Author: Marco Antonio de Oliveira

Source: Valor Econômico, 02/06/2009

Inefficiency and poor management are not privileges of the public service, as common sense believes. If the private sector is today ahead of the public sector in adopting new management methods, in people management and in technological innovation, there are countless examples in the business world of disastrous administrations when it comes to quality and customer service.

On the other hand, the historical backwardness of public administration in Brazil has been mitigated by the increasing incorporation of new management paradigms, some of which originate in the private sector. In recent years, innovative practices at all levels of government have multiplied, with visible results for serving users of public services.

At the federal level, in addition to hiring more civil servants through public tenders, the government has invested in recovering the infrastructure and operational capacity of important bodies, such as the National Social Security Institute (INSS), which until recently was synonymous with inefficiency and which, due to its size and relevance, can become a reference in the Brazilian public service.

We are talking about an organization with 1.400 service units and 40 thousand servers, present in 1.100 municipalities and which serves more than three million people per month. It efficiently manages the payment of more than 26 million benefits, corresponding to a monthly payroll of R $ 15 billion. In many cities, these resources are more important than transfers from the Bolsa Família Program or the Municipality Participation Fund.

The shameful lines at the doors of the INSS agencies, which compromised their image, were left behind. The competent management of users' demands has led to a drastic reduction in the time to attend, to conduct expertise and to grant benefits. Now the citizen dials and confirms his attendance at Central 135 or through the Social Security website, comes to the agency on the scheduled day and time and is served faster and faster.

Granting a retirement in a few minutes is just one of the most striking successes of the Institute's continuous effort, carried out since 2003, to recompose the staff, recover and expand the service network, renew the technological park and operating systems, and implement programs improving management and customer service, as well as reviewing and simplifying rules and combating fraud and undue payments.

Other decisive measures to improve services were the creation of a continuing education program for the professional training of civil servants and a salary recovery policy, which reopened opportunities for career advancement and improved the mechanisms of variable remuneration, linking it to the compliance with institutional goals.

During the time I chaired the INSS, I was convinced that this experience, due to its advances and limits, indicates some paths for the improvement of government management in Brazil, which converge to the need for continuous, integrated and long-term actions under the form of an extensive set of measures, most of which are set out in the National Program for Public Management and Red Tape, launched in 2005.

More speed is needed in the review and simplification of laws, rules and procedures that compromise access and quality of services and that generate huge administrative and judicial liabilities. The imperative of legality is essential to the acts of public administration, but it cannot be an obstacle to good management and the exercise of the right for those who comply with legal requirements and, often, the penalty of sharing in sharing.

Likewise, rationality and impersonality in dealing with public affairs are fundamental to restrain the “Brazilian way” and other objectionable practices, but they cannot be confused with cold and inhuman treatment to the citizen, hurting the principles of urbanity and civility. The routine procedures of the state bureaucracy must be made compatible with the desirable humanization of service to the public.

In addition to the need to recompose the staff, there must be a people management policy aimed at continuous learning and personal and professional valorization, as there is no improvement in service with poorly paid, poorly trained and unmotivated employees, especially in organizations that serve to the public. More than managing people, it is about promoting management with people and for people, which also requires changes in culture and organizational climate.

At the managerial level, the more agile dissemination of new organizational and management models by processes, competences and results is necessary, as a counterpoint to the traditional bureaucratic model characteristic of centralized and hierarchical organizations in which the exercise of leadership is inhibited, the command lines horizontal and innovative practices, as in institutions where only what the law expressly requires, even so subject to the moods and discretion of the bureaucrat on duty.

The expansion of physical networks, which tends to increase costing expenses, may be necessary in several locations, especially in regions with low coverage of public services, but there is an urgent need to integrate and expand the use of networks already installed. In addition, the future lies in the so-called electronic government, which allows information, assistance and management in real time and which has been well accepted by users of public services.

The continuity and expansion of investment in technology are, therefore, indispensable for the assembly of technological parks and logical networks, the development of programs and operating systems, the creation of management and control tools, and the implementation of remote channels, such as service portals and user relationship centers.

And for excellence in public management to prevail, in a consistent and lasting way, it is also necessary to promote a new institutional arrangement in which the political-electoral injunctions, typical of democracies, do not generate discontinuities, setbacks or discourage innovations, especially in public policies focused on the fulfillment of constitutional rights, as in the area of ​​social security.

Anyway, there is a lot of work to do in this country for those who really want to serve the public.

Marco Antonio de Oliveira is a researcher at CESIT / IE / Unicamp. He was executive secretary of the Ministry of Labor and Employment and president of the INSS, between 2006 and 2008.