Jul 8, 2011 - Brazil is a federal presidential republic consisting of 5,568 municipalities, 26 states and one federal district, all of them relatively autonomous ...
GLOBAL INITIATIVE FOR FISCAL TRANSPARENCY Country Reports: Brazil
Equipe Gabriela de Brelàz – Profa. UNIFESP-Osasco Gustavo Andrey de Almeida Fernandes – Prof. FGV-EAESP Marco Antonio Carvalho Teixeira – Prof. FGV-EAESP Eduardo José Grin – Doutorando FGV-EAESP Fernanda Cristina da Silva – Doutoranda FGV-EAESP Miriam Pires Vale – Doutorando FGV-EAESP Robson Zuccolotto – Doutorando FEA/USP Tomaz Anderson Barbosa da Silva – Mestrando FGV-EAESP
Global Initiative for Fiscal Transparency
Summary Section 1: Historical view ..................................................................................... 4 1.1 Constitutional and institutional key aspects ................................................. 4 Type of state: ................................................................................................. 4 State capacity: ............................................................................................... 4 Electoral system: ........................................................................................... 5 Party system: ................................................................................................. 6 The Brazilian Constitution of 1988: ................................................................ 6 The transition to democracy: ......................................................................... 6 1.2 Participation in the democratic regime ........................................................ 8 Formal Participation: .................................................................................... 10 Informal Participation: .................................................................................. 14 Late developments of national policies: ....................................................... 15 The main developments of national policies over the last 15 years are: ...... 15 Section 2: Participation in national politics .......................................................... 18 The Budget and Popular Participation: ........................................................ 19 Types of information provided to the citizens:.............................................. 20 The Budget planning system: ...................................................................... 22 Legislative Power: ....................................................................................... 25 Judiciary Power: .......................................................................................... 26 Ways for citizens to ban governmental proposals: ...................................... 27 Section 3: Studies of specific cases.................................................................... 29
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Global Initiative for Fiscal Transparency 3.1 Conferência Nacional sobre Transparência e Controle Social (National Conference on Transparency and Social Control) ..................................................... 29 3.2 Instâncias de Controle Social do Programa Bolsa Família (Social Control Instances for the Bolsa-Família Program) ................................................................. 32 3.3 Fórum Interconselhos do Plano Plurianual (Inter-Counclis Forum of the Multiannual Plan) ....................................................................................................... 37 Section 4: Results ............................................................................................... 42 Section 5: Conclusions ....................................................................................... 49 Section 6: References ........................................................................................ 51
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Global Initiative for Fiscal Transparency Executive Summary Brazil is a federal presidential republic consisting of 5,568 municipalities, 26 states and one federal district, all of them relatively autonomous from each other. The powers are divided into Executive, Legislative (bicameral) and Judiciary. Currently, it has a multiparty electoral system, with heavy concentration in a few parties. After almost 25 years of dictatorial regime, the Federal Constitution of 1988 – with democratic character and formed by a process with high popular legitimacy –, established important instruments of popular participation, such as mandatory universal suffrage, plebiscites, referendums, proposing laws by popular action, the civil action, the collective security mandate, councils, conferences and public hearings. The country is known for some innovations in public participation in the process of budget allocation, such as the Orçamentos Participativos Presenciais e Digitais (In person and Digital Participatory Budgets). The councils of social policies also have a prominent role in the implementation of local policies, especially in the health and social care areas, which are, in some cases, required for the occurrence of financial distribution and continuity of federal government programs at the local level. There has been an ongoing effort in the last fifteen years for the expansion of transparency and social control mechanisms, being relevant at this point the Portal da Transparência (Transparency Portal), the Lei da Transparência (Transparency Law), the Lei de Responsabilidade Fiscal (Fiscal Responsibility Law) and the Lei de Acesso à Informação (Access to Information Law). In the planning of the last two Planos Plurianuais de Ação ([Multiannual Action Plans] 2003-2007 and 2011-2015), mechanisms for participatory planning were created through the Fóruns de Participação Social (Social Participation Forums) and the Fórum Interconselhos (Inter-councils Forum). The organization may also submit law proposals and suggestions of amendments to the Leis de Diretrizes Orçamentárias (Budgetary Guidelines Law) through the Comissão de Legislação Participativa (Participatory Legislation Committee) of the House of Representatives and through public hearings convened by the Executive or the Legislative. As a result, the Brazilian government is perceived by researches, such as the Open Budget Survey, conducted by the International Budget Partnership, as a government that provides information to its citizens significantly. Compared to the other countries of South America, Brazil was the country that presented the highest score in the Open Budget Index of 2012. However, the existing mechanisms are still weak to assert that the social control of public finances is carried out effectively by the society. The available data is difficult to handle and the social participation mechanisms have little influence in the budget process. The articulation spaces between civil society and the government rarely generate binding effects on public management, and, in many cases, are created and maintained exclusively to meet government targets and conditionality. Yet, knowing that the process of democracy consolidation is gradual and requires a process of civic learning, the country has been slowly creating, on one side, a culture of greater political participation and association, and, on the other, strengthening its management institutions of public policies and control.
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Global Initiative for Fiscal Transparency
Section 1: Historical view 1.1 Constitutional and institutional key aspects Type of state: The Federative Republic of Brazil is formed by 26 states plus the Federal District, where the capital Brasilia is located. Currently, the country has a total of 5,568 municipalities (the smallest unit of political and administrative division). The country has a democratic presidential political system, and the President plays both the role of head of the state and head of the government. The President and Vice-President are elected by popular vote for no more than two consecutive terms of four years. The Presidency is composed of ministries of State under the subordination of government agencies, autarchy, foundations, public companies and other bodies directly and indirectly controlled. After the Federal Constitution of 1988, states and municipalities became administratively and politically independent, as both ones are member of the Brazilian federation. State governors and mayors are considered as sovereign authorities in their circumscription. This implies that political authority of each level of government is sovereign and independent from other authorities. Since then, Brazilian federalism has been organized in increasingly decentralized databases so that subnational governments could assume responsibility, especially in public policies of social nature. The federation has been redesigned in favor of the states and municipalities, with its transformation into federal entities, both financially and politically (ABRUCIO, 2005). State capacity: The federal government is divided into Executive, Judiciary, Legislative and the Armed Forces. The Executive consists of the direct public administration (39 ministries and secretaries with ministerial status subordinated to the Presidency, and 90 councils or committees with the participation of non-governmental members) and indirect public
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Global Initiative for Fiscal Transparency administration (autarchy, public corporations, joint capital companies and public foundations). According to the OECD (2010), the total number of public servants (federal, state and municipal) in Brazil is lower (12% of the national workforce, including state-owned companies) than the average of 22% of the OECD countries, but is more expensive to the economy (12% of GDP). The labor force of the federal executive represents a total of 15% of the government workforce in Brazil. The government jobs (excluding the state-owned companies) have been increasing in absolute numbers: more than 12% in the 1990s and more than 15% between 1999 and 2003. If the state-owned companies are included in the math, the number of jobs in the public sector increased by over 15% between 2003 and 2007. These rapid increases occurred especially in the health and education areas. Electoral system: At federal level, Brazil has three different electoral systems: a)
Presidents, governors of states and mayors are elected by the absolute
majority system, with the possibility of having a second round run-off if a candidate does not receive more than 50% of the valid votes in the first round. The terms are for four years, and there may be another reelection. b)
Senators are mostly elected for an eight-year term. Each federal state has
three senators, with a total of 81 senators in the National Congress. There is no restriction for reelection. Although considered members of the Brazilian federation, municipalities have no representation in the Congress. c)
Congressmen, state legislators and city councilmen are elected by the
proportional system, and have four-year terms without restriction for reelection. There are 513 congressmen in the National Congress, and the number of seats varies proportionally depending on the population of the state (there is a minimum of eight and a maximum of seventy deputies).
