Accounting for former level in government (10)
I believe the answer is:
explaining
'accounting for' is the definition.
The answer and definition can be both to do with communicating as well as being present participle verbs.
Maybe there's an association between them I don't understand?
'former level in government' is the wordplay.
'former' becomes 'ex'.
'level in government' becomes 'plaining' (I can't justify this - if you can you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'ex'+'plaining'='EXPLAINING'
(Other definitions for explaining that I've seen before include "Describing" , "Justifying" .)