Complete 2 pages APA formatted article: The Responsible Administrator by Terry Copper. Copper clearly demonstrates three salient points in relation to the maintenance of responsible conduct by public administrators. These points include the aspect of ethical conduct, upholding personal values when delivering service and, the management perspective in regards to the above-outlined aspects.
In the article Introduction to Public Administration, the three key points outlined by Copper have been re-emphasized. In addition, this article divides the responsibilities and responsible conduct of a public administrator or into administrative accountability and the in-depth meaning of these controls. Administrative accountability has been described as the summation of statutory, judicial rule and precedents, constitutional requirements among others. In addition, responsibility has been portrayed as having both personal and moral associations. As such, it must is not necessarily related to formal status and power. Moreover, accountability has also been defined as the answerability of a person in the institution (Zeepedia.com, 2010).
On the other hand, control has been described as the process of ensuring that authentic undertakings conform to established standards and outlined procedures. In essence, control helps administrators to monitor the effectiveness of their subordinates. In the same way that copper had divided these controls, this article also divides them into two broad groups that are internal controls and external controls.
According to this article, internal controls are implemented mainly by superior / management over the subordinates within the hierarchy chain or through parallel agencies in the executive branch of government. Therefore, this control comprises directing, supervising, regulating, advising, inspecting and evaluating by the management. On the contrary, the external controls are those mechanisms that are outside the administrative machinery. As such, they work within the constitutional boundaries and are, therefore, executed by external bodies such as the legislature and judiciary (Zeepedia.com, 2010).
Combining the two readings it is apparent that public officers must act responsibly while delivering service to the public. In the case that a misdeed occurs then accountability should prevail. In addition, the management should be conversant with the control measures and execute them when necessary. Moreover, as has been outlined in previous chapters ethical conduct should be upheld by any public administrator as their primary guidelines. This chapter is, therefore, very valuable as it has taught me the basic procedures of maintaining responsible conduct that is expected of any public administrator. This insight will, therefore, help me to conduct myself responsibly while observing the ethical code of conduct.