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Global Initiative for Fiscal Transparency Party system: Since 1985, after the democratization of the country, Brazil introduced a multiparty system, with the presence of more than ten parties in its National Congress in 2010. However, even though there has been a high party fragmentation since 1993, only two parties have elected presidents of the Republic (PSDB and PT). In a subnational context, PMDB and PSD also have great relevance. Party coalitions are allowed both in the majority elections and in the proportional ones. The Brazilian Constitution of 1988: The Constitution of the Federative Republic of Brazil was enacted in 1988, and, since then, it has received 73 amendments, with an average of almost three amendments per year. In Brazil, constitutional amendments may be voted in a single legislature and approved by 3/5 of the National Congress in two sessions. Even the amendments that change federal relations do not require the participation of states and municipalities, which becomes another element to facilitate this process. Thus, if the Executive power can form the largest majority support in the parliament, the possibility of approving the constitutional amendments greatly expands because the veto points can be overcome and controlled. The transition to democracy: The Brazilian military dictatorship, extended for 21 years, had its end marked by two important events: the indirect election of a civilian president of the Republic (in 1985) and the enactment of a new federal constitution (in 1988), effective until today and marked by the introduction of various constitutional social rights. The relationship between the state and the society was also expanded by creating mechanisms for greater direct participation. The transition is seen not as a complete break from the previous system but as an effect of the coalition of political forces that led to the installation of the new civilian government.
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Global Initiative for Fiscal Transparency From the political participation point of view, however, there is a renewal of the forms of collective action that meant a process of increasing autonomy of the civil society against the state protection during the military regime, bringing out various movements and forms of social organization that expanded the scope of the democratic struggle beyond the electoral representation. The union movement has innovated in the mobilization and strikes. The "new unionism" sought independence from the state and more unified forms of collective force. It resulted in the creation of unions such as the Central Única dos Trabalhadores (1983 [Single Central of Workers]), historically linked to the Partido dos Trabalhadores (PT [Workers Party]). In the field, besides the role of the catholic church through the Comissão Pastoral da Terra (CPT [Pastoral Land Commission]) against the expansion of agricultural estates and land grabbing in areas of capitalist expansion, the rural unions (at the end of the 1970s the number of unionized in the field was equal to that of urban workers: 5 million) have enlarged. The period was also marked by the emergence of the Movimento dos Sem Terra (MST [Landless Movement]), which, in 1984, came to complete the organization of rural movements against the known logic of collective action in the field, prioritizing invasions to unused lands and putting on the agenda the issue of land reform in the country. Moreover, urban social and popular movements have greatly grown, motivated especially by the economic crisis in the end of the military regime. Those movement have also been strengthened by the problems arising from the lack of adequate urban policies (housing, transportation, etc.), and also from the poor quality of public services such as health and education in large cities. The Catholic Church and its Comunidades Eclesiais de Base (CEBs [Base Ecclesial Communities]) have, again, a prominence role in the organization of the urban social movements (in 1985 there were about 80,000 organized CEBs across the country), aiming to strengthen the autonomy, the organization and the emancipation of popular sectors. The direction of the Catholic Church, especially the CNBB, played an
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Global Initiative for Fiscal Transparency important role by sanctioning new institutions that favored the action of critical social segments. Besides the CEBs and the CPT, the Conselho Indigenista Missionário (CIMI [Indigenous Missionary Council]), created in 1972, also worked in capitalist expansion (agribusiness) areas. Another form of civil society performance was through Non Governmental Organizations (NGOs) that have multiplied since the end of the military dictatorship. According to IBGE (2004), until the early 70s, 10,998 thousand private foundations and nonprofit organizations had been created in Brazil. During the 1970s, over 32,858 entities were created. Over the following ten years, from 1981 to 1990, the country saw the opening of more than 61,970 organizations. In the democratic period, from 1991 to 2000, there were over 139,187 records from private foundations and nonprofit organizations. With the consolidation of the democratic opening, many of these entities became public service providers, forming partnerships and receiving public funds to develop their activities. 1.2 Participation in the democratic regime Chronology of the social participation in the Brazilian State:
1964 – 1985: period of the military dictatorship - highly bureaucratic and authoritarian state. Restriction to social participation and the role of civil society organizations.
1964 until the end of the 1980s
1983 – 1984: period of claiming for direct presidential elections and for the democratization. It culminated in the civil movement called "Diretas Já" (“Direct Elections Now).
Indirect election of the first civilian president after the military dictatorship
1986: establishment of the first Brazilian public ombudsman in the city of Curitiba (PR).
1987: convocation of the National Constituent Congress for drafting the new constitution.
Democratization of the State
1988: promulgation of the Federal Constitution of 1988 – It instituted the mandatory participation of citizens, by voting in the election to choose the executive and majoritarian offices and parliamentarians; it determined the participation of citizens through plebiscite, referendum and popular initiative (for matters of constitutional, legislative or administrative), and through popular action, civil public action and collective security mandate (means for citizens to veto government proposals); it presented guidelines for the design and implementation of institutional mechanisms of participation (as councils and public hearings) that seek to operationalize the principles of the participatory democracy. The state constitutions and organic laws of the municipalities include the participation principles promulgated in Federal Constitution (FC). 1988 – 1990: Emergence of participatory experiences in local governments. The first experience of implementation of the Orçamento Participativo (Participatory Budget) in 1989, in Porto Alegre (RS), stands out.
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Global Initiative for Fiscal Transparency
1990s
From 1990: institutionalization of public policy councils, thematic councils and management councils in order to operationalize the participatory ideals present in the FC/88. Examples: - Law 8.080/1990: regulation of the Sistema Único de Saúde (SUS [[Unified Public Health System]) and structuring of the councils and health funds; - Law 8.069/1990: creation of the Estatuto da Criança e do Adolescente (ECA [Statute of the Child and Adolescent]), the public policy councils in the child area and guardianship councils; - Law 8742/1993: creation of the Lei Orgânica da Assistência Social (LOAS [Organic Law of Social Assistance]), detailing and regulating the decentralized and participatory conception of the social care policy.
1993: a national plebiscite was held to define form and system of government, as stated in the FC/1988.
From 1995: Institutionalization of dialogue instances with the social movements and the civil society. Examples: Programa Comunidade Solidária (1995 [Solidary Community Program]), integrated to the Rede de Proteção Social (Social Protection Network), an advisory forum consisting of several civil society entities.
1999: the Law 9.784/1999 expects the conduction of public consultations and public hearings, destined to obtain the manifestation of others concerning matters of general interest. Unlike the hearings, public consultations do not take place in person, but through voting tools and distance collaboration, such as Internet and telephone.
2001: creation of the Comissão de Legislativa Participativa (CLP [Commission of Participatory Legislative]) in the House of Representatives. Through this commission, the society, through any organized civil entity, NGOs, unions, associations, professional associations, may submit legislative suggestions to the House of Representatives. Creation of CLPs in the states and in some municipalities. 2001: promulgation of Law 10.257, known as the Estatuto da Cidade (City Statute). One of its guidelines is the democratic management through people's participation and representative associations of various segments of the community in the formulation, execution and monitoring of plans, programs and projects of urban development.
2000s
From 2003: Expansion of the municipal, state and national conferences, making them one of the main arenas for dialogue between the government and the civil society. They intend to discuss and deliberate proposals for public policy formulation, propose new government actions to make up the Plano Plurianual de Ação (PPA [Multiannual Plan of Acion]) and evaluate the policies approved on previous meetings. Also from 2003, a process of creation, redesign and expansion of the existing mechanisms of social participation around new rights and issues, such as gender, youth, food security, cities, racial equality and public transparency has begun. 2003: process of participatory construction of the Plano Plurianual (PPA [Multiannual Plan]) 2004-2007, from the creation of the "negotiating table" or "roundtables" that produced important results for agreement and formulation of public policies. 2004: Emenda Constitutional Amendment 45/2004 brings constitutional forecast to the creation of the justice ombudsman, with the purpose of receiving complaints and accusations against the Judiciary power. 2004: creation of the Portal da Transparência (Transparency Portal), an initiative of the Controladoria Geral da União (CGU [Union General Controllership]) to ensure transparency in public management. Currently, states and many municipalities have transparency portal. 2005: a referendum on banning the commercialization of firearms and ammunition was held. 2009: creation of the Portal E-Democracia (E-Democracy Portal), a channel of virtual participation of the society in various projects discussed in the House of Representatives.
