2. Brazil’s historical innovation journey

In order to understand what might be needed now and into the future, it is important to understand how previous developments led to the current context. This chapter explores the historical innovation journey of the Public Service of Brazil, identifying relevant developments and milestones, and looking at themes and common threads that can be gleaned from that history.

    

This chapter aims to piece together relevant milestones and developments in the historical innovation journey of the Public Service of Brazil.

In order to understand the innovation system of the Public Service of Brazil, it is first necessary to uncover how prior developments and choices shaped the current context. Past experience influences present and future choices, largely because previous decisions, commitments and investments determine what may be considered suitable or feasible. The way forward must therefore build on the historical innovation journey.

The history presented here should not be seen as either definitive or official. The analysis synthesises information from research as well as interviews and workshops, but may contain omissions or misinterpretations. Codifying the history relevant to the public sector innovation system is a fraught exercise. In the absence of an objective measure, it is difficult to state with any certainty which events relate to innovation and which do not.

The greater the capacity to describe and articulate the existing public sector innovation system – including its history – the greater the ability to understand which factors shape the system and how it can be steered. A thorough understanding of the past also provides lessons that can inform future steps.

Without a reckoning of the past, the future risks being guided by things unsaid or unnoticed, rather than by deliberate choices.

Stitching together a fragmented history

Traditionally, public sector innovation has not been the primary concern of governments. While sometimes a common occurrence within the public sector and on occasion deliberately sought, explicit agendas to ensure that innovation happens within the civil service are a relatively recent development. The innovation that has occurred has generally been incidental or a by-product (or in spite) of other processes and agendas. As such, it can be hard to point out specific milestones that are specific to the innovation journey. It is therefore necessary to examine the forces and events that have shaped innovation, and explore when and how it occurs from a variety of perspectives.

In short, the history of public sector innovation needs to be gleaned from other histories. The narrative process of piecing together the major developments and factors that shaped the public sector innovation system is, to some extent, subjective. Innovation involves ambiguity and uncertainty, and describing the journey of innovation involves some arbitration and curation, rather than being able to rely upon objective milestones and markers. This journey can be described in terms of a rough path, rather than a precise road.

In analysing a public sector innovation system, it can be tempting to focus attention on the results of innovation awards – for instance Brazil’s longstanding Federal Management Innovation Award (see Box 2.1). While such an approach is both important and valuable, understanding the innovation system requires a broader perspective. Although it is useful to understand the characteristics and determinants of innovation projects, it is perhaps more important to understand the factors shaping the environment in which those innovations arose. The value of understanding these factors is illustrated by the finding that Award winners generally reflect the dominant reform paradigm of the time (Ferrarezi and Amorim, 2007). Specific innovations thus are a product not only of their specific context but also of larger forces.

Box 2.1. Innovation in Federal Public Management Award (CIGPF)

In 1996, ENAP partnered with the Ministry of Federal Administration and State Reform (MARE) to establish the Award of Innovative Experiences in Management of Federal Public Administration (CEIGAPF), now one of the longest running national public sector innovation award schemes in the world. In 2003, the award was rebranded as the Innovation in Federal Public Management Award (CIGPF); and in 2016, the award was widened to accept submissions from state public sector organisations.

The award honours public servants who are committed to achieving better results, who dedicate themselves to rethinking daily activities through small or large innovations that generate improvements in public sector management and policies, and whose work contributes to increasing the quality of public services and ensuring the efficient use of public resources.

The award covers:

• innovation in organisational processes in the Federal Executive Branch

• innovation in services and public policies in the Federal Executive Branch

• innovation in organisational processes, services or public policies in the State/District Executive Branch.

The award process assesses innovation projects on a number of criteria, including results/impact, efficient use of resources, collaboration and the involvement of users, and the degree to which the initiative is sustainable and replicable.

Five winners are recognised under each category at a prize-giving ceremony (e.g. at Public Sector Innovation Week, see Box 5.16). Winners are encouraged by ENAP to explore how the initiatives can be improved and disseminated across the public sector.

The winning initiatives are made available through a database on the ENAP website.

Source: Interviews, https://inovacao.enap.gov.br.

A number of previous studies about innovation in Brazil’s public sector (e.g. Cavalcante and Camões, 2017; Sousa et al., 2015; Ferrarezi and Amorim, 2007) have helped to illustrate these larger forces, in addition to providing analyses of award winners. However, in order to fully appreciate the Brazilian context, it is also necessary to understand the broader reform movement, and its ongoing and recurring concentration on “debureaucratisation” – an umbrella term that captures reform efforts aimed at simplification and streamlining of government operations, sometimes incorporating decentralisation, with the implication of improvement.

The extent to which public sector reform and innovation naturally align is debatable. Reform is often directed towards achieving greater efficiencies and ensuring effectiveness, whereas innovation, at least initially, will be in tension with these qualities. Reform may address known problems, whereas innovation will sometimes involve reframing and understanding new problems. Reform may not always involve innovation, as it may focus on existing and understood concepts and practices, though a degree of innovation is likely due to the change in contexts. It is also likely that innovation will prompt or necessitate some degree of reform, as changed processes, services or outcomes will require the adjustment of existing practices.

For the purposes of the report, it is sufficient to acknowledge that, as concepts, reform and innovation have differences, but are indeed related (e.g. see Matei & Bujac, 2015). While this overlap is not perfect, with reform often involving significant repetition, reform agendas can help understand the story of change, and innovation more broadly within the public sector.

Tracing the innovation journey

Any number of factors can shape and contribute to the innovation journey. Investments and decisions in research, science, education and training are all influential. Circumstances and trends in the private and not-for-profit sectors also play a role, and individual and organisational cases or incidents will have relevance. However, a whole-of-system view of the journey necessarily focuses on certain core issues.

The most relevant parts of the innovation journey are those that have occurred within the living memory of the system (e.g. the last 30 years or so), as current civil servants will either have direct experience of or at least some degree of familiarity with these aspects. A number of relevant agendas have arisen during this time with an increase in the number of initiatives related specifically to encouraging, enabling and undertaking public sector innovation.

The following account of the historical innovation journey takes a chronological view in an attempt to gradually build a sense of the “rhythm” of the system and to illustrate how it has evolved over time. Once the specific details and milestones of the journey are established, it becomes possible to uncover trends and patterns.

The 1930s to the 1980s: An ongoing emphasis on debureaucratisation

In the context of Brazil, it is worth noting two longstanding trends:

• the extent to which concern with excessive bureaucracy has persisted throughout Brazil’s history

• the emergence of engagement and innovation in participatory mechanisms.

An early example of the second trend is the first national public policy conference (conferência nacional de política pública) on health, held in 1941 (Pogrebinschi, 2012a). National conferences were created in the fields of education and health by Law 378 (Planalto, 1937) to assist with the objective of facilitating knowledge acquisition by the Federal Government regarding activities relevant to public health, and to direct the execution of local health services (Petinelli, Lins and Faria, 2011). However, the only conferences held in the following decades concerned health (Secretaria de Governo, 2018).

The tendency towards excessive bureaucracy is a much stronger trend. Seen over the decades, it helps to illustrate some of the fundamental characteristics and focal points of the public sector innovation system.

For instance, decades of debates, attempts, changes, efforts, advances and setbacks have transpired in relation to the debureaucratisation (simplification/streamlining/improvement) of the Brazilian state (Martins, 2018). Actions that corroborate this view can be seen as early as 1956, with the establishment of the Bureaucratic Simplification Committee, itself a successor to similar previous initiatives:

… as in the past, the only products of such endeavors were the reshuffling of boxes on organization tables and the development of new regulations concerning organization structure, again more a matter of controls than reforms. (Siegel, 1966: 51)

This reform, and others surrounding it during this period, often tended to emphasise central controls (Siegel, 1966: 53).

Then, in 1964, the military seized power and established a dictatorship, a form of government that has a complicated relationship with public sector innovation, decentralisation and public sector controls. However, even under the dictatorship attention was paid to reform initiatives. In 1967, Decree-Law 200 established guidelines for administrative reform (Planalto, 1967), with the purpose of reorganizing the Federal Administration and promoting de-bureaucratisation (Cardim, 2017), as well as decentralising services (Majeed, 2010: 2). The 1960s also saw efforts towards “informatisation” of the public administration (Filgueiras, Fernandes and Palotti 2019: 6), a trend that helps explain the later extent of the digital achievements of the Federal Public Service.

