystrica, Slovakia.

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Identifiers

DOI

10.1515/nispa-2016-0004