Acting To Transform: Social Control And Transparency

BASIC CITY DATA

• Population size: 3,039,444

• Population growth rate (%): 0.77

• Surface area (sq.km): 5,802.00

• Population density (people/sq.km): 444.07

• GDP per capita (USD): 615.00

• GINI index: 0.60

• Main source of prosperity: Considering that Brasília is the political center of Brazil, its main economic activities are a reflection of its administrative function, since it is composed of the administrative structure of the federal government, presenting, therefore, as the main source of prosperity the service area.

ABSTRACT

Brasília has adopted internationally recognized internal control practices, such as the Internal Audit Capability Model for the public sector, developed by the Institute of Internal Auditors, validated and supported by the World Bank to improve the strategic development of internal auditing of the public sector.

In addition, efforts have been made to foster social participation and the development of technological tools and solutions to strengthen transparency, encouraging the involvement of society in the control and enforcement of public resources, for example, the SIGA Brasilia app and the Transparency Portal, which present, among other information, the expenditures of the Government of the Federal District, public revenues collected by the Government and bids, all in a simple way and with a language easily understood by the citizen.

Still under the focus of social participation, the Controllership in the School project was implemented and seeks to foster the active citizenship of students and teachers in the school environment. Its central instrument is the civic auditing methodology, a stage of the project in which the problems existing in the school environment are collected by students who identify their causes and promote the search for solutions.

Another important instrument of social participation is the Ombudsman System - OUV-DF, a friendly and easy-to-navigate platform that allows citizen to register and monitor the progress of their manifestations through the internet, being able in the end to respond to a satisfaction survey regarding the response received and the service provided by the ombudsman.

BACKGROUND INFORMATION

Initiatives implemented by the Office of Federal District General Comptroller contribute to achievement of Goal 16. Peace, justice and strong institutions and Goal 17. Partnerships for the goals, both part of the Sustainable Development agenda. In addition, are in line with Pluriannual Plan which is a government instrument that establishes guidelines for implementation of public policies of administrative structure of the Government of the Federal District, as well as the Institutional Strategic Plan which establishes action directives for 2016-2019 period.

ORIGINS

Over the years, the Federal District Government has involved in actions to combat corruption, promoting transparency and the participation of society in the supervision of governmental actions, through internationally recognized internal control practices and the availability of transparency instruments that enable access to income and expenses of the Government of Federal District.

An important initiative adopted was risk management which contributed to strengthen the governance of Brasília. It involved the implementation in 7 departments and entities of the Government of the Federal District. Itt seeks to integrate risk management as a key element of managerial responsibility, in order to promote integrity and prevent misconduct, diversion and corruption. We can mention as examples Subway Company, Blood Donation Department amd Environment Department. 

In the social control aspect, the Controllership in the School initiative seeks to foster the active citizenship of students and teachers in the school environment by civic audit methodology, a stage of the project in which the problems existing in the school environment are identified, their causes and seeking solutions are stimulated. In 2016, 10 schools and 1.022 students participated in the initiative and, in 2017, 104 schools and 4.000 students, totalizing 114 schools and 5.022 students in 2 years.

And the Ombudsman System - OUV-DF was developed as  a friendly and easy-to-navigate platform in which the citizen registers, monitors the progress of their demonstrations through the internet and ends their demand.  In addition to allowing greater agility in attending to the registered manifestations, the system provides a georeferenced map with information about the registered manifestations of each administrative region of Brasília. In 2017, more than 146,000 demonstrations were registered and more than 80% of them were answered to the citizen within 20 days by the Federal District Government.

Stimulating and fostering a culture of transparency, in 2017, the Federal District had the following results of access to transparency instruments:

• 2.4 million for the Follow Brasilia application;

• 2.2 million for the Transparency Portal;

• 8,500 for Transparency on Web TV on Youtube;

• 4.3 million of the total of the 3 transparency instruments.