In 1979, towards the end of the military dictatorship, these efforts were followed by the establishment of an Extraordinary Ministry of Debureaucratisation (Ministério Extraordinário para a Desburocratização) and the passing of Decree 83.740, which mandated the creation of a National Program of Debureaucratisation (Programa Nacional de Desburocratização). This programme was intended to streamline and simplify the operation of the Federal Public Administration (Planalto, 1979). This development can be seen as the start of a focus on improving the public sector that has been embedded in reform movements in Brazil ever since (Cavalcante and Camões, 2017: 7).

The National Program of Debureaucratisation was intended to reduce interference in the activity of citizens and entrepreneurs, through decentralisation of decisions, simplification of procedures and the elimination of formalities where the cost is greater than the risk. This national initiative involved the abolition of hundreds of formerly necessary documents, significant streamlining processes for citizens and businesses, and was accompanied by a decree that “Until proved to the contrary, people are telling the truth” (Brooke, 1981). This milestone is an early example of a focus on being “citizen-facing”, even in the context of a military dictatorship where citizen rights may not have been a paramount concern.

Such efforts initially affected the work of despachantes, or professional intermediaries or expediters who (for a fee) help to navigate bureaucratic hurdles. Despachantes are a longstanding feature of Brazil’s society and economy (Brooke, 1981), and are still a common feature today, assisting people in overcoming local, state and federal red tape and bureaucratic procedures (e.g. see Campbell, 2016). Their existence highlights just how entrenched excessive bureaucratic elements are within the Brazilian public sector.

Initially very popular, the Ministry of Debureaucratisation later fell into disfavour as it was gradually perceived as adding another layer of bureaucracy, and was subsumed within another Ministry in 1986 and subsequently remembered in broader society with some ridicule (e.g. see Pearson, 2013; Ellsworth, 2011; Rohter, 2010).

In 1985, a new government created the Secretariat of Federal Administration “to administer human resources policy and improve bureaucratic efficiency.” (Majeed, 2010: 3). Efforts to improve efficiency and reduce bureaucracy thus appear to be a regular and engrained feature of the system.

In 1988, another key milestone occurred with the development of a post-dictatorship constitution. The 1988 Constitution has a very strong focus on articulating and codifying rights (unsurprising in the shadow of the military dictatorship) and spelling out the state’s involvement in the economy.

The other important issue was the fact that after the 1964-1984 military dictatorship, Brazilians may have become afraid of not only having their rights disrespected, but also of having them suddenly changed. Consequently, the general social thought was that if rights were thoroughly present in the Constitution, that fear could be minimized. This perspective is clear in the Constitution of 1988, which was the first one since Brazil started developing a democratic regime. The members of the 1988 National Constituent Assembly, reflecting the same social fear, decided to bring many issues to the shelter of the Constitution. Due to social demands, they wrote the longest constitution ever and probably the longest among contemporary constitutions all over the world. (de Almeida, 2000: 16)

In the effort to protect the rights of the country’s citizens, the Constitution was very detailed. A consequence of this approach, however, was a public administration that was “rigid and inflexible” (Majeed, 2010: 1-2).

Even with its attention to detail, the Constitutional process received some criticism in regard to its extensive development, “with an infinite number of articles that somehow left some loopholes” (Menezes, 2015: 173). The detailed nature of the Constitution also contributed to a continual process of constitutional amendment (de Almeida, 2000).

Nonetheless, the ideas of decentralisation and debureaucratisation which underpinned the reform agenda of the 1988 Constitution, coupled with greater efforts at government transparency, were expected to expand “social control” over public management (Ferrarezi and Amorim, 2007). The concern with social control reflects an undercurrent of concern about the overly bureaucratic and unresponsive nature of the public sector, as well as a strong desire to avoid repeating the experiences of the military dictatorship.

Box 2.2. Key players within the system

Major institutional actors in the historical public sector innovation journey of the Federal Public Service of Brazil (and their key associated responsibilities)

• Casa Civil/Civil House of the President of the Republic of Brazil (co-ordinates whole-of-government/cross-government priorities and policies)

• Comptroller General of Brazil (CGU) (responsible for internal audit, lead agency for fighting corruption, open data/open government policies and enforcing the Freedom of Information Act, and performs the role of Ombudsman (ouvidoria) for the Brazilian government)

• Council of Federal Justice (CJF) (responsible for budgetary and administrative supervision of the Federal Courts, including promoting strategic alignment and measuring outcomes for all federal courts)

• Brazilian Federal Court of Accounts (TCU) (responsible for external audit of the executive branch of the Brazilian Government)

• National School of Public Administration (ENAP) (the central school of government for the Federal Brazilian Government, responsible for promoting, developing and delivering human resources training programmes for the federal public administration)

• Secretariat of Information and Communication Technologies/Secretariat of Information and Communication Technologies (responsible for the digital transformation agenda)

• InovaGov (branding for a co-operative agreement executed by and between the then Ministry of Planning, TCU and CJF to establish a network of public sector innovation. Nearly 100 government, academic, third-sector and business organisations have since joined the initiative)

• Inova/Department of Modernisation of Public Services and Innovation of the Secretariat of Management (with responsibility for the improvement and innovation of the management of federal public administration organs and entities) (Former body)

• Ministry of Federal Administration and State Reform (Ministério da Administração Federal e Reforma do Estado, MARE) (a dedicated ministry for the reform of public administration) (Former body)

• Extraordinary Ministry of Debureaucratisation (Ministério Extraordinário para a Desburocratização) responsible for administering the National Program of Debureaucratisation) (Former body)

• Ministry of Planning, Development and Management (Planejamento, Desenvolvimento e Gestão, MPDG) (Former body, now subsumed within the Ministry of Economy, Ministério da Economia).

Sources: http://www.planalto.gov.br/ccivil_03/_ato2019-2022/2019/decreto/D9678.htm,

http://www.planalto.gov.br/ccivil_03/_Ato2019-2022/2019/Decreto/D9681htm,

http://www.planalto.gov.br/ccivil_03/_Ato2007-2010/2008/Lei/L11798.htm,

http://www.planalto.gov.br/ccivil_03/_ato2019-2022/2019/Decreto/D9680.htm,

http://www.planalto.gov.br/ccivil_03/_Ato2015-2018/2017/Decreto/D9035.htm,

http://www.planalto.gov.br/ccivil_03/_Ato2019-2022/2019/Decreto/D9745.htm#art13.

The 1990s: A period of reform influenced by New Public Management

During 90s a comprehensive reform was undertaken in order to transform public sector’s responsibilities and means, specially, focused on privatization, downsizing and transfer of social policies to the third sector. (Cavalcante & Camões, 2017: 8)

In 1990, the government created the Program of Quality and Productivity with a subcommittee for Public Administration (Grin, 2015: 10). The aim was to expand the quality and productivity of public bodies, in order to make them more efficient in terms of resource management and more geared to meeting the demands of society rather than perpetuating bureaucratic processes.

The same year also saw the establishment of the Federal Deregulation Program through Decree 99.179 (Planalto, 1990). This programme, among other things, aimed to reduce state interference, promote greater efficiency, and reduce the costs of services and ensure that they better met the needs of users. This reform also loosened controls, providing more freedom for administrators.

In 1991, the government introduced a national programme of privatisation (destatization). Between 1990 and 2002, 165 enterprises were privatised (Musacchio and Lazzarini 2014: 20).

A law on procurement was established in 1993 (Planalto, 1993) that set out the rules for bids and contracts. This effectively outlined how and to what extent the public sector could work with private sector suppliers, an aspect often critical to innovation projects requiring or involving new technologies.

In 1995, the government established a dedicated ministry to pursue reform, the Ministry of Administration and State Reform (Ministério da Aministração Federal e Reforma do Estado or MARE). It also introduced a Master Plan for State Reform (Plano Diretor da Reforma do Aparelho do Estado).

This Master Plan was informed by an assessment of the civil service as highly inefficient (Bresser-Pereira, 2003: 90). The plan included a mix of approaches including:

• decentralising social services to the subnational level

• clearly identifying the area of state action/responsibility

• articulating the core responsibilities of politicians and senior officials

• shifting to management by objectives (rather than outputs/procedural steps).

The Master Plan was influenced by the ideas of New Public Management, which “placed a premium on performance, efficiency, outputs, and results” (Majeed, 2010: 5). The Plan linked these reforms with the ability of the state to meet citizens’ needs, seeking to “deploy participatory, transparent and results-oriented public administration” (Grin, 2015: 10).

The MARE “introduced regular merit examinations for core civil service positions, rolled out new training programs, computerised payment controls, centralized databases, proposed flexibility in tenure and retirement, cut payrolls strategically, and initiated organizational changes.” (Majeed, 2010: 2).

