Practitioner accountability and decision-making technology

Normative expectations of accountability require that harm is acknowledged, reparation made and its causes remedied. Fundamental to this is the ability of practitioners to describe, explain and justify their decisions and actions. This ability is seriously impaired by decision-making technology, like that used in child-protection risk assessments. There is a moral obligation to adopt such technology but accountability becomes highly problematic given the way technology is developed, mandated, and implemented. Practitioners are required to implement the technology with limited training even though the technology undermines their judgement, compromises their way of working and often operates outside of their effective control. This loss of accountability cannot be offset by the advantages of the technology.