The goals of the changes in the Office of Federal District General Comptroller  are to improve the quality of public services for society, promote social control and transparency in the Public Administration of the Federal District, and improve and strengthen internal control activities, especially with the implementation of the Internal Audit Capability Model-IA-CM. Developed by the Institute of Internal Auditors (IIA) and supported by the World Bank to improve the strategic development of its internal public sector audit, IA-CM Model presents a structure that identifies the fundamentals needed for effective internal audit and illustrates the 5 levels and stages through which an internal audit activity can evolve; defines practices and implements measures and controls; and improves their processes and practices. In November of 2015, Office of the Comptroller General of the Federal District was at level 1 of the Model and today it is with 50% of level 3 reached. So far, Office of the Comptroller General of the Federal District is the only control department in Brazil that has advanced above level 2 of the IA-CM Model.

For the implementation of Model IA-CM, the Office of Federal District General Comptroller  was supported by the World Bank and benchmarked to Badan Pengawasan Keuangan dan Pembangunan - Indonesia's National Government Internal Auditor (BPKP) in Jakarta to share the experiences of implementing the Model in its respective institutions. 

In theme of social control and transparency, actions were developed with social participation and in partnership with the Management Department, Financial Department and Educational Department. 

And regarding risk management, there was a partnership with the 7 participating entities implementing risk management in their institutions, such as Subway Company, Blood Donation Department and Environment Department.

The actions developed by the Office of the Comptroller General of the Federal District were implemented mostly without the application of financial resources for its execution. For this, it counted on the works developed by the technical staff of the Comptroller General of the Federal District, composed of 250 public servants. Technological tools such as the ombudsman system and the Siga Brasilia app were developed by the Comptroller General of the Federal District public servants and can be shared with other institutions.

When it comes to Controllership in the School, financial resources were destined for the awards of teachers and schools that presented the best projects to solve problems in their school environment. This amount corresponded in 2017 to U $ 34,000.00.

INNOVATIVE ASPECTS 

The modernization of activities of internal control based on actions of preventive and concomitant controls is among the paradigm changes adopted, with prevention as a priority in the agency's performance. Allied to the adoption of techniques recognized as good practices as a way to intensify control actions, are the implementation of Internal Audit Capability Model - IACM to strengthen internal control activities.

In addition, the Office of the Comptroller General of the Federal District provides citizen participation mechanisms to control government actions and provide better communication channels between society and government. In addition, through the training of student civic auditors, empowering citizens to know how to monitor and charge for improved public administration.

The commitment to strengthening the spaces of popular participation and instances of social control is also found to foster the role and service of ombudsman, a channel through which citizens can participate directly in public policies, expressing their criticisms, suggestions and denunciations in the ombudsman system – OUV-DF.

Transparency is reinforced through two perspectives: to make channels more attractive to the population and to root the culture of transparency throughout the district public administration. Such initiatives are possible with the use of new technologies and strategic information and are in line with the goal of the Government of the Federal District consolidating itself as an ethical, democratic and transparent government.

In this sense, the work process of the Office of the Comptroller General of the Federal District executive areas can be considered evolutionary, based on the lessons learned from the experience over the years. However, projects were developed to innovate the areas of internal control, transparency and social control, information technology and ombudsman, as well as to promote the involvement of society in the actions of state control. This new vision of changing the role of the citizen as a transforming agent and protagonist of public policies is considered as innovative in the thematic of the internal control of the Brazilian public administration, presenting in this sense a revolutionary character.

The Internal Audit Capability Model – IACM was developed by the Institute of Internal Auditors and supported by the World Bank to improve strategic development of its internal public sector audit, presents a structure that identifies the fundamentals needed for effective internal audit and illustrates the 5 levels and stages through which an internal audit activity can evolve. Therefore, the new form of internal control of the Office of the Comptroller General of the Federal District is inspired by practices adopted internationally.

Considering that the Office of the General Comptroller of the Federal District is the central department of internal control of the Government of the Federal District, its actions impact and produce effects throughout the administrative structure of the Federal District Government, in terms of transparency, ombudsman , internal audit and correction, because it is a department that coordinates the activities of these macroprocesses throughout the government. 