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Global Initiative for Fiscal Transparency
From the 2010s
2010: approval of the Lei Complementar (Complementary Law) 135, known as the Lei da Ficha Limpa (Clean Record Law), originated from a project of Popular Initiative Law that reached more than 1.3 million signatures.
2011: Law 12.527/2011, known as the Lei da Transparência (LAI [Transparency Law]), regulates the access to information, already stated in the CF/88. Powers and public agencies at all levels; direct and indirect public administration, private entities that receive public funds are obligated to disclose procedures, records, files and other information to anyone interested.
2012: the first Conferência Nacional de Transparência e Controle Social (National Conference on Transparency and Social Control) was held, preceded by state and municipal conferences.
LEGEND: Social control mechanisms
Participation mechanisms
Formal Participation: In Brazil, the participation in elections is compulsory for all citizens aged 18 to 70 years old. For illiterate and citizens aged between 16 and 18 or above 70 years old, voting is optional (Art. 14, § 1, FC/88). The formal participation in elections happens to choose the majority executive positions (mayors, governors, senators and president), and also the legislative ones (city councilmen, state representatives and congressmen). Elections are organized by a well-funded branch of the Judiciary and are considered clean. Despite mandatory vote, however, abstention rate may be quite considerable. In the first round of the presidential elections of 2010, for example, 18.12% of voters did not cast their votes and 7.07% voted blank or null. In absolute numbers, 34,213,890 voters (25.19% of the total electorate) did not vote for any of the nine presidential candidates on those elections.
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Global Initiative for Fiscal Transparency Besides the elections, the other three mechanisms of formal participation constitutionally expected in the country are the plebiscite, the referendum and the proposal of laws by popular initiative. Plebiscites and referendums are queries made to the people in order to deliberate on highly relevant matters, of constitutional, legislative or administrative nature. The plebiscite is called prior to the legislative or administrative act, leaving up to the people, by voting, to approve or deny what has been undergone. Since 1988, there has been only one plebiscite held in Brazil. As the constitution foresaw, in 1993 the national electorate was convened to decide on the form and also on system of government that should be adopted in the country. At that time, the majority of voters voted in favor of the republican regime and the presidential system, keeping unchanged the structure that was already in place. The referendum is called after the legislative or administrative act, leaving up to the people to fulfill its ratification or rejection. With regards to the referendum, the law states that this query ratifies or rejects the legislative or administrative acts to which it should deliberate. This type of query has an absolute effectiveness, allowing or preventing the legal text or the administrative act, to which the query fell upon, to become of the Brazilian legislation. There has been only one referendum held in the country until today at federal level: in 2005 a referendum on banning the commercialization of firearms and ammunition was held. The majority of the electorate voted against the prohibition. The proposal of law by popular initiative states that the population can present its own ordinary or supplement bill to the national legislative, provided that there is a gathering of at least 1% of the national electorate, spread over at least five Brazilian states (with a minimum of 0.3% of voters in each one of these federative units). Four bills by popular initiative have already been approved and became law in the country. The most important was the project known as Ficha Limpa (Clean Record), occurred in 2010, making ineligible for eight years those candidates who have their mandate
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Global Initiative for Fiscal Transparency revoked, those who have resigned to avoid repeal or those who are convicted by a decision of a collegiate court. Other than these methods, there are the management councils of public policies and the conferences of policies that promote the participation of the society beyond the electoral processes. In general, their effectiveness depends on the strength of local civil Society. As a rule of thumb, the less organized local civil Society is the less effective are alternative forms of formal participation. Regarding the management councils of public policies, which are organized in the three federal levels, the possibility to the society to participate has widened since they became institutionalized after 1988. In many cases they are mandatory and in some they are also conditioners to the transfer of federal funds (such as the school feeding). Under the municipal bodies, these instances also are used to expand the social control over the decentralized public policies, such as education, health, social care, housing, public safety, among others. They are, therefore, institutionalized spaces of participation where members of the State and the Civil Society discuss the formulation, implementation and evaluation of public policies. These councils may be: a) sectorial (Health, Education, Culture, Environment), b) thematic (cross-cutting issues, such as human rights, gender, race, etc.), c) management (of hospitals, Fundo Municipal dos Direitos da Criança e do Adolescente [Municipal Fund for the Rights of Children and Adolescents], Plano de Metas [Plan of Goals],etc.. Some of them are in charge of proper application of the federal transfers and also evaluate the performance of public actors. For example, in the health area, the City Council verifies how the fund for Municipal Health, responsible for managing the funds received from the national Sistema Único de Saúde (SUS, [Unified Public Health System]) are being used. The public conferences are spaces for discussion and for the proposal of organized public policies at all federal levels. They occur in various public policies and cross-cutting themes: Health, Education, Social Care, Human Rights, Transparency and Social Control, among others. Usually their purposes are: a) discussion to seek support for the municipal and state policy planning, b) election of representatives who participate in higher courts. Since their creation in 1937, in the Getulio Vargas period,
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Global Initiative for Fiscal Transparency there have been held 102 national conferences and hundreds of thousands of intermediate conferences at the municipal and state ambits. Out of the total of national meetings: nine occurred between 1941 and 1988 (eight of them regarding the health area and one of Science and Technology); 27 were organized between 1988 and 2002 (in which policies of Health, Social Care, Human Rights, Child and Adolescent Rights and Food Security were discussed) and other 67 conferences (66% of the total) occurred between 2003 and 2010, in the Lula government. There are also direct participation mechanisms, such as the experiences of the Orçamento Participativo (OP [Participatory Budgeting]) in some cities and of Participatory PPAs in the states. Regarding the OP, the first experience took place in Porto Alegre in the beginning of 80s. In general, the population is called to define investment priorities of municipal government through assemblies in their neighborhoods or in thematic forums. With this purpose, a Municipal Council is organized where representatives of the neighborhoods and also people defending special causes may form the majority; the municipal government has often a minority presence. At the end of this process, the council must approve the budget matrix and forward it to the City Council, which has the prerogative to approve or not the priorities defined by popular participation. In the execution of the approved investments, regions and thematic areas organize supervision committees on how public resources are used. OP is currently an example of a nonpartisan policy, since municipalities governed by parties introduced it in their administration, especially those left-winged. Within the legislative houses there are commissions of participatory legislation and public hearings. The
Participative
Legislation Committees
are
examples of
society's
participation in the Legislative, as they are spaces for organized civil entities (NGOs, unions, associations and professional associations, except for political parties) present their suggestions and amendments as well as of laws as well technical advice. In regards to public hearings, they are an open space for participation that can be called by any power of a federal member so that the population can be informed and
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Global Initiative for Fiscal Transparency speak about a particular policy or bill. Examples: public hearings held by the Executive and the Legislative to discuss the budget or to discuss works with environmental impact, bids, administrative contracts, concessions, regulatory agencies. Finally, citizens may also participate through ombudsmen. They were created as direct communication channels between the governmental entity and citizens for them to make suggestions, comments, complaints or evaluation of public services. It is this sector’s responsibility: to seek solutions to the demands of the citizens, to provide information and suggestions to the agency to which it operates in order to enhance the delivery of service; to contribute to the formulation of public policies. At federal level, in addition to the Ouvidoria Geral da União (Union General Ombudsman), there are also the ministerial ombudsmen (only the ministries of Defence, Cities, Fishery and Education do not have specific ombudsmen).
