All too often complaints are made about MPs, civil servants or other officials who hold on to their jobs despite their failure to deliver the goods. No ancient Athenian would have put up with that. They believed in real democracy: power to the people (the demos), a power expressed through the Assembly, consisting of all Athenian males over the age of 18, who actually made the law (the courts merely passed decrees).
Athenians made public appointments by lot. Any Athenian male in good standing over the age of 30 could put his name into the hat to serve for one year as an unpaid state executive in charge of e.g. roads, market controls and much else. The only exceptions were military and financial positions, decided by a vote of the Assembly.
General oversight of the whole system was in the hands of the boule, a steering committee consisting of 500 Athenians, appointed by lot for one year (none could serve more than twice, and not in successive years). Between them they were available 24 hours a day to receive business from home and abroad, which their various committees would put into a form to be debated and decided by the Assembly. Those decisions then went back to the boule who enacted them, with the necessary funding.
Now came the crunch. At any stage any Athenian who thought any official had been misbehaving could bring before the Assembly a charge against him, which would be dealt with at once. Further, at the end of their year of service, the performance of all officials was audited and a punishment imposed if they were found to have done wrong. Pericles was once punished for misuse of funds and fined the vast sum of 50 talents. An Athenian general – ten a year were elected – judged to have failed on his prescribed mission usually faced the maximum punishment: execution. One statistic suggests that on average two in ten generals per year would have met that fate (had they not chosen exile). For Athenian democrats, it was only results that counted. Could we do with more of that?
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