WK1 Assignment
Timeline 1960s
Because society generally accepted the intrinsic value of the human services, prior to the 1960s, concept of accountability in administration practice received little attention.
The advent of contracting in the late 1960s began to change the nature of accountability in administration of human services (both public and private). Also during the late 1960s, three major public policy changes led to increase contracting between government human services agencies and their nonprofit counterparts.
The result of these three policy changes was to shift the focus away from programmatic accountability and, effectiveness (outcomes) the human services programs. As state and local governments and nonprofit human services agencies joined forces to generate as much federal funding as possible, financial accountability became the focus of the field in the 1960s.
Timeline 1970s
During the mid-1970s, the predominant mode of human services delivery changed from direct government delivery to private-sector delivery.
Since most of public funding for human services during this period came from the federal government, so too did the policies concerning accountability. Most human services contracts grants were of the cost reimbursement type during this period. As a result, considerable effort was made to ensure compliance with federal with federal laws is regulations so as not to jeopardize funding.
This environment eventually fostered backlash from the human services, and at least some stakeholders began to question whether human services programs were actually producing desired results. Even though the need to shift away from financial accountability by the late 1970s, there was no concerted attempt to move in the direction of programmatic accountability.
In short, there was no real attempt to connect thee efficiency, quality, or outcomes of services provided to clients at the micro/direct-practice level with the policies and practices adopted at the Marco/administrative-practice level.
Timeline 1980s
The Reagan administration replaced the Title X program with the Social Services Block Grant, accompanied by an overall reduction in funding from the federal government.
The prevailing model for human services policies and practices shifted from uniform federal standards to a more decentralized model with state and local governments determining their own service delivery policies and priorities.
At the administrative-practice level, accountability came to mean ensuring that contracted nonprofit agencies performed proper.
Fueling the need for programmatic accountability was the pressure to maintain service levels in the face of decreased federal funding. Issues of how contain costs by increasing efficiency, quality, and effectiveness became more relevant.
Some state agencies began experimenting with the collection of client outcome data.
Although programmatic accountability became more relevant, financial accountability continued dominate. However, the need to determine programmatic accountability had now been recognized, and state and local governments began to include performance measures in their contract with nonprofits. By the end of the 1980s, state and local governments began to formulate performance standards, though still taking a backseat to financial accountability, and to look at outputs, quality, and outcomes as a part of overall programmatic accountability.
REFERENCES
Martin, L, & Frahm, K. (2010). The Changing Nature of Accountability in Administratrative Practice. Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare, 37(1), 137-148
Timeline 1990s
Policy and regulatory changes that took place during the 1990s altered the nature of accountability in the field of human services. Administrative policies and regulations at all government levels (federal, state, and local) began to take the shape of performance expectations being regularly included in contracts and grants, addition, stakeholders and funding sources became increasingly dissatisfied with the argument that the effectiveness of human services programs was too difficult t measure.
During the 1990s, several major public policy changes advanced programmatic accountability including the following:
1. Government Performance and Results Act
2. National Performance Review
3. Managed care
4. Government Accounting Standards Board
Service Efforts and Accomplishment (SEA) reporting initiative
SEA reporting brought a standardized and systematic approach to the reporting of programmatic accountability. SEA reporting consists of three primary elements:
1. Service efforts
2. Service accomplishments
3. Ratios that compare service efforts and service accomplishments
As a result of the performance measurement movement, state and local governments moved performance-based contracting (PBC) with their nonprofit (and now for –profit) human services contractors.