Informal Participation: The main informal channels of participation and protest, especially in large urban centers, are the strikes and the social mobilizations (marches and campaigns organized by social movements). In the field, the most common ways are the indigenous and environmental conflicts, as well as the actions of land invasion. The right to strike became effective in the Federal Constitution of 1988. According to FIPE (2012), considering DIEESE data, the number of strikes increased especially between the years 2008 and 2009, and these numbers were at least maintained in the subsequent years. In both years, about 70% of the strikes had propositional purposes, that is, in their origin their goal was the expansion of rights. The defensive strikes – in search of wages – still represented around 45% of the cases. In the field, according to the Comissão Pastoral da Terra (CPT [Pastoral Land Commission]), conflicts in rural areas have as main objectives the struggle for land, water rights, means of labor and production. In the past years, CPT identified that 37% of the conflicts in the field (235 cases) involved landholders; 29% of the conflicts (185
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Global Initiative for Fiscal Transparency cases) reached the landless and 12% the “quilombolas”, which are communities formed by direct descendants of former slaves. IPEA (2012) points out that the picture of rural conflicts calculated by CPT remains serious: there were 880 incidents in 2001 compared to 1,186 in 2010, involving more than 500,000 people. To IPEA (2012), there is a tendency of intensification of the conflicts over the control of land and water due to the large volume of public and private resources directed to the North and Northeast. In the Amazon area the construction of 11 hydroelectric plants has been already announced, a plan which includes new railways and the expansion of mining activities. Thus, it is likely that manifestations in the field are going to assume a new profile. The Movimento dos Atingidos por Barragens (MAB [Movement of People Affected by Dams]), for example, mobilizes populations that live close to large hydroelectric plants, such as Tucuruí and Belo Monte. The indigenous conflicts, on the other hand, are marked by claims for land as well as the effective recognition of ethnic identity. Indigenous movements also aim the improvement of health services and also governmental assistance to create an educational system in their villages. Late developments of national policies: The main developments of national policies over the last 15 years are: Increase the transparency in public management and approach to the society: the initiatives to increase the transparency of public administration are a mark in the period. Much of the legislation on public finances has mechanisms for dissemination. The Lei da Responsabilidade Fiscal (Fiscal Responsibility Law) determines that the reports on revenues and expenses are published by the media. An example in this matter was the creation, in 2004, of the Portal da Transparência (Transparency Portal) to ease social control, where data on the financial execution can be downloaded. From 2003, the Ouvidoria-Geral da União (Union General Ombudsman), linked to the Controladoria-Geral da União (CGU [Union General Controllership]), became
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Global Initiative for Fiscal Transparency responsible for receiving, examining and forwarding charges, complaints, compliments, suggestions and requests for information regarding the procedures and actions of agents, agencies and entities of the Federal Executive Power. The Ombudsman has the responsibility to coordinate the Ombudsman segment of the Federal Executive, as well as organize and interpret the group of manifestation received and produce quantified indicatives of the level of satisfaction of the public services users within the Executive Power, according to CGU.
Dissemination of public policies conferences with the participation of the civil society: between 2003 and 2011 82 national conferences were held, which mobilized more than five million people. Several policies were discussed concerning development, generation of employment and income, social inclusion, health, education, environment, women's rights, racial equality, land reform, youth, human rights, science and technology, communication, sexual diversity, culture democratization, urban reform and public safety, and local production arrangements.
Institutionalization of dialogue instances with the social movements and the civil society: since the late 90s these communication channels have been stimulated. The first relevant experience was the program Comunidade Solidária (Solidary Community), created in 1995 and integrated into the Rede de Proteção Social (Social Protection Network), a consultative forum with the participation of the civil society. Until 2002, there were councils with the presence of the society in areas such as: Elderly Rights, Child and Adolescent Rights, Rights of Persons with Disabilities, Sustainable Rural Development, Health, Environment and Water Resources. After 2003, the creation of councils and forums of national public policies has expanded, such as the following: Economic and Social Development, Promotion of Racial Equality, Public Transparency and Corruption Combat, Discrimination Combat, Cities, Public Safety, Youth, Solidarity Economy, and Aquaculture and Fishery. In addition, roundtables were created with the Labor Unions and dialogue tables with social movements. According to IPEA (2012), this new
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Global Initiative for Fiscal Transparency interface was the government's initiative in response to the demands of entities or social movements. This kind of experience is new in the country, and there were three types of tables in the Lula government, varying in terms of theme, design and/or dynamic: Table of National Permanent Negotiation with the Public Servants (2003); Table of Minimum Wage Negotiation (2005) and Dialogue Table to Improve Working Conditions in Sugar Cane Plantation (in 2008).
Mechanisms for participatory planning: beginning with the preparation of the quadrennial plan for the period 2003-2007, 27 Forums of Social Participation in Brazil were performed. After that, the Forum Interconselhos (Inter-councils Forum), which has an advisory aspect in the preparation of the budgetary plan, was established as a space for interaction with the society. It includes the participation of representatives of national councils and society representative entities. The Inter-councils Forum discusses a wide range of issues concerning almost any area of governmental action (FEDERAL GOVERNMENT, 2011).
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Global Initiative for Fiscal Transparency
Section 2: Participation in national politics Description
Types of participation Project of popular initiative
Direct manifestation of the people in making ordinary or complementary laws. Used to define the principles, guidelines and evaluate sectorial policies; propose changes to ensure universal access to social rights; give voice and vote to the society; discuss and/or deliberate on participation forms,
Policies conferences
composition and new assignments; evaluate and propose popular participation tools in implementing guidelines and in the budget debate. Usually convened in a consultative or deliberative nature.
Participative Legislation Committee of the House of
The society may present suggestions ranging from complementary and ordinary law proposals to suggestions of amendments to the PPA and LDO, which are the main parts of the budget planning system.
Representatives The Law 9.784/1999 states this form as a way of instruction of the administrative process. This expedient involves a matter of general interest and with the purpose of collecting manifestation of third parties, as long Public queries
as there is no prejudice to the actions planned by the ruler before the decision to perform the query. Another difference is that their structure is not given in person, but with voting and distance collaboration, such as Internet and telephone.
They became important part of the political process with the introduction to new laws in the last 15 years ruling the environment, Statute of the City, bids and administrative contracts, concession and permission of public services, telecommunication services and regulatory agencies. When their conduction is mandatory Public hearings
and it does not occur, the governmental act has no legal effect. But even being mandatory in some cases, the public hearing is not binding and the administrator can justify the need to perform work or service as intended. Transparency is also assured with encouraging public participation, with public hearings as an essential part of the budgetary planning system (the LOA and LDO). The legislative process and the Public Ministry also make use of the public hearings. Space for debate and proposal of specific theme or monitoring of a political process. There may be strictly governmental groups (with the presence of representatives of the society as guests), parity groups or groups
Work groups
whose the majority of the members represent the society. In general, they are created by normative instrument that defines their goals, deadlines and composition.
Meetings, convocations and exchange of correspondence are not institutionalized spaces in which society Other forms of participation
organizations establish a face-to-face dialogue with government representatives. This space allows the interaction with specific groups, presentation of demands, negotiation, delivery of information etc.
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Global Initiative for Fiscal Transparency Even with all these participation mechanisms, Brazil has a moderate performance when focuses on the opportunities for public participation in the budget. According to the "Open Budget Survey 2012", conducted by the International Budget Partnership, some indicators of public participation in budget issues were quite weak, while others don’t even exist yet. Indicators of public participation in the budget: Requirement
Research result
Followed process before the query Formal requirement for public participation
It exists, but can be improved
Articulation of goals for public participation
It doesn’t exist
Communication of the IAS on audit findings, and the publication of audit reports
It strongly exists
Consultation process Mechanisms developed by the Executive for the participation during the budget
Exist, but are weak
planning Public hearings in the Legislative on the macroeconomic framework of the budget
Exist, but are weak
Public hearings in the Legislative on the individual budgets of agencies
Exist, but are weak
Legislative opportunities for public testimony during the budget hearings
Exist, but are weak
Mechanisms developed by the Executive for the participation during the implementation of
Don’t exist
the budget Mechanisms developed by the IAS for the articulation on the audit agenda
Strongly exist
Followed process after query Feedback from the Executive on the use of inputs provided by the public
It doesn’t exist
Release of reports by the Legislative over the budget hearings
It doesn’t exist
Feedback of the IAS on the use of inputs provided by the public
It doesn’t exist
Source: Open Budget Survey, 2012.
