Source: O Estado de S. Paulo - EDITORIAS - 17/08/2009

If a public agency needs documents that clarify the situation of a citizen and that information is already in the database of another government unit, the office will not be able to request them from the interested party. You will have to ask the other body directly, electronically. Within a year - time required for all federal databases to be linked and employees to be trained to meet the requirement - the entire federal administration must comply with this standard, which will make life easier for the citizen and speed up the action of the citizen. government in its relationship with the population.

This is what establishes a presidential decree published on Wednesday, 12th, in the Federal Official Gazette, intended to simplify the public service provided by federal public agencies, such as the INSS, the Federal Revenue Service, the Ministry of Labor and others.

An initiative of the Management Secretariat of the Ministry of Planning, the proposal to reduce bureaucratic requirements was submitted to public consultation and received contributions from other federal agencies and citizens, many of which were incorporated into the decree. With the exception of the provision on databases, all measures provided for in the decree are effective immediately.

The decree establishes, for example, that the relations between the Federal Executive Branch and the citizens must be based, among other principles, on the presumption of good faith, on the sharing of information, on the integrated performance of public bodies, on the use of solutions technological solutions that simplify the processes, in articulation with other levels of government and in the “use of simple and understandable language” in communication with the public.

It is redundant when determining that, except in cases of doubt as to authenticity or legal requirement, signature recognition will not be required in any document to be presented to federal agencies, when it is signed before the public servant to whom it must be presented. This measure has been in force for more than 40 years, due to a decree drawn up by the then Minister of Planning, Hélio Beltrão, but it is not respected. But it is a necessary redundancy, because, as experts in public administration remind us, bureaucracy grows like weeds and, therefore, needs to be pruned with some frequency.

Although formally discarded, the requirement for notarization and presentation of certified copies was reintroduced into the public administration, so much so that, just over ten years after its extinction, its extinction had to be reaffirmed in another decree, also proposed by Beltrão. The process is now repeated. Another innovation of the recently published decree is the imposition, on all organs and entities of the Executive that provide services directly to the population, of the obligation to prepare and disseminate its “Letter of Services to the Citizen”.

This Letter, which will be posted in a visible place and made available to the public on the websites of the respective public agencies, must contain, in clear and precise language, the description of the services provided, the requirements for using them, the steps for processing of the request, the maximum time limit for serving the citizen, the form of communication with the applicant and mechanisms for filing complaints, among other information. In addition, federal agencies must periodically conduct user satisfaction surveys to assess the quality of services provided and identify gaps and deficiencies.

Although limited to the spheres of the federal government, they are important measures to improve the relationship between public administration and citizens, giving more speed to the responses of the Executive Branch and reducing public irritation. Whether they will work or not will depend on the behavior of the public, as, as noted by the Management Secretary of the Ministry of Planning, Marcelo Viana, “to change the State, citizen participation is necessary, who must always claim that their rights do not satisfactorily served ”.