A strong and achieving public service is a necessary condition for a competitively successful nation. The Management and Training Services Division (MTSD) of the Commonwealth Secretariat assists member governments to improve the performance of the public service through action-oriented advisory services, policy analysis and training. This assistance is supported by funds from the Commonwealth Fund for Technical Co-operation (CFTC).

Good governance is a concept that has recently come into regular use in political science, public administration and, more particularly, development management. It appears alongside such concepts and terms as democracy, civil society, popular participation, human rights and social and sustainable development. In the last decade, it has been closely associated with public sector reform. Within the public management discipline or profession it has been regarded as an aspect of the New Paradigm in Public Administration which emphasises the role of public managers in providing high quality services that citizens value; advocates increasing managerial autonomy, particularly by reducing central agency controls; demands, measures and rewards both organisational and individual performance; recognises the importance of providing the human and technological resources that managers require to meet their performance targets; and is receptive to competition and open-minded about which public purposes should be performed by public servants as opposed to the private sector.

The concept of good governance is very much inter-linked with institutionalised values such as democracy, observance of human rights and greater efficiency and effectiveness within the public sector. Public management, as a discipline, presents itself with certain techniques, strategies and methods intended to improve the public service reform process and, more importantly, to enable the machinery of government to be cost-conscious and performance-oriented.

This chapter focuses on two critical dimensions of accountability: political administrative and financial accountability, with reference to the linkages to administrative efficiency and economic performance. It reviews the main methods of enforcing accountability and includes illustrations from both developed and developing countries. In highlighting recent trends in this area, attention is drawn to the impact of the on-going democratisation process in public accountability and some examples of good and bad practices are cited. Finally, the implications of increased attention to accountable governance for training are examined, with suggestions on specialised training programmes for politicians, judicial officials, accountants and auditors and journalists.

The debate about the need to develop an appropriate development paradigm with its requisite structures and systems has been the subject of public administration scholars, policy-makers, managers and the consumers of services for many decades. The central question that has always been raised in this debate is the typology of quantity and quality of the relationship between the public and private sector in the development process.

At independence, many Commonwealth developing countries believed that political independence by itself was insufficient unless accompanied by economic independence and self-sufficiency. Rapid industrialisation in the domestic economy was considered key to the acceleration of the development process. As a result, it was believed that planning and public ownership constituted key instruments in pushing forward the objectives of political and economic independence.

The debate on the role of values both within the public and private sectors and between the public and the individual person, has always aimed at examining the possible ways of improving the delivery of service to the people. It has, therefore, been used as an instrument either for change or for continuity of dealing with issues and concerns. The conflicts between the two sets of values, depending on how they are used in the management process, can either have a negative or positive impact on the delivery of service. This can occur in situations that can generate or stagnate change. However, the symbiosis of the two sets of values might produce co-operation and collaboration, which are necessary in managing the development process and forging partnership.

Across the Commonwealth in states big and small, developed and developing, one clearly articulated challenge for public management relates to the development and retention of management staff. There is now great interest in many Commonwealth countries in the development of the Senior Public Service or Senior Executive. In recent times, there have been strategic reviews of the Civil Service College in the United Kingdom, the Canadian Centre for Management Development in Canada, the creation of a public service Learning Resource Centre in Trinidad and Tobago, and attempts to refocus the training of public service managers in Barbados. These and other initiatives underscore the urgency with which many public services are now treating the issue of management development.