The Budget and Popular Participation: Once the Lei da Responsabilidade Fiscal (Fiscal Responsibility Law) defines the planning and transparency (§ 1, art. 1, Law 101/2000) as one of the main directions of public finances, popular participation becomes essential. Since 2009, public hearings
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Global Initiative for Fiscal Transparency are mandatory during the process of drafting and discussion of plans, budgetary guideline laws and budgets (Item I, art. 48, Law 101/2000). However, when analyzing the public hearings planned by the Comissão Mista de Orçamento do Congresso Nacional (Joint Budget Committee of the National Congress), it is clear that only in some of them the public can attend - and even in these ones, the participatory intervention never sets a stake in the decisions. Therefore, based on the analysis of the current legislation on the budgetary legislation: a) there is the possibility of conducting public hearings, but with no timetable previously programmed in the cycle of its formulation, b) the deadlines for holding public hearings are exiguous compared with the period of processing the projects, c) public hearings are conducted mostly to ask for clarification from the responsible ministers (Finance and Planning) rather than being effective participation instances. Types of information provided to the citizens: In the current configuration of the Brazilian government, it is considered the existence of two types of information: a)
the one that is offered spontaneously, available to the public through the
Portal da Transparência (Transparency Portal), government website coordinated by the Controladoria Geral da União (CGU [Union General Controllership]); b)
those ones which are not available for consultation but can be accessed
by the public through special application, legality guaranteed by the Lei de Acesso à Informação (Law 12.527/2011 [Access to Information Law]). In the Transparancy Portal, there is information on: - transfer of funds to states, municipalities, corporations, and done to a foreign country, or directly to individuals; - direct expenditure of the Federal Government; - budgetary execution and financial data on the actions taken by the Federal Executive units during the execution of their expenses;
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Global Initiative for Fiscal Transparency - expected revenue, launched and carried out by the Federal Government; - agreements signed in the last years, with a brief description of the object, dates and amounts involved, since January 1st, 1996; - companies sanctioned by the public administration throughout the federation; - position, function and functional status of servers and public agents. - entities that have their own public transparency pages; - projects and activities under the Federal Executive Power that are disclosed by the agencies in their respective home pages - Network Transparency. - transparency pages of states and municipalities on transfers of funds received from the federal government and registration of agreements, taken from the Transparency Portal. Through the Lei de Acesso à Informação (Access to Information Law), citizens can request access to information on:
activities: information on policies, organization and services of the public agencies;
documents: information of documents produced or stored in the agencies and the ones resulting from the link with the administration, even the one under the custody of an individual or a private entity resulting from the link with the administration, even after its completion;
audits: results of inspections, audits, expenses reports carried out by the internal and external control agencies;
programs, projects and actions: information on the implementation, monitoring and results of the agencies and entities programs, including their targets and indicators;
public property: information on the administration of public property, use of public resources, bids and administrative contracts.
Information can also be ensured through directly contacts to the ombudsman, by services letter of some government agencies.
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Global Initiative for Fiscal Transparency The Budget planning system: Constitutionally, three laws are part of the Brazilian budgetary cycle: o Plano Plurianual (PPA [Multiannual Plan]), the Lei de Diretrizes Orçamentárias (LDO [Budgetary Guidelines Law]) and the Lei Orçamentária Anual (LOA [Annual Budgetary Law]) (articles 165-170, FC/1988). This systematic is mandatory for all federal member (federal union, state and municipal governments). The Plano Plurianual (PPA [Multiannual Plan]) is a four-year term, being drafted in the first year of the term of the Chief Executive. The four years are consisted of three years of the current president, governor or mayor and the first year of the following one. The law contains the guidelines, objectives and targets related to capital expenditures and expenses with continuous programs. The Lei de Diretrizes Orçamentárias (LDO [Budgetary Guidelines Law]) records the goals and priorities for capital expenditures of the subsequent fiscal year. It aims to guide the preparation of the Lei Orçamentária Anual (Annual Budgetary Law), based on the planning signed at the PPA. The Lei Orçamentária Anual (LOA [Annual Budgetary Law]) establishes the accounting of expenses and revenues, according to the forecasts of tax revenues, being approved by the Legislative Branch by the end of the prior year to their implementation. If there is a need to increase the expected budget during the fiscal year, the Executive must submit a new bill requesting additional credit to the Legislative. It is also possible to issue contingency decrees, reducing the previously authorized expenditures. In an expanded way, the budgetary system cycle starts with drafting, discussion, voting and approval of the PPA; it continues with drafting, discussion, voting and approval of the LDO, and it ends with the drafting, discussion, voting and approval of the LOA. Budget drafting at federal level begins in the Executive power, with the Ministry of Planning, Budget and Management playing an important role in this process through its Department of Budget and Finance. In this preliminary stage, each sectorial agency, budgetary units and administrative units that make up the government structure prepare
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Global Initiative for Fiscal Transparency their budgetary proposals that are consolidated by such department in a single document.
The general rules for the development of the budget are established by the Federal Law 4320, which was enacted in 1964, before the process of democratization of the country in the 1980s. As a result, the Brazilian budgetary legislation does not expect, in a mandatory way, a strong popular participation. Besides that, the operating logic of the budgets is based on expenditure items, rather than policies objectives. As a result, although the Lei da Responsabilidade Fiscal introduced mechanisms of transparency in the beginning of the 2000, the budget logic is still the one designed during the dictatorial times. In the approval stage, the Legislative receives the Projeto de Lei Orçamentária Anual/Annual Budgetary Law Project (PLOA [Annual Budgetary Law Project]), which is reviewed primarily by the Comissão Mista de Planos, Orçamento e Fiscalização (CMPOF [Joint Committee on Planning, Budgeting and Control]), formed by members of the upper and lower houses of the Brazilian Congress. The committee's duties include: prepare preliminary reports, distribute projects by thematic areas, submit amendments to the project, approve and issue final report resulting from joint vote of the House of Representatives and the Federal Senate, in the case of the Union. For subnational
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Global Initiative for Fiscal Transparency states, the procedure is simplified, as their Legislative Branch is unicameral. After approval, the PLOA is sent to the Chief Executive for sanction. All of this public budget cycle is ruled by a series of normative, ranging from constitutional arrangements to ministerial orders. Because it is a dynamic instrument of planning, public budgeting is part of the legislation that rules it, which is annually changed, such as the Lei de Diretrizes Orçamentárias (Budgetary Guidelines Law) and the Manual Técnico do Orçamento (Budget Technical Manual). However, those changes are gradual and usually very technical; they tend to incorporate private sector rules in the Brazilian accountability system. Annually, the federal government announces the budgetary information on its website at the Ministry of Planning, Budget and Management, where the pre-budgetary document, the budgetary proposal of the Executive and the approved budget can be accessed. In regards to the execution of the budget, it is available on STN’s website the annual and quarterly budgetary execution report. Since the semiannual report is not required under Brazilian law, it is not available. However, other intermediate reports replace it (such as the summary report on budgetary execution and the fiscal management report). There is, however, a requirement that the budgetary execution is available on the Internet, so that its monitoring is almost in real time (usually D + 2). According to the Open Budget Survey of 2012, the government of Brazil provides meaningful information to its citizens, and it was considered the country with the largest Índice do Orçamento Aberto (IOA [Open Budget Index]) in South America, reaching 73 points in a classification that ranges from 0 to 100, in which the average score of all the countries that were surveyed is 43. Over the years, however, the country has not developed. In 2010 the Brazilian IOA was 71 points, but in previous years (2006 and 2008), the index reached 74 points.