In line with this desire for a more results-oriented approach, the Master Plan introduced a Program of Quality and Participation in Public Administration (PAQP):

The seeking for quality come to be a goal and managerial tool to modernize the state apparatus according to national and international parameters of public and private management. (Grin, 2015: 10)

The year 1995 and its associated reforms also represent the beginning of a collaborative effort to understand and implement digital connectivity (OECD, 2018: 38).

These reforms also played an important role in ensconcing the national school of public administration, ENAP (Escola Nacional de Administração Pública) as a key part of the fabric of the public sector innovation system. From 1994 to 1997, as a result of the reforms, the number of public servants trained yearly by ENAP increased from around 2000 to 16 000. In 1996, ENAP created the award for innovation in public administration, “designed to inspire creative ideas for enhancing service delivery” (Majeed, 2010: 10) (see Box 2.1). The award not only helped to disseminate innovative practices across the public service and promote promising initiatives, it also constituted a source of data on innovation in the public administration of Brazil (Cavalcante and Camões, 2017: 20).

The year 1996 saw the creation of the Congress of Information Technology and Innovation in Public Management (CONIP) Excellence Award, indicative of a more explicit focus on innovation, as opposed to more general reform efforts. It was followed, in 1998, by two relevant constitutional amendments:

• Amendment 19 implemented some of the above public administration reforms and codified efficiency as one of the core principles for public administration (Planalto, 1998a)

• implemented social security reforms and revised limits to public servant benefits (Planalto, 1998b).

This particular reform approach was not sustained, however, and in 1999 MARE was absorbed into the then Ministry of Planning and Budgeting. This reflects an apparent tendency of reform efforts to have a limited lifespan, whether for political or other reasons.

The 2000s: Modernisation and eGovernment

In 2000, a new modernisation agenda was introduced under the Advance Brazil Plan (Plano Avança Brasil). This programme covered four areas: debureaucratisation, public service quality, entrepreneurial public management and the valorisation of public servants (Ministry of Planning, Budget and Management, 2001).

The debureaucratisation component was codified in Decree 3.335 (Planalto, 2000a) with the resumption of a National Programme of Debureaucratisation, connected with an Interministerial Committee on Debureaucratisation and the Sectorial Executive Committees on Debureaucratisation. A renewed emphasis was placed on simplification and streamlining, and the review of processes that might impact the quality and responsiveness of public services.

In the same year, Decree 3.507 (Planalto, 2000b) required agencies to establish standards of quality of care and a national system for evaluating the satisfaction of users of public services. The latter mechanism can be a useful source of intelligence for identifying where innovation may be required, though its existence is no guarantee of innovation occurring.

The year 2000 also marked the passing of the Fiscal Responsibility Law (Complementary Law 101), which revised budgetary and expenditure frameworks to implement codes of conduct concerning expenditures for public officials.

Finally, 2000 saw the launch of a strategy for building digital government (Filgueiras, Fernandes and Palotti, 2019: 6), demonstrated in part by the creation of the Executive Committee for Electronic Government, which brought together representatives from several ministries to steer the development and implementation of e-government (OECD, 2018: 48). Electronic procurement was introduced for the first time, including the establishment of “Comprasnet”, a portal enabling electronic reverse auctions.

The year 2002 saw the creation of the e-Gov Award, an additional public sector award of relevance to innovation.

The following year was marked by the launch of the benefits programme “Bolsa Familia”, one of the more well-known cases of public sector innovation from Brazil (see Box 2.3). This case illustrates not only a significant innovation, but also how innovation can be sustained in a specific programme over a considerable period of time.

Box 2.3. Bolsa Familia

An ongoing story of innovation

Bolsa Familia was launched in 2003 as a bundle of conditional cash transfer programmes designed to address issues such as improving food security, reducing the impact of rising prices of gas and providing access to education. The mission of Bolsa Familia was in itself innovative, as conditional cash transfer was a fairly unused and untested concept both in Brazil and elsewhere. Starting with 400 families in 2003, Bolsa Familia’s programmes now deliver benefits to 14 million families, representing 22% of the Brazilian population, making it one of the biggest cash transfer programmes in the world.

This success has not come easily. The organisation was given the mandate to assist families in need; however, Brazil lacked certain enabling conditions necessary for Bolsa Familia to succeed unless it took significant action. This need sparked a number of innovations. For instance, Brazil lacked a unified register to help identify those in need of its services. About 60% of Brazilians were not accounted for in any federal electronic records system – the majority of whom constituted the poor population that Bolsa Familia was designed to help. To address this, programme staff rationalised many different federal systems and mapped out areas for manual data collection where their target demographic was most likely to be found. In doing so, Bolsa Familia created the government’s first unified registry, which is now used by 27 federal programmes and hundreds of sub-national programmes.

A similar set of circumstances catalysed innovation in Bolsa Familia when the Brazil Extreme Poverty Plan was launched in 2011. This very ambitious plan mandated that no Brazilian should have an income under a certain threshold and gave a four-year deadline for eliminating extreme poverty. The plan also expanded Bolsa Familia’s mission and scope. This forced Bolsa Familia to revise its benefits structure to provide non-cash assistance, and to find ways to identify and service specific groups (e.g. smallholding farmers, descendants of slaves and indigenous persons).

Finally, financial tightening in recent years has triggered innovation in Bolsa Familia. In order to continue to achieve their mission, they achieved savings by leveraging data analytics to find efficiencies. These analytics also helped them to attain greater precision in targeting specific groups who need benefits the most.

Bolsa Familia has demonstrated considerable results and impacts over its storied 16 years of existence. It is responsible for eliminating extreme poverty and providing broad access to health and education. It is unlikely that its efforts would have succeeded without the organisation’s focus on innovation and its ability to react to external pressures in an agile way. Programme officials also cite the importance of high-level political support, dedicated and passionate civil servants, and the ability to demonstrate tangible results as key factors in its success.

Source: Interviews

The year 2003 also saw the beginning of a consistent uptick in the previously sporadic use of national public policy conferences, covering varied policy domains such as education, culture and rural development (Secretaria de Governo, 2018). The conferences were designed from the ground up to ensure that issues were discussed at local, state and regional levels before reaching the forums, and involved equal participation from government and civil society, leading to guidelines for public policy design (Pogrebrinschi, 2012b).

In 2004, the Comptroller General (CGU) established the Transparency Portal, a whole-of-government tool designed to increase the fiscal transparency of the Brazilian Federal Government, and encourage public oversight (and control) of public spending (Open Knowledge International, 2019).

The same year saw the enactment of a law (10.973) on innovation which provided a legal framework for science, technology and innovation (Planalto, 2004). While primarily oriented towards the private sector, the law still related to the public sector’s ability to engage with the private sector around innovative technologies.

Additionally, 2004 saw the creation of a further innovation award, Innovare, for practices in the justice system.

In 2005, the government established a further reform plan entitled GesPública:

Its mission was to promote the excellence in public management aiming at contributing to improve the quality in public services offered for citizens, and to increase the competitiveness of the country. The program also presents itself as a powerful instrument of citizenship for citizens and public officials the practical exercise of an ethic, participatory, decentralized, promoter of social control, and results-oriented public administration. (Grin, 2015: 11)

GesPública was designed to be relevant and applicable to all levels of government, not just the federal public sector. While in many ways the key emphases of the plan resonate closely with earlier reform agendas, this plan was argued as being innovative (Grin, 2015: 11).

GesPública emphasised the importance of a focus on the citizen, with particular attention to empowering people to undertake social control through ensuring sufficient transparency and mechanisms for participation.

Guidance was produced for agencies in order to help them entrench these reforms. The Administrative Simplification Guide (2005) was intended for use by organisations to help think through streamlining and simplification, with guidance on simplification planning, process mapping, analysis of process improvements and the implementation of improvements (Gespública, 2005). The agenda was significant, but somewhat intricate:

Gespública outlines 13 management principles: systemic thinking; organizational learning; innovation culture; leadership and constancy of commitments; orientation by processes and information; vision for the future; generation of value; commitment to people; focus on citizens and society; development of partnerships; social responsibility; social control; and participatory management.

The model uses eight management assessment criteria for public organizations: leadership; strategies and plans; citizens; information and knowledge; people; processes; and results. These principles and criteria are measured and analyzed using standards set out in the Instrument for the Assessment of Management and Management Practices. Every excellence criterion contains descriptions of recognized management practices, such as the state of the domain of public administration.

These criteria are distributed across four blocks. The first block (leadership, strategies and plans, citizens and society) is termed planning. The second block (people and processes) represents the execution of planning. The third block (results) symbolizes control. The fourth block (information and knowledge) represents the organization’s intelligence to correct or improve management practices and consequently, its performance. (Resende, 15: 613-614)

The agenda envisioned a systemic approach to reform, an aspect of which was explicit mention of the development of an innovation culture. It introduced a number of elements of relevance to innovation practice, including learning organisations, mistakes as educational tools and a culture of continuous managerial innovation (Grins, 2015: 16). While this agenda shared some of the concerns of earlier reform efforts, it appears to have been the first to pay explicit attention to public sector innovation as a means to achieve other reform goals.

There was a further attempt at streamlining and simplifying public services in 2009, with the Citizen’s Decree (6.932) (Planalto, 2009). This established, through a Charter of Citizen Services, that the public service should reduce the paperwork required to be provided by citizens, and that the government should use electronic means to provide information (Filgueiras, Fernandes and Palotti, 2019: 7).

The same year also saw the introduction of Decree 6.944 which sought to strengthen the capacity of the public service. Among its administrative reforms, it included a “System of Organization and Institutional Innovation of the Federal Government (SIORG)” (Planalto, 2009b).

Other notable developments in 2009 included the release of a National Agenda for Public Administration (Agenda Nacional de Gestão Pública).1 The Agenda, developed by the Secretariat of Strategic Affairs (Secretaria de Assuntos Estratégicos), outlined different themes or issues for public administration (e.g. quality of public policy), and the associated problems, solutions and challenges. The declaration of 2009 as the National Year of Public Management reflected increased attention to sound management practices, and there were also a number of formalised social participation elements to draw in public perspectives. These included the first collaborative law-making consultation process in the Executive Branch (“Marco Civil da Internet”); the establishment of Culturadigital.br, a social network created for the discussion of cultural policies; and the creation of E-Democracia, the social participation portal of the Chamber of Deputies (Câmara dos Deputados). Such developments illustrated a growing awareness and ability to use new channels to engage with citizens, with the potential for innovative outcomes.

The 2010s: A growing emphasis on innovation

Over the last decade, innovation has become more explicit in agendas relevant to the Federal Public Service of Brazil, albeit often with a strong technology or digital flavour.

In 2011, the enactment of Law 12.527 regarding access to information emphasised once more the value and importance of transparency and social control (Planalto, 2011). This coincided with Brazil’s decision to become one of the founding partners of the Open Government Partnership (OGP) (OECD, 2018: 129).

The following year saw two initiatives build on this renewed concern with transparency. The Public Services Portal brought together all digital services in one place, and the Open Data Portal provided a centralised forum for government datasets.

In 2013, a series of demonstrations (the “Confederation Cup riots”) made manifest visceral citizen discontent. While the concerns were primarily political, the protests also served to highlight the need for change, and provided a window of opportunity for public sector innovation.

The year 2013 also saw the establishment of possibly the first public sector innovation lab within the context of the Public Service of Brazil – the “LabHacker” innovation lab (authorised under Resolution 49/13) in the Bureau of the Chamber of Deputies (Chamber of Deputies, 2013).

In 2014, the government introduced a National Policy of Social Participation and a National System of Social Participation (Decree 8.243). These were intended, among other things, to strengthen and promote public participation, including by respecting diversity, valuing civic education and promoting social control as a core part of the operation of government (Planalto, 2014).

The same year also bore witness to “Operation Car Wash” (Operação Lava Jato), an extensive political corruption scandal. While not explored in depth here, this example functions as a useful illustration of the ongoing concern with corruption evident in Brazil’s history.

The number of public servants and elected officeholders suspended or removed from office by the courts or by government agencies responsible for oversight of the bureaucracy has increased tremendously in recent years. (Bertelsmann Stiftung, 2018: 10)

Corruption, or even the perception of corruption, can often lead to significant emphasis on compliance, detailed documentation and rigid processes. While such corruption scandals may not even relate directly to innovation, they do tend to reinforce concerns with due process and ensuring that procedural steps are appropriately followed. Such concerns can sometimes be in tension with innovative initiatives with their associated uncertainty and unpredictability.

The following year was particularly significant in regard to public sector innovation, marking a genuine turning point in attention and interest. In 2015, the then Ministry of Planning established Inova, a functional area with a focus on modernisation and fostering innovation in the federal administration. The same year also saw the launch of the first Public Sector Innovation Week, a forum for bringing together experts, practitioners, public servants and stakeholders interested in innovation, to share knowledge, experiences and lessons. Another series of events entitled Brazil 100% Digital, was also started this year, and involved a joint effort between a number of government bodies. Additionally, the then President of the Federal Court of Accounts (Tribunal de Contas da União, TCU), the external auditing body of Brazil’s federal public sector, created the Colab-i innovation lab.

Decree 8.414 established a further programme of simplification and streamlining (Programa Bem Mais Simples Brasil), again emphasising simplification of access to services and the provision of information by electronic means, as well as encouraging the introduction of digital services (Planalto, 2014).

Additional evidence of growing innovation practice was provided by the Association of Audit Courts of Brazil, which ran a hackathon inviting app developers, civil society organisations and member of Brazil’s local supreme audit institutions to discuss how open data could contribute to the work of the audit institutions (OECD, 2018: 133).

In 2016, the focus on public sector innovation ratcheted up further with the creation of the InovaGov network, a public sector innovation network established through a partnership of TCU, the Ministry of Planning, and the Council of Federal Justice (Conselho da Justiça Federal) (CJF), representing the different divisions of the public sector.

During the same year, ENAP collaborated with the then Danish innovation lab MindLab to establish the GNova innovation lab.

The year also saw notable advances in the digital transformation agenda, with Decree 8.936 establishing the Platform for Digital Citizenship, which set out expectations with regard to digital services, including simplification and user experience, and efforts to facilitate the monitoring of public services (Planalto, 2016a). Decree 8.777, issued the same year, establishing an Open Data Policy which, among other things, emphasised transparency, and promoted social control and the importance of innovation within the public and private sectors (Planalto, 2016b). Most importantly, Decree 8.638 launched the Digital Governance Strategy (see OECD, 2018), which represented a milestone in the digital agenda (Planalto, 2016d).

The year 2016 also saw the law in relation to innovation updated (Planalto, 2016c). While this revision again related primarily to the private sector, it also covered the use of public procurement to stimulate innovation and the ways in which the public sector can collaborate with the private sector.

Finally, 2016 saw the introduction of constitutional amendment 95 which, among other things, capped public expenditure growth for the following 20 years (Planalto, 2016d). As discussed in Chapter 1, the financial constraints it provides are likely to provide an incentive for innovation (although successful innovation often requires initial investment before leading to improved outcomes).

In 2017, the publication of Decree 9.203 provided public governance principles and guidance, including on finding timely and innovative solutions to deal with resource constraints and changing priorities; and promoting administrative simplification, the modernisation of public management and the integration of public services, especially those provided by electronic means (Planalto, 2017c).

In the same year, Law 13.460 and Decree 9.094 established basic rules for participation, protection and defence of the rights of users of public services, and for the simplification of public services (Planalto, 2017a, 2017b). (While the history provided here has not detailed the various ways that each law and decree have interrelated or replaced each other, it should be noted that each may incorporate, revoke or replace parts or the entirety of previous laws and decrees).

A further addition in 2017 was Efficient Brazil (Brasil Eficiente), a modernisation programme that sought to improve the lives of citizens by reducing red tape. Under the programme, it was possible for members of the public to challenge procedural steps through the Simplifique initiative run by CGU. These initiatives were co-ordinated by a National Debureaucratisation Council.

Informal networking nights, known as “iGov nights”, were started for federal public servants situated within the capital city of Brasilia to discuss innovation and digital transformation matters.

In addition, a survey of all public services was undertaken, “mapping the responsibilities, the target audience, the touchpoints of each service in the interaction between users and bureaucracy, costs, processes and types of deliveries” (Filgueiras, Fernandes and Palotti 2019: 10). This first such survey provided a base for assessing the potential for digital transformation, although the information is likely to be useful for understanding the potential for services innovation.

In 2018, the Digital Governance Strategy was revised:

Grouped around three main pillars (access to information, service delivery and social participation), the revised Digital Governance Strategy defines five strategic objectives, namely: 1) promoting open government data availability; 2) promoting transparency through the use of IC; 3) expanding and innovating the delivery of digital services; 4) sharing and integrating data, processes, systems, services and infrastructure; and 5) improving social participation in the lifecycle of public policies and services. (OECD, 2018: 51)

This revision occurred in line with the publication of Decree 9.319, which set out a National System for Digital Transformation and a Brazilian Strategy for Digital Transformation, although the system and strategy had an economy-wide focus. The digital transformation agenda within Brazil provides an opportunity for public sector innovation, though innovation is viewed in broader terms than digital transformation.