DESIRED CHANGE OR OUTCOME

Using the Balanced Scorecard methodology the Office of the Comptroller General of the Federal District developed its Strategic Map and Institutional Strategic Plan for 2016-2019. They are directly linked to the strategy of the Federal District Government and seek to innovate internal control actions to meet the growing and legitimate demands of the citizen of the Federal District. The Map has 13 strategic objectives and 46 performance indicators. 

The process of implementation of the institutional strategy is monitored by a specific unit of strategic management of the Office of the Comptroller General of the Federal District and its executive units of the administrative structure  (ombudsman, transparency and social control, internal control, administrative, correction and information technology) are responsible for the measurement of its indicators.

The following indicators are highlighted:

• Level of classification of the Federal District nternal central control department in the IA-CM evaluation:

  Measures the CGDF Classification Level. Scale of 1 to 5 Progressive Capacity built in Building Blocks. Combination of key process area - KPAs by Level, within the 5 Levels;

• Number of students and schools participating in the Comptrollership in school:

  Measures the capacity of students and school units trained in the methodology of civic audit;

• Rate of implementation of risk matrices

  Measures the implantation of risk matrices in organs and entities classified as highly complex;

• Rate of satisfaction with ombudsman service

  Measures the quality of the service and the ombudsman's response to the demands of the population;

• Rate of resolution of demands of citizens

  Measures the percentage of demands resolved according to the perception of the citizen in the Ombudsman system, referring, mainly, to the performance of the entities;

• Ombudsman service reliability index

  Measures the degree of reliability of the user in the ombudsman service, in that it considers the percentage of recommendation informed by the citizen himself;

• Attractiveness of electronic channels of transparency and control

  Measures the sum of accesses of the transparency instruments: Transparency Portal, SIGA Brasilia App and Web TV transparency. 
  

Implantation of IA-CM Model: Developed by the Institute of Internal Auditors and supported by the World Bank to improve strategic development of its internal public sector audit, presents a structure that identifies the fundamentals needed for effective internal audit and illustrates the 5 levels and stages through which an internal audit activity can evolve; defines practices and implements measures and controls; and improves their processes and practices. In November of 2015, Office of the Comptroller General of the Federal District was at level 1 of the Model and today it is with 50% of level 3 reached. So far, Office of the Comptroller General of the Federal District is the only control department in Brazil that has advanced above level 2;

Implementation of Risk Management: This important initiative has contributed to strengthen the governance of Brasília. It involves implementation in 7 departments and entities of the Government of Brasilia and seeks to integrate risk management as a key element of managerial responsibility, in order to promote integrity and prevent misconduct, diversion and corruption.

Ombudsman System - OUV-DF: Developed by the technical staff of the Comptroller General of the Federal District, it is a friendly and easy-to-navigate platform that functions as an email account. In it, the citizen makes a registration, monitors the progress of its manifestations through the internet and finalizes its demand. After that, there is a survey of satisfaction regarding the response received and the service provided by the ombudsman. In addition to allowing greater agility in attending to the registered manifestations, it provides a georeferenced map with information about the registered manifestations of each administrative region of Brasilia;

SIGA Brasília App: Available on Android and IOS platforms, it provides information on public revenues and expenses, server remuneration, healthcare professionals work schedule e beneficiaries of social programs;

Transparency Portal: It presents information on the expenditures of the Federal District Government, public revenues collected, public expenditures, bids from Government departments, remuneration of public servants, information on agreements and similar instruments, among others. All this in a simple way and with language of easy understanding by the citizen.

The initiative promotes citizens participation in control actions, improving quality in the provision of services to the citizen, transparency about government revenues and expenditures and strengthen public administration control actions through instruments that improve the effectiveness of public management and curb the practice of corruption.

LEARNING ASPECTS 

The new form of internal control performance of Brasilia and control and transparency actions with social participation can be shared and disseminated in other metropolises and our technological solutions aimed at control, transparency and social participation can be used by other institutions.

RELEVANCE TO SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOALS

• Goal 16: Promote peaceful and inclusive societies for sustainable development, provide access to justice for all and build effective, accountable and inclusive institutions for all

• Goal 17: Strengthen the means of implementation and revitalize the Global Partnership for Sustainable Development