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Global Initiative for Fiscal Transparency Among the eight key documents of the organization1, only the Mid-Year Budget Review (the Brazilian government doesn’t even prepare such a revision document at the midpoint of the budgetary year) is available to the public. However, the only document that receives the highest score in the survey is the Orçamento Promulgado (Enacted Budget), a document that authorizes the Executive to increase revenues, expenses and incur debt. All others may experience improvements that would increase the national budgetary transparency. To the organization, "the Brazilian government has potential to further expand even more the budgetary transparency by introducing a series of short and medium term measures". Regarding the control, the Federal Constitution of 1988 establishes two types of control: internal and external control. The first one is put into practice by the administration itself, through internal agencies, submitted to the Chief Officer, usually in the shape of internal audits, controllerships. In the case of the Federal Executive, the Controladoria Geral da União (Union General Controllership) was created in 2003, working mainly as an audit agency of the federal budget execution. The external control, on the other hand, is exercised by independent agencies, with their own resources, which are the Tribunais de Contas (Courts of Auditors). The structure takes the form of Cortes Judiciais (Judicial Courts) (articles 70-75, FC/88) with prerogatives of supervising the accounting and financial aspects of government action. The external control agencies follow the European continental tradition, adopting logic of action eminently legal, as opposed to the model of general audits. Legislative Power: The budgeting is one of the most complex tasks of the Legislative Branch, being annually approved after power struggle and political bargaining.
1
They are: a pre-budget statement, the budget proposal of the Executive, the enacted budget,
the citizen budget, the reports through the year, the mid-year review, the end of the year report and the audit report.
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Global Initiative for Fiscal Transparency The participation of citizens and civil society organizations in the budgetary process under the federal legislative power can occur through: direct contact with legislators; sending legislative suggestions; participation in public hearings of the budget of the Comissão Mista de Planos, Orçamentos Públicos e Fiscalização (Joint Committee on Plans, Public Budgets and Supervision); participation in the Comissão de Legislação Participativa (Participatory Legislation Committee); through the EDemocracy Portal. In states and municipalities, citizens' participation depends on how this process is established by state and municipal laws, despite the minimum requirements introduced by the Lei de Responsabilidade Fiscal. In the subnational sphere, Audit Courts are supposed to check if they are respected; however, any kind of sanctions due to the lack of popular participation is very rarely seen. Effectively, popular participation in budget control in Brazil is indirect, based on the conception that the task of budgetary execution monitoring belongs to the Legislative, being only supported by the audit results produced by the Tribunal de Contas (Courts of Auditors). Following this logic, the elected representative is in charge of popular control. It doesn’t exist, including in organic laws and in the regulations of the Courts of Auditors, any indication to popular participation or the need for public hearings. Anyway, audit reports and preliminary reports issued by the Tribunal de Contas da Uniâo (TCU [Supreme Audit Institution of Brazil]) are available on the institution’s website. As already seen in the "Open Budget Survey 2012" report, the Brazilian Legislative Power has moderate strength in budget oversight. The responsible organization for the research finds that "the legislative shall have full authority to change the budgetary proposal of the Executive, and the Executive must request the approval from the Legislative before transferring funds among administrative units and before spending supplementary budgets and contingency funds". Judiciary Power:
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Global Initiative for Fiscal Transparency There are few social control mechanisms that incur on the Brazilian Judiciary. The Conselho Nacional de Justiça (National Council of Justice) would be the responsible agency to play that role, though, as it consists mostly of members of the Judiciary itself, it is seen as an imperfect control mechanism. Moreover, there are very few positions which are chosen by election, even if internal to the category. The positions that perform government functions respond to the logic of eligibility or nomination by a mixture of legal indication and seniority. The Judiciary Power is also audited by Audit Courts in Brazil. However, their control action is usually very ineffective. Ways for citizens to ban governmental proposals: Among the possibilities for banning government proposals by citizens, there are, in Brazil, the following ones: the popular action, the civic public action and the collective security mandate. Usually, they may be used after de budget proposal is approved by the Legislative branch. All of them are seen as legal resources allowed to the society. Popular Action: constitutional means available to the citizen to invalidate acts or illegal and harmful administrative contracts to public property, with preventive and repressive purposes. Any person in the enjoyment of its civil and political rights may file it. Another purpose is to correct administrative acts undertaken by the government. With this action the society may intervene in the administration and invalidate acts that damage the economic, administrative, artistic, environmental or historical properties, a possibility that was previously only given to higher state agencies. It doesn’t support individual rights, only issues of social concern. Public Civil Action: procedural tool to repress or prevent damage to the environment, consumer, goods and rights of artistic, historic, touristic and of landscape value, and violations of the economic order, protecting diffuse, collective and individual interests. It may be proposed by the Public Ministry, associations aimed at the environment or the consumer protection and by the Defensoria Pública (Public Defender).
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Global Initiative for Fiscal Transparency Collective security writ: its goal is to allow easier access to justice by admitting that corporations protect the rights of their members and associates, pushing away the filing of multiple actions with the Judiciary power. It may be filed by a political party represented in the National Congress or by a union, a professional association or a legally constituted association.
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Global Initiative for Fiscal Transparency
Section 3: Studies of specific cases 3.1 Conferência Nacional sobre Transparência e Controle Social (National Conference on Transparency and Social Control) The first Conferência Nacional sobre Transparência e Controle Social (CONSOCIAL [National Conference on Transparency and Social Control]), held in 2012, was characterized as the first conference process nationwide dedicated exclusively to issues of social control, transparency, and fight against corruption. The conference aimed to "promote public transparency and encourage the participation of the society in the monitoring and control of public administration, contributing to a more effective and democratic social control" from the discussion of four themes: I. promoting transparency and access to information and public data; II. mechanisms of social control, engagement and capacity of the society to the control of public administration; III. performance of the public policies councils as instances of control; IV. guidelines to the prevention and fight against corruption. Convened by the federal government through a presidential decree2 and organized by the Controladoria Geral da União (CGU) [Union General Controllership], with the direct collaboration of the Secretaria-Geral da Presidência da República (General Secretariat of the Presidency), its implementation was preceded by a series of preparatory conferences held between July 2011 and April 2011 in municipal, regional, state and federal levels.
2
The first decree occurred on December 8, 2010, in the government of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva,
and expected the implementation of CONSOCIAL with the theme "The society in the monitoring of public management", on October 13 to 15, 2011. It was motivated by a petition drafted a year earlier and signed by 300 participants of the 1
st
Seminário Nacional sobre Controle Social (National Seminar on Social
Control), an event sponsored by the CGU. The 2010 decree was revoked for a new decree on July 8, 2011, and signed by President Dilma Rousseff, setting new date to be held: from May 18 to 20, 2012.
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Global Initiative for Fiscal Transparency The
Municipal
and
Regional
Conferences
aimed
to
forward
twenty
guidelines/proposals, and the election of delegates to the District and State conferences. They should be convened by the municipal Executive and held with at least ninety days in advance of the corresponding State or District conference. In localities where there wouldn’t have the convocation of conferences by the subnational government, there would also have the possibility of being organized by a group of at least three institutions of civil society.
Virtual Conference
Municipal and Regional Conferences
State and District Conferences
National Stage
Free Conferences
The preparatory stage directly mobilized more than 150,000 people. The national stage has the participation of approximately 1,200 delegates. CONSOCIAL preparatory da stage.