Law 13.276 emphasised red tape reduction (Planalto, 2018a), while Law 13.655 attempted to ensure that audits and evaluations of government activities considered the real-world context of public servants, rather than adhering to abstract legal principles that may not always be feasible or reasonable (Planalto, 2018b).

Lastly, 2018 saw the creation of yet another public sector innovation award, the Public Spirit innovation award (sponsored by Agenda Brasil do Futuro and Instituto República). A number of public agencies also established innovation labs during this year.

At the beginning of 2019, Decree 9.723 (Planalto, 2019a) was issued to reduce bureaucracy and provide a ranking of public entities in response to complaints and issues with user satisfaction (de Castro, 2019). Additionally, Decree 9.739 reorganised the System of Organization and Institutional Innovation of the Federal Government (Planalto, 2019b), although it is not evident how the previous system had been functioning since its establishment in 2009.

A timeline of key milestones

Box 2.4 provides a chronological timeline of elements discussed in the previous section, to illustrate the spread of relevant initiatives, and to better highlight the growth in innovation-related activity in more recent years.

Box 2.4. A timeline: Key milestones and developments in Brazil’s historical public sector innovation journey

1937

• Law 378/1937 establishes the Ministry of Education and Public Health, including the creation of National Conferences on education and health to facilitate government learning about relevant activities to these two sectors.

1941

• The first National Conference is held on health.

1956

• Creation of the Bureaucratic Simplification Committee.

1967

• Decree-Law 200/1967 provides for the organisation of the Federal Administration, and establishes guidelines for Administrative Reform, among other measures.

1979

• Creation of an Extraordinary Ministry of Debureaucratisation (Ministério Extraordinário para a Desburocratização) and the National Programme of Debureaucratisation (Programa Nacional de Desburocratização) (Decree 83.740).

1985

• Secretariat of Federal Administration is created with oversight of human resources policy and responsibility to improve bureaucratic efficiency.

1986

• The functions of the Ministry of Debureaucratisation are folded into another ministry (Decree 92.486/1986).

• Creation of ENAP, the National School of Public Administration (Escola Nacional de Administração Pública).

1988

• The post-dictatorship Constitution is enshrined.

1990

• Launch of the Program of Quality and Productivity, including the Sub-committee for Public Administration, to expand quality and productivity of public sector bodies and increase efficiency, with a greater emphasis on societal rather than bureaucratic needs.

• Establishment of the Federal Deregulation Program (Decree 99.179/1990), which is concerned, among other things, with reducing state interference, achieving greater efficiency and reducing service costs, and ensuring that services better meet the needs of users.

1991

• Launch of the National Program of “Desestatization” (NPD) and commencement of the privatisation of many state-owned enterprises.

1993

• Enactment of the Procurement Law setting out rules for bids and contracts of the Public Administration and other provisions (Law 8.666/1993).

1994

• Creation of the Court of Accounts corporate school (Instituto Serzedello Corrêa, ISC).

1995

• Release of the “Plano Diretor da Reforma do Aparelho do Estado” Master Plan for State Reform / Reform Plan of State Apparatus.

• Creation of the Ministry of Administration and State Reform (MARE).

• Establishment of the Program of Quality and Participation in Public Administration (PAQP) established.

1996

• Creation of the Federal Management Innovation Award (ENAP).

• Creation of the Congress of Information Technology and Innovation in Public Management (CONIP) Excellence Award created.

1998

• Constitutional amendment (19/1998) implements public administration reforms and introduces efficiency as one of the principles for public administration.

• Constitutional amendment (20/1998) implements social security reforms and revises limits to public servant benefits.

• Privatisation initiatives are implemented at the subnational level.

1999

• Abolition of the Ministry of Administration and State Reform (MARE).

2000

• Launch of the Advance Brazil Plan (Plano Avança Brasil) Modernisation Program.

• Introduction of electronic procurement, including the establishment of “Comprasnet”, a portal for electronic reverse auctions.

• Enactment of the Fiscal Responsibility Law (Complementary Law 101), which revised budgetary and expenditure frameworks to implement codes of conduct concerning expenditures for public officials.

• Resumption of a National Program of Debureaucratisation and establishment of the Interministerial Committee on De-bureaucratisation and the Sectorial Executive Committees on De-bureaucratization (Decree 3.335/2000).

• Introduction of Standards of quality of care (Decree 3.507/2000), including a requirement for agencies to establish standards of quality of care, and establishment of a national system for evaluation of public service user satisfaction.

2002

• Creation of the e-Gov Award (ABEP and MPDG).

2003

• Creation of the innovative Bolsa Familia benefits programme.

2004

• Establishment of the Transparency Portal.

• Enactment of Law 10.973/2004 creating an innovation/legal framework for science, technology and innovation (primarily oriented towards the private sector).

• Creation of the Innovation Award, “Innovare”, for practices in the justice system (sponsored by the Innovare Institute).

2005

• Establishment of Gespública (National Programme for Public Management and Debureaucratisation), to improve the quality of management practices in public sector organisations (amalgamating/replacing the National Programme of Debureaucratisation and the Quality Programme in Public Service) (Decree 5.738/2005 which revoked Decree 83.740).

• Publication of the Administrative Simplification Guide (Guia “d” Simplificação Administrativa).

2009

• Enactment of the “Citizens Decree” (6.932/2009), promoting public service simplification and integration.

• Enactment of Decree 6.944/2009 for the improvement of public administration, rules for recruitment tenders and public sector innovation.

• National Year of Public Management / National Public Management Agenda.

• First collaborative law making consultation process in the Executive Branch (Marco Civil da Internet).

• Culturadigital.br, a social network created for the discussion of cultural policies.

• Creation of Culturadigital.br, a social network for the discussion of cultural policies.

• Enactment of complementary Law 131, which amended the Fiscal Responsibility Law to include transparency and social participation obligations.

2011

• Enactment of the Law of Access to Information (12.527/11).

• Launch of the National Open Government Action Plan.

2012

• Establishment of the Brazilian Open Data Portal.

• Creation of the Public Services Portal.

2013

• Creation of the “HackerLab” innovation lab (Resolution 49/13) in the Bureau of the Chamber of Deputies.

2014

• Launch of the National Policy of Social Participation and National Social Participation System (Decree 8.243/14).

2015

• First Public Sector Innovation Week held.

• Start of the Brazil 100% Digital event series.

• TCU establishes Colab-i innovation lab.

• MPDG establishes Inova, a functional area with a focus on modernisation and fostering innovation in the federal administration.

• Launch of the further simplification programme (Decree 8.414/2015) to simplify and streamline the delivery of public services and improve the business environment and efficiency of the public administration.

• The Association of Audit Courts of Brazil runs a hackathon to explore how open data could contribute to the work of the audit institutions.

2016

• Creation of the InovaGov public sector innovation network.

• Establishment of the Digital Citizenship Platform (Decree 8.936/16).

• Release of the Digital Governance Policy (Decree 8.638/16).

• ENAP creates the GNova Innovation Lab in partnership with Denmark’s MindLab.

• The Innovation Law is updated (13.243/2016).

• A Constitutional Amendment (95/2016) caps public expenditure for the next 20 years.

• Publication of the Open Data Policy (Decree 8.777/16).

• Launch of the ANVISA pilot project on innovation.

2017

• Enactment of Law 13.460 and Decree 9.094 establish basic rules for participation, protection and defence of the rights of users of public services, and for the simplification of public services. Decree 9.094 repeals Decree 5.378/2005 and restores the “presumption of good faith”, in addition to other principles established by Decree No. 83.740 of 1979.

• Launch of Efficient Brazil (Brasil Eficiente), a programme to improve the lives of citizens using public services and to reduce red tape.

• Publication of the code of defence of the rights of users of public services (Law 13.460/17).

• Establishment of iGov Nights to help innovators network.

• Launch of the Govdata Platform.

• Provision of services using a “Single Sign-on” solution for authentication.

• ANAC establishes an innovation lab.

• DNIT creates n3i – the Nucleus of New Businesses and Innovation.

• The Ministry of Planning and ENAP partner to carry out the first ever Public Services Census in the Federal Government in Brazil.

2018

• Creation of the Public Spirit innovation award (Agenda Brasil do Futuro & Instituto Republica).

• The Central Bank (Banco Central) creates LIFT, a laboratory for financial and technological innovation.

• The Federal Prosecution Attorney’s Office (Ministério Público Federal) creates an advisory unit on sustainability and innovation.

• ANVISA creates a programme on innovation management and transforms its prior pilot project (Fábrica de Ideias) into a lab (Lab-i-Visa).

• Launch of the National System for Digital Transformation and the Brazilian Strategy for Digital Transformation (E-Digital) (Decree 9.319/18).

• Introduction of Law 13.655/18 to provide greater guidance to courts and auditing authorities around action by civil servants.

• Launch of the first chatbot to help citizens navigate the Service Portal.

• Release of the first broad quality management research in federal public services by INOVA.

• Enactment of red tape reduction legislation (Law 13.726).

2019

• Publication of Decree (9.723/2019) to reduce bureaucracy and provide a ranking of public entities in regard to complaints and user satisfaction issues.

• Publication of Decree (9.739/2019) reorganising the System of Organization and Institutional Innovation of the Federal Government.

Source: Interviews, workshop and research.

Patterns and trends in the historical journey

The following section examines some of the patterns and trends that appear from the historical innovation journey of the Public Service of Brazil.

A legalistic system

As in other countries with a civil law system, the context of the Brazilian Public Service is highly legalistic. Change initiatives are consistently set out in laws or in Presidential Decrees, rather than in policies or soft agendas as might be seen in other countries (e.g. see Government of Canada, 2017, 2013; Australian Government, 2011, 2010). The intersection of different laws and decrees appears to be quite complicated, especially as they each build upon preceding ones over time, with varying degrees of overlap or revocation.

Some possible repercussions for the public sector innovation system include:

• a lack of a clear message about what is expected

• a significant transaction cost for those within the system trying to understand what is actually required under the law at any one time.

A recurrent focus on debureaucratisation

There have been clear and consistent repeated efforts at debureaucratisation and administrative simplification since at least 1979 (Coimbra and Xavier, 2017), if not reaching back to the 1950s. This suggests that a tendency towards being overly bureaucratic is heavily integrated into the operations, traditions and practices of the Public Service of Brazil, with the result that new bureaucratic additions are created when older ones are removed. A likely explanation of this tendency is a structural driver within the system, a probable candidate being the legalistic system, as complex arrangements of laws are matched by complicated bureaucratic responses from the public service.

Attempts to articulate the relationship between debureaucratisation and innovation have begun only recently, thus it is still unclear to what extent the agendas are complementary.

An ongoing emphasis on the citizen

There has been an ongoing emphasis on the citizen (and the service user), and concern with their rights. This may actually reflect an inbuilt tendency within the system to not appreciate the citizen perspective. If the citizen perspective and their rights were well integrated into the workings of the system, it is likely that such attention would not be required. That this emphasis has continued before, during and after the military dictatorship, suggests that it may be an engrained feature, again indicating underlying contributing structural factors.

The emphasis on the citizen has been accompanied by a growing interest in understanding the actual results and outcomes for citizens and service users, as witnessed by the introduction of quality management, a results orientation and, more recently, greater efforts to actually track and compare satisfaction among differing services.

While this trend is likely to complement innovation – in that intelligence about where things are working or not can provide a useful spur for innovation – this is not guaranteed. A results focus, for instance, may concentrate attention on current performance, rather than what might work in the future.

A strong emphasis on controls and corruption

There are strong control or audit elements built into the Public Service of Brazil, reflecting a concern with corruption, the potential for corruption or with ensuring quality public administration (or possibly all three). However, control mechanisms can have an uneasy relationship with innovation. While an audit or evaluation often makes comparisons against a standard or an ideal benchmark, innovation represents novelty, and therefore may have no comparable benchmark. Innovation is uncertain and involves significant learning, and thus has a high potential for outcomes that, in retrospect, can easily be called mistakes but that at the time may have been the most justifiable course of action.

A focus on social control and citizen participation

There has also been an ongoing preoccupation with social control. This is the notion that engaged and empowered citizens and service users can and should play a crucial role in the oversight of public services. The hope or aspiration is that such a role will lead to services that are more attuned to needs, as well as ensuring that those services are also appropriately managed and implemented. Such a trend is likely to be conducive to creating a climate and desire for innovation. However, this focus does not necessarily imply a high degree of competence from such actors; instead it implies that the natural tendencies of the broader system are deficient.

The existence of Policy Conferences also demonstrates a longstanding practice of civic engagement across a range of policy domains, a practice also likely to be complementary to an interest in innovation, as well as being innovative in and of itself:

NPPCs [National Public Policies Conferences] are a national-level democratic innovation. Their impact is expected mostly at this level, either in the shape of policies formulated and enacted by the national legislature or designed and implemented by the federal public administration. (Pogrebinschi & Ryan, 2017: 138)

Attention to digital transformation

As identified by the OECD, there have been significant and increasing efforts in regards to ICT and the digital transformation of public services:

Digital technologies are being mobilised to rethink services, re-engineer business processes and simplify procedures to make sure they are up to the expectation of digital economies and societies. (OECD, 2018: 43)

A focus on the digital transformation is likely to drive innovation; however, this may take particular directions, rather than being broad-based or necessarily engaging those outside of (or who see themselves as outside of) the technology space.

As an agenda, innovation has gained momentum but has not yet integrated into the narrative of the Public Service of Brazil

As the historical journey demonstrates, innovation has been a longstanding concern of the Public Service of Brazil, with added emphasis from 2015 onwards. However, as can also be seen from the historical record, innovation does not yet appear to be fully integrated into the narrative of the Public Service. The various reform agendas have either intimated or explicitly mentioned innovation, but innovation does not appear to be a central focus nor an integrated component of how those (or any) reform agendas may be achieved. This suggests that while the trend is moving in favour of public sector innovation, and that the environment as discussed in Chapter 1 will likely call for and require innovation, more needs to be done if innovation is to become a resource that can be drawn upon by government when and as needed.

There is complexity in a dynamic context

There is considerable complexity within the context of the Brazilian Public Service. This likely derives from the evident tensions between:

• ensuring appropriate controls, and repeated efforts to decentralise, simplify and streamline processes

• individual attempts to provide legislative clarity and mandate, and a legalistic system where each additional element contributes to a sense of confusion, as each piece adds further intricacy

• an ongoing ambition or desire to consider the citizen, and a bureaucratic inertia that appears to continually result in overly complicated procedures

• specific reform agendas and a clear sense of what the state apparatus is meant to be.

Implications of the historical journey

The historical journey provides a number of insights into the current and future public sector innovation system of the Public Service of Brazil. The following are some of the implications of the historical journey:

• While interest in innovation has persisted for some time, increasing recognition of the value and necessity of innovation, and subsequently more effort and experimentation to support innovation, is a relatively recent phenomenon.

• Innovation cannot be simply mandated. While directives that emphasise innovation are likely to be helpful, the evidence thus far suggests that they are inadequate to inculcate a deep practice of innovation.

• Likewise, to make substantial progress on innovation, a focus on legal instruments is probably going to be necessary but insufficient. The journey thus far suggests that more is needed. Repeated attempts at laws and decrees on similar topics suggest only a partial ability to achieve systemic change within Brazil’s public sector.

• The strong bureaucratic elements of the Brazilian context, matched with a strong institutional leaning towards control, suggest that innovation is likely going to need embedded structural support to counter the default biases within the system.

• Existing tendencies and strengths, such as emphasis on the citizen and social control and participation, while not necessarily always successful, are likely to be conducive to innovation and can be leveraged for any systemic innovation agenda.

• The successes within the digital transformation agenda and the transparency agenda may provide a model for engendering a more supportive environment for public sector innovation. However, these need to be assessed in the light of lived experience and consideration of whether the same structural forces are at play in relation to both the digital agenda and innovation.

• Similar to the reform journey, the innovation journey is ongoing, with no single “answer” but rather a continuing series of steps. Each step will provide new insights and lessons about what works and what does not, as well as unexpected or unforeseen developments. The journey also takes place in a shifting context, as political aims and expectations of the public sector change, sometimes abruptly. What is needed and sought from the public sector innovation system has and will continually change.

Integrating innovation

The historical journey suggests that more still needs to be done to integrate public sector innovation if it is to be relied upon to address the existing, evolving and emerging challenges faced by the Public Service of Brazil. Additional and novel interventions are likely to be needed to meaningfully alter this situation.

The next section thus introduces models to help consider what a more deliberate approach to public sector innovation might look like. These models can then be used to make sense of the current lived experience of innovation and to appraise whether current interventions may be sufficient to tackle what might come next.

References

Australian Government (2011), Australian Public Service Innovation Action Plan, Australian Government, Canberra, https://archive.industry.gov.au/innovation/publicsectorinnovation/Documents/APS_Innovation_Action_Plan.pdf.

Australian Government (2010), Ahead of the Game: Blueprint for the Reform of Australian Government, Australian Government, Canberra.

Bresser-Pereira, L.C. (2003) “The 1995 public management reform in Brazil: Reflections of a reformer”, in B.R. Schneider & B. Heredia (eds.), Reinventing Leviathan, North-South Center Press, Miami, pp.89-109.

Brooke, J. (1981), “‘Champion minister’ skewers bureaucracy as Brazil cheers”, The Washington Post, https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1981/02/15/champion-minister-skewers-bureaucracy-as-brazil-cheers/3d0bd51d-5561-412b-a9ec-ab9e62b6ad36.

Campbell, A.F. (2016), “A day in the life of Brazil's insane bureaucracy”, The Atlantic, https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2016/08/brazil-bureaucracy-despachantes/494426/.

Cardim, P. (2017), “Desburocratização: de Hélio Beltrão a Michel Temer” [Debureaucratisation: From Helio Beltrão to Michel Temer], Blog da Reitoria, no. 306, 31 July 2017, www.belasartes.br/diretodareitoria/artigos/desburocratizacao-de-helio-beltrao-a-michel-temer.

de Castro, M.S.M. (2019), “Rumo à digitalização e à simplificação dos serviços públicos” [Towards digitization and simplification of public services], InovaGov, 12 March, http://inova.gov.br/rumo-a-digitalizacao-e-a-simplificacao-dos-servicos-publicos.

Cavalcante, P. and M. Camões (2017), “Do the Brazilian innovations in public management constitute a new model?”, RAI Revista de Administração e Inovação, Vol 14, pp. 90-96, Elsevier, São Paulo.

Chamber of Deputies (2013), “Resolução da Câmara dos Deputados No. 49, de 2013” [House of Representatives Resolution No. 49, 2013], Brasilia, www2.camara.leg.br/legin/fed/rescad/2013/resolucaodacamaradosdeputados-49-17-dezembro-2013-777698-norma-pl.html.

Coimbra, L. and R.M. Xavier (2017) “Temer é o 7º presidente a falar em desburocratizar país desde os anos 70” [Temer is the 7th president to talk about reducing bureaucracy since the 1970s], Poder360, 24 July, www.poder360.com.br/economia/temer-e-o-7o-presidente-a-falar-em-desburocratizar-pais-desde-os-anos-70.

De Almeida, S.S.C. (2000), “Recent changes in the Brazilian Constitution: From reform to growth”, The George Washington University & Institute of Brazilian Business and Public Management Issues, Washington, DC, www2.gwu.edu/~ibi/minerva/Spring2000/Almeida.pdf.

Ellsworth, B. (2011), “Witness: Bureaucracy mindbend - Brazil taxes my busted microwave”, 21 November, Reuters, https://www.reuters.com/article/us-brazil-witness-idUSTRE7AK0QW20111121.

Ferrarezi, E. and S. Amorim (2007), “Concurso Inovação na Gestão Pública Federal: análise de uma trajetória (1996-2006)” [Innovation competition in Federal Public Management: Analysis of a trajectory (1996-2006)], Cadernos ENAP, www.researchgate.net/publication/312446173_Concurso_inovacao_na_gestao_publica_federal_Analise_de_uma_trajetoria_1996-2006.

Filgueiras, F., F.C. Fernandes and P.L.M. Palotti (2019), “Digital transformation and public services delivery in Brazil”, www.researchgate.net/publication/330145305_Digital_Transformation_and_Public_Services_Delivery_in_Brazil.

GesPública (2005), “Guia ‘d’ Simplificação Administrativa” [Administrative Simplification Guide], www.gespublica.gov.br/simplifica%C3%A7%C3%A3o-administrativa.

Grin, E.J. (2015), “The National Program of Public Management and Debureaucratization (GesPública) in Brazil: A case of policy domain in a setting of institutional and administrative change”, International Conference on Public Policy, Milan, 1-4 July 2015, www.ippapublicpolicy.org/file/paper/1433694973.pdf.

Government of Canada (2017), Federal, Provincial and Territorial Declaration on Public Sector Innovation, Government of Canada, https://www.canada.ca/en/innovation-hub/services/Federal-Provincial-Territorial-Declaration-Public-Sector-Innovation.html.

Government of Canada (2013), Blueprint 2020, Government of Canada, https://www.canada.ca/en/privy-council/services/blueprint-2020/about.html.

Majeed, R. (2010), “Strengthening public administration: Brazil, 1995-1998”, Innovation for Successful Societies, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, https://web.archive.org/web/20190328081701/https://successfulsocieties.princeton.edu/sites/successfulsocieties/files/Policy_Note_ID150.pdf.

Martins, M.H. (2018), “Fim do GesPública: Temer revogou” [End of GesPública: Temer repeals], http://gestaopublica.net/blog/fim-do-gespublica-temer-revogou.

Matei, A. and R. Bujac (2015), “Innovation and public reform”, Procedia Economics and Finance, Vol. 39, pp.761-768, https://www.researchgate.net/publication/305396514_Innovation_and_Public_Reform.

Menezes, D.F.N. (2015), “Constitutional and economic development policy of Brazil”, Revista Direito Mackenzie, Vol.9/1, pp.165-201.

Ministry of Planning, Budget and Management (2001), “Avança Brasil – Programa de Modernização dá agilidade a órgãos do Governo” [Avança Brasil – Modernization Program gives agility to government agencies], Brasilia, www.planejamento.gov.br/assuntos/planejamento-e-investimentos/noticias/avanca-brasil-programa-de-modernizacao-da.

Musacchio, A. and S.G. Lazzarini (2014), “State-owned enterprises in Brazil: History and Lessons”, Background material for the Workshop on SOEs in the Development Process, OECD, Paris.

OECD (2018), Digital Government Review of Brazil: Towards the Digital Transformation of the Public Sector, OECD Digital Government Studies, OECD Publishing, Paris, https://doi.org/10.1787/9789264307636-en.

Open Knowledge International (2019), “Brazilian Transparency Portal – access to information and citizen oversight”, Open Spending Community, Open Knowledge International, Cambridge, UK, http://community.openspending.org/resources/gift/chapter2-4 (accessed March 2019).

Pearson, S. (2013), “Top right: battling Brazil’s bureaucracy”, Financial Times, 10 May, www.ft.com/content/4bfb07b8-54bd-39fa-aac3-449f160478b2.

Petinelli, V., I.L. Lins and C.F. Faria, (2011), “Conferências de Políticas Públicas: um Sistema Integrado de Participação e Deliberação?” [Public Policy Conferences: An integrated system of participation and deliberation?], IV Congresso Latino Americano de Opinião Pública da WAPOR, Belo Horizonte, 4-6 May, www.waporbh.ufmg.br/papers/Cludia_Feres_Faria_1.pdf.

Planalto (2019a), “Decreto No. 9.723, de 11 de Março de 2019” [Decree No.9.273, 11 March 2019], Presidency of the Republic, Brasilia, http://www.planalto.gov.br/ccivil_03/_Ato2019-2022/2019/Decreto/D9723.htm.

Planalto (2019b), “Decreto No. 9.739, de 28 Março de 2019” [Decree No. 9.739, 28 March 2019], Presidency of the Republic, Brasilia, http://www.planalto.gov.br/ccivil_03/_Ato2019-2022/2019/Decreto/D9739.htm.

Planalto (2018a), “Lei No. 13.726, de 8 de Outubro de 2018” [Law No. 13.726, 8 October 2018], Presidency of the Republic, Brasilia, http://www.planalto.gov.br/ccivil_03/_ato2015-2018/2018/Lei/L13726.htm.

Planalto (2018b), “Lei No. 13.655, de 25 de Abril de 2018” [Law No. 13.655, 25 April 2018], Presidency of the Republic, Brasilia, http://www.planalto.gov.br/ccivil_03/_Ato2015-2018/2018/Lei/L13655.htm.

Planalto (2018c), “Decreto No. 9.319, de 21 de Março de 2018” [Decree No. 9.319, 21 March 2018], Presidency of the Republic, Brasilia, http://www.planalto.gov.br/ccivil_03/_Ato2015-2018/2018/Decreto/D9319.htm.

Planalto (2017a), “Lei No. 13.460, de 26 de Junho de 2017” [Law No. 13.460, 26 June 2017], Presidency of the Republic, Brasilia, http://www.planalto.gov.br/ccivil_03/_Ato2015-2018/2017/Lei/L13460.htm.

Planalto (2017b), “Decreto No. 9.094, de 17 de Julho de 2017” [Decree No. 9.094, 17 July 2017], Presidency of the Republic, Brasilia, http://www.planalto.gov.br/ccivil_03/_Ato2015-2018/2017/Decreto/D9094.htm.

Planalto (2017c), “Decreto No. 9.203, de 22 de Novembro de 2017” [Decree No. 9.203, 22 November 2017], Presidency of the Republic, Brasilia, http://www.planalto.gov.br/ccivil_03/_ato2015-2018/2017/Decreto/D9203.htm.

Planalto (2016a), “Decreto No. 8.936, de 19 de Dezembro de 2016” [Decree No.8.936, 19 December 2016], Presidency of the Republic, Brasilia, http://www.planalto.gov.br/ccivil_03/_Ato2015-2018/2016/Decreto/D8936.htm.

Planalto (2016b), “Decreto No. 8.777, de 11 de Maio de 2016” [Decree No. 8.777, 11 May 2016], Presidency of the Republic, Brasilia, http://www.planalto.gov.br/CCIVIL_03/_Ato2015-2018/2016/Decreto/D8777.htm.

Planalto (2016c), “Decreto No. 8.638, de 15 de Janeiro de 2016” [Decree No. 8.638, 15 January 2016], Presidency of the Republic, Brasilia, http://www.planalto.gov.br/ccivil_03/_Ato2015-2018/2016/Decreto/D8638.htm.

Planalto (2016d), “Lei No. 13.243, de 11 de Janeiro de 2016” [Law No. 13.243, 11 January 2016], Presidency of the Republic, Brasilia, http://www.planalto.gov.br/ccivil_03/_Ato2015-2018/2016/Lei/L13243.htm.

Planalto (2016e), “Emenda Constitucional No. 19, de 15 de Dezembro de 2016” [Constitutional Amendment No. 19, 15 December 2016], Presidency of the Republic, Brasilia, http://www.planalto.gov.br/ccivil_03/Constituicao/Emendas/Emc/emc95.htm.

Planalto (2015), “Decreto No. 8.414, de 26 de Fevereiro de 2015” [Decree No.8414, 26 February 2015], Presidency of the Republic, Brasilia, http://www.planalto.gov.br/ccivil_03/_ato2015-2018/2015/decreto/d8414.htm.

Planalto (2014), “Decreto No. 8.243, de 23 de Maio de 2014” [Decree No. 8.243, 23 Mai 2014], Presidency of the Republic, Brasilia, http://www.planalto.gov.br/ccivil_03/_ato2011-2014/2014/decreto/d8243.htm.

Planalto (2011), “Lei No. 12.527, de 18 Novembro de 2011” [Law No. 12.527, 18 November 2011], Presidency of the Republic, Brasilia, http://www.planalto.gov.br/ccivil_03/_ato2011-2014/2011/lei/l12527.htm.

Planalto (2009a), “Decreto No. 6.932, de 11 de Agosto de 2009” [Decree No.6.932, 11 August 2009], Presidency of the Republic, Brasilia, http://www.planalto.gov.br/ccivil_03/_Ato2007-2010/2009/Decreto/D6932.htm.

Planalto (2009b), “Decreto No. 6.944, de 21 de Agosto de 2009” [Decree No. 6.944, 21 August 2009], Presidency of the Republic, Brasilia, http://www.planalto.gov.br/ccivil_03/_Ato2007-2010/2009/Decreto/D6944.htm.

Planalto (2005), “Decreto No. 5.378, de 23 de Fevereiro de 2005” [Decree No. 5.378, 23 February 2005, Presidency of the Republic, Brasilia, http://www.planalto.gov.br/ccivil_03/_Ato2004-2006/2005/Decreto/D5378.htm.

Planalto (2004), “Lei No. 10.973, de 2 de Dezembro de 2004” [Law No. 10.973, 2 December 2004], Presidency of the Republic, Brasilia, http://www.planalto.gov.br/ccivil_03/_Ato2004-2006/2004/Lei/L10.973.htm.

Planalto (2000a), “Decreto No. 3.335, de 11 de Janeiro de 2000” [Decree No. 3.335, 11 January 2000], Presidency of the Republic, Brasilia, http://www.planalto.gov.br/ccivil_03/decreto/D3335.htm.

Planalto (2000b), “Decreto No. 3.507, de 13 de Junho de 2000” [Decree No. 3.507, 13 June 2000], Presidency of the Republic, Brasilia, http://www.planalto.gov.br/ccivil_03/decreto/D3507.htm.

Planalto (1998a), “Emenda Constitucional No. 19, de 04 de Junho de 1998” [Constitutional amendment No. 19, 4 June 1998], Presidency of the Republic, Brasilia, http://www.planalto.gov.br/ccivil_03/Constituicao/Emendas/Emc/emc19.htm.

Planalto (1998b), “Emenda Constitucional No. 20, de 15 de Dezembro de 1998” [Constitutional Amendment No. 20, 15 December 1998], Presidency of the Republic, Brasilia, http://www.planalto.gov.br/ccivil_03/Constituicao/Emendas/Emc/emc20.htm.

Planalto (1993), “Lei No. 8.666, de 21 de Junho de 1993” [Law No. 8.666, 21 June 1993], Presidency of the Republic, Brasilia, http://www.planalto.gov.br/ccivil_03/LEIS/L8666cons.htm.

Planalto (1990), “Decreto No. 99.179, de 15 de Março de 1990” [Decree No. 99.179, 15 March 1990], Presidency of the Republic, Brasilia, http://www.planalto.gov.br/ccivil_03/decreto/1990-1994/D99179.htm.

Planalto (1986), “Decreto No. 92.486, de 21 de Março de 1986” [Decree No. 92.486, 21 march 1986], Presidency of the Republic, Brasilia, http://www.planalto.gov.br/ccivil_03/decreto/1980-1989/1985-1987/D92486.htm.

Planalto (1979), “Decreto No. 83.740, de 18 de Julho de 1979” [Decree No. 83.740, 18 July 1979], Presidency of the Republic, Brasilia, http://www.planalto.gov.br/ccivil_03/decreto/D83740.htm.

Planalto (1967), “Decreto-Lei No. 200, de 25 de Fevereiro de 1967” [Decree-Law No. 200, 25 February 1967], Presidency of the Republic, Brasilia, http://www.planalto.gov.br/ccivil_03/decreto-lei/del0200.htm.

Planalto (1937), “Lei No. 378, de 13 de Janeiro de 1937” [Law No. 378, 13 January 1937], Presidency of the Republic, Brasilia, http://www.planalto.gov.br/ccivil_03/leis/1930-1949/L0378.htm.

Pogrebinschi, T. (2012a), “Conferências nacionais e políticas públicas para grupos minoritários [National conferences and public policy for minority groups]”, Instituto de Pesquisa Econômica Aplicada (IPEA), www.ipea.gov.br/participacao/images/pdfs/td_1741.pdf.

Pogrebinsch, T. (2012b), “Participation as Representation: Democratic policymaking in Brazil”, in M.A Cameron, E. Hershberg and K.E Sharpe (eds.), New Institutions for Participatory Democracy in Latin America, Palgrave Macmillan, New York.

Porgrebinschi, T. & Ryan, M. (2017), “Moving beyond input legitimacy: When do democratic innovations affect policy making?”, European Journal of Political Research, vol. 57, no.1, https://doi.org/10.1111/1475-6765.12219.

Resende Jr, P.C. (2015), “Organizational performance in the public sector: An analysis of the GésPublica program”, Journal of Economics, Business and Management, Vol. 3/6, pp. 613-618, http://www.joebm.com/papers/254-T00012.pdf.

Rohter, L. (2010), Brazil on the Rise: The Story of a Country Transformed, St. Martin’s Griffin, New York.

Secretaria de Governo (2018), “Histórico de conferências nacionais” [History of national conferences], Brasilia, www.secretariadegoverno.gov.br/participacao-social/conferencias/HistricodeConfernciasPosio21_08_18.pdf.

Siegel, G.B. (1966), “The strategy of public administration reform: The case of Brazil”, Public Administration Review, Vol. 26/1, pp. 45-55, www.jstor.org/stable/973929.

Sousa, M.M., V.R.S. Ferreira, E. Najberg and J.J. Medeiros (2015), “Portraying innovation in the public service of Brazil: Frameworks, systematization and characterization”, RAU USP Management Journal, Vol. 50/4, pp. 460-476.

Note

← 1. www.robertounger.com/pt/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/gestao-publica.pdf.

2. Brazil’s historical innovation journey