Preparatory stages
Number of participants
Municipal Regional Free State / District Virtual
83.684 26.123 30.391 10.862 2.690
Total
153.750 st
Source: Final report of the 1 CONSOCIAL
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Global Initiative for Fiscal Transparency The District and State Conferences aimed the election of delegates and to forward up to twenty proposals/guidelines to the National Stage. It should have been held until April 18, 2012. Free Conferences are held by any group of people interested in the subject, and should have been held until April 8, 2012. The forwarding of up to ten guidelines/proposals for the national coordination of the first CONSOCIAL should have been done through a report submitted by Internet, and the proposals that were made were systematized in the guidelines/proposals book of the National Stage. The Virtual Conference allowed the open discussion of ideas collectively from a virtual environment, from March 19 to April 8, 2012. It gathered, in the total, 2,960 participants from all Brazilian states, and Brazilians living abroad. All the 150 discussed guidelines/proposals resulted in a set of eighty guidelines/proposals that were forwarded to the Caderno de Propostas da Etapa Nacional (Book of National Stage Proposals). In addition, ten people with active participation in the virtual environment were invited to perform as delegates on the National Stage. In the National Stage, which was held between May 18 and 20, 2012, 60% of the elected or recommended delegates represented the civil society, 30% represented the public power, and 10% represented the public policies councils. The number of state and district delegates that were participants of the National Stage was proportional to the population of the states and the Federal District, grouping the states according to their population range, as it follows: 28 delegates represented the states of Acre, Amapá, Federal District, Mato Grosso do Sul, Rondônia, Roraima, Sergipe and Tocantins; 38 delegates represented the states of Alagoas, Amazonas, Espírito Santo, Mato Grosso, Paraíba, Piauí, Rio Grande do Norte; 47 represented the states of Ceará, Goiás, Maranhão, Pará, Pernambuco and Santa Catarina; 56 represented the states of Bahia, Minas Gerais, Paraná, Rio de Janeiro and Rio Grande do Sul; 75 delegates represented the state of São Paulo. The discussions of all preparatory stages and the National Stage were stimulated by the reading of a base text, prepared by CGU, which had the objective of guiding and qualifying the discussion, and also of presenting the main themes debated in the
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Global Initiative for Fiscal Transparency conference, together with the applicable legislation and a summary of the current scenario. In order to choose the guidelines and proposals of the final report of the National Stage, the electronic prioritization system was used. This methodology formed an agenda of priorities, showing which guidelines/proposals were most voted by the conference participants. The final result of the 1st CONSOCIAL was the consolidation of a document with eighty proposals/guidelines, prioritizing at least ten of each thematic area of the conference. The intention was that the proposals and guidelines of the conference process subsidized the creation of a Plano Nacional sobre Transparência e Controle Social (National Plan on Transparency and Social Control), transforming the proposals in public policies and bills. Therefore, the final report of the 1st CONSOCIAL was forward to the public authorities of the three levels of government. Those involved also committed to maintain the mobilization around the analyzed themes from the wide dissemination of the results of the conference, maintenance and expansion of the network of contacts created during the conference process and possibility of developing a system for monitoring the implementation of guidelines and proposals of the 1st CONSOCIAL. 3.2 Instâncias de Controle Social do Programa Bolsa Família (Social Control Instances for the Bolsa-Família Program) The Bolsa Família Program (PBF)3 is a program of conditional income transfer to families in poverty and extreme poverty situation, established in 2003 to replace other existing income transfer programs. It currently benefits more than 13 million families
3
Created by Law 10.836 (2004) and regulated by Decree 5.209 (2004).
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Global Initiative for Fiscal Transparency with monthly income per capita of less than R$ 140.00. It has a total cost of approximately R$ 23 billion, which represents less than 0.5% of the Brazilian GDP4. Families are monthly benefited with financial aid and must fulfill some commitments in the areas of education, health and social care to ensure they qualify to the program, which are: to ensure a minimum school attendance for children and young people up to 17 years old; to keep updated the vaccination schedule and record of development and growth of children up to seven years old; to do prenatal monitoring of pregnant women and accompany mothers who are breastfeeding; to ensure a minimum frequency in the activities of the Serviço Socioeducativo do Programa de Erradicação do Trabalho Infantil (PETI) [Socio-Educational Service Program for the Eradication of Child Labor] of those children and teenagers up to 16 years old who were withdrawn from child labor. According to a booklet prepared by CGU (2010), "there is no individual privilege in the selection of the families. The selection is made in an automated way by the Federal Government and takes into account the information of the national database of the Cadastro Único para Programas Sociais (Single Registration for Social Programs), as well as the estimate number of poor families in each municipality". The PBF management is decentralized and shared, as shown below: Management of Bolsa Família Program in the different levels of government
Level
Responsible person/department
Federal
Secretaria Nacional de Renda de Cidadania (SENARC), no Ministério do Desenvolvimento Social e Combate à Fome (MDS) [National Department of
4
Data provided by the Secretaria Nacional de Renda e Cidadania (National Income and
Citizenship Department), the Ministério do Desenvolvimento Social e Combate à Fome (Ministry of Social Development and Fight Against Hunger), in a presentation entitled "Recent Innovations in the Bolsa Família Program and Impacts on Overcoming Extreme Poverty", made for the Painel Técnico Internacional sobre Programas de Transferência de Renda Condicionada na América Latina (International Technical Panel on Conditioned Income Transfer Programs in Latin America).
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Global Initiative for Fiscal Transparency Citizenship Income, in the Ministry of Social Development and Fight against Hunger]. Inter-sectorial coordination/collegiate with representatives in the areas of
State
Health, Education, Social Care, Planning and Labor. Municipal
Municipal manager appointed by the mayor.
Besides that, the PBF management is also based on the participation of the civil society since the program expects the "establishment or designation of a social control instance responsible for monitoring the actions of the program" when a municipality decides to formally join the Bolsa Família Program5. Such instances are municipally established through the creation of a specific council or assigning the roles to an already existing council in the municipality. They must have the following characteristics: a) have a continuous operation, with its rules and procedures regulated by decrees publicly available; b) be formed on a parity basis, with equal amount of representative advisers from the government and the civil society; c) have counselors representing the diversity of institutions and agencies in the municipality, ensuring the participation of representatives from the social care, education and health areas, among others; d) work autonomously and independently. The advisers who are the government representatives should be appointed by the local Executive power, and the advisers representing the civil society should be elected through public consultation6. Even though there is no payment to the advisers for their activities developed on the council, their function is considered a relevant public service. The advisers are, therefore, public agents and their actions should be guided by the principles of public administration (legality, impersonality, morality, publicity and efficiency).
5
Ordinance 246 (2005).
6
Normative Instruction 1 (2005).
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Global Initiative for Fiscal Transparency Overall, the Instâncias de Controle Social do PBF (ICS) [Social Control Instances of PBF (ICS)] are responsible for: monitoring the execution of the program by verifying if the poor families are properly registered and if the benefit is coming to these families, and if there are public services in health, education and social care for the assistance of these families; stimulating the activities aimed at the emancipation of the beneficiary families; contributing to the supervision actions promoted by the MDS and by the Rede Pública de Fiscalização (Public Supervisory Network). Besides that, the assignments of the ICS also include:
Cadastro Único (Single Registration): conduct periodic visits to the areas of most concentrated poverty, as well as to associations, unions, churches, in order to enlighten the population about the functioning and importance the Cadastro Único (Single Registration); evaluate the strategies adopted by the municipality to the identification, mapping and registration of the poorest families, especially the home visits; evaluate the dissemination strategies of the registration actions; identify situations of barring the registration and try to identify with the local public power what can be done to overcome the difficulty, verify whether the registration forms are kept in good file and handling conditions, for a minimum period of five years, as required by the legislation; periodically check the amount of registered families, considering that the municipality may, at any time, include new families in the Cadastro Único (Single Registration), as long as they fall into the income criteria, evaluate the information updating strategies held by the council.
Benefits Management: identify if there are poor and extremely poor families enrolled in the Cadastro Único (Single Registration) who have not been benefited by the PBF; keep up with the actions of benefits management (blocking, unblocking, cancellations, reversal of cancellations) of the PBF, via consultation with the Sistema de Benefícios ao Cidadão (SIBEC) [System of benefits to Citizens]; verify if the benefit blocking is been correctly proceeded by evaluating the reasons.
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Global Initiative for Fiscal Transparency
Management of conditionality: work in partnership with health, education and social care councils of the municipality to ensure that the services accompanied by each one of them are offered by the public power to the beneficiary families of PBF; monitor the records of conditionality and evaluate the difficulties encountered by the families to fulfill the commitments; encourage the families to update their information whenever there’s a change of address or school, so that the monitoring of the conditionality can be done; encourage the development of actions to promote the purpose of the conditionality, and to mobilize families and make them aware in order to have their commitment.
Promoting opportunities for the development of families: encourage – in the city, state, or Federal District – the offer of public policies that would favor the emancipation and sustainability of beneficiary families of PBF; make the beneficiaries aware of the importance of the participation in the opportunities of economic and social insertion offered by the public power; evaluate the results of the participation of the families in the development actions of the families; identify the potentiality to create their own programs or integrated with federal and state programs, observing the characteristics of the municipality and the needs of the population which is in a most vulnerable situation.
Accompaniment and supervision of the PBF: follow the supervision procedures guided by the MDS and by the Rede Pública de Fiscalização do PBF (Public Supervisory Network of the PBF); in case of proven complaints, ask the city manager to take the appropriate action to solve the irregularity; notify the city manager, the Senarc and the Rede Pública de Fiscalização do PBF (Public Supervisory Network Supervision of the PBF) of any problems in the implementation of the PBF.
Promotion of the social participation: encourage the community participation in the accompaniment of the PBF execution; contribute to the formulation and dissemination of the information on the civil society program to the civil
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Global Initiative for Fiscal Transparency society; promote to the population the existence of the council and the importance of the actions that it does. 3.3 Fórum Interconselhos do Plano Plurianual (Inter-Counclis Forum of the Multiannual Plan) The Fórum Interconselhos do Plano Plurianual (PPA) [Inter-Councils Forum of the Multiannual Plan] 2012-2015 happened in three stages throughout the year of 2011, being formed by participants of the civil society entities and nongovernmental representatives who are member of the national councils and commissions. It was convened by initiative of the Ministério do Planejamento, Orçamento e Gestão (MPOG) [Ministry of Planning, Budget and Management] and the Secretaria-Geral da Presidência da República (PR) [General Secretariat of the Presidency] and had the objective of promoting the social participation in the drafting of the Plano Plurianual7 Federal (Federal Multiannual Plan). The I Fórum Interconselhos (Inter-council Forum), held in May of 2011, gathered 300 participants and aimed at the presentation of the civil society contributions in the drafting of the PPA 2012-2015 (Plano Mais Brasil [More Brazil Plan]). The II Fórum Interconselhos (Inter-council Forum), convened to be held at October of the same year and also broadcasted by videoconference and Internet presented to the participants councils and entities the number of proposal incorporation in the text of the PPA bill sent to the National Congress.
7
The Plano Plurianual (Multiannual Plan) is an instrument of government planning that
establishes guidelines, objectives and goals of the public administration effective from the second year of a majority mandate until the end of the first year of the following term. It was laid down in the article 165 of the Federal Constitution of 1988, and regulated by Decree 2.829 (1998).
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Global Initiative for Fiscal Transparency Stages of the Fórum Interconselhos (Inter-councils Forum) to the drafting of the PPA 2012-2015 Awareness meeting
Meeting with the executive secretaries of all 33 National Councils for the clarification of the insertion process of social participation in the stage of drafting the PPA.
Preparatory meetings
Participation of SG/PR and MPOG in meetings of nineteen National Councils and three committees to answer questions about the process, strategic orientations and programmatic proposal.
I Fórum Interconselhos (Intercouncil Forums)
Analysis of the Proposals
Presentation of the strategic dimension of the PPA 2012-2015 and the list of thematic programs; division of participants into four working groups: Economic Development, Management, Infrastructure and PAC; Social Development and Eradication of Poverty, Rights and Citizenship; presentation of a panel with main indicators of the Brazilian macro-regions; group discussion of critical regional issues; submission of the proposals to the construction of the monitoring and evaluation process of the PPA. Proposals systematization and forwarding to the MPOG.
Workshops and technical development meetings of the thematic programs among MPOG and other ministries to the analysis and inclusion of the proposals made to the PPA.
II Fórum Interconselhos
Transmitido em videoconferência e via internet, apresentou os números de incorporação de propostas, além de discutir questões futuras relacionadas coma participação social no monitoramento do PPA.
Previous Formative Stage
“Basic Concept of Planning and Budget Participation” course, given to the participants of the III Forum at the Escola Nacional de Administração Pública (National School of Public Administration).
III Fórum Interconselhos (Intercouncil Forum)
It was presented PPA’s monitoring ways and proposals and strategies of social participation in this process. In particular, the Cross-cut Agendas – presented at the II Forum – gain importance as instruments of visibility to the agenda of themes, groups and specific social segments. The discussion on the mainstreaming of these subjects and the most appropriate institutional design to their monitoring, from the perspective of social participation, is one of the main topics for discussion at the III Forum. The expectation is that the III Fórum Interconselhos (Inter-council Forum) can achieve an important and unprecedented agreement between the federal government and the civil society to the development of participative strategies of PPA’s monitoring. The objective is to consolidate the Forum as an effective debate instance, qualified, continuous and institutionalized on social participation and public planning. As monitoring proposal, it is expected mid-year meetings of the Forum that will analyze the reports issued by the Ministry of Planning, Budget and Management in a continuous process. Besides that, to provide greater transparency in the implementation of public funds, there is a proposal to hold virtual discussions and do activities to strengthen the monitoring instances in the national councils.
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Global Initiative for Fiscal Transparency Finally, the III Fórum Interconselhos (Inter-council Forum), held in November, 2011, aimed at achieving a pact between the federal government and the civil society in order to promote the participative monitoring of the PPA. It was intended in this edition the institutionalization of the forum as an instance of continuous debate on social participation and public planning (including also the social participation in other government planning instruments, such as the LDO and LOA). At the II Fórum Interconselhos (Inter-councils Forum) it was presented a response to the contributions presented at the I Fórum Interconselhos (Inter-councils Forum). At the end, out of the 629 developed proposals, 485 (77,10%) were fully incorporated in the PPA 2012-2015 bill, 123 (19,6%) were indirectly incorporated e only 21 (3,3%) were not incorporated, as shown in the table below:
Use of the proposals of the I Fórum Interconselhos (Intercouncils Forum) in the PPA 2012-2015 bill
Incorporated
Partially
Not Incorporated
Total
Incorporated F
%
f
%
f
%
f
%
Strategic Dimension
363
82,9%
60
13,7%
15
3,4%
438
100%
Tactical Dimension
122
63,9%
63
33%
6
3,1%
191
100%
Total
485
77,1%
123
19,6%
21
3,3%
629
100%
Source: Lucia Falcon ‘s presentation at the II Fórum Interconselhos (Inter-councils Forum).
Out of the 269 regional proposals developed at the I Fórum Interconselhos (Intercouncils Forum), only 14 were not fully incorporated in the PPA 2012-2015 bill, as shown in the graphic below:
39
Global Initiative for Fiscal Transparency
Use of the regional proposals of the I Fórum Interconselhos (Inter-councils Forum) in the PPA 2012-2015 bill.
80
1 2
70
4 4
60
1
50 1 40
73
1
30
54
53 42
20
33
10 0
Norte North
Sudeste Southeast Incorporated Incorporadas
Nordeste Northeast
Partially incorporated Incorporadas parcialmente
Centro-Oeste Mid-West
Sul South
Not incorporadas incorporated Não
The proposal to increase social participation in the formulation of the PPA is quite valid given that this planning instrument had a budgetary increase of 116% in its last three versions8, which is also relevant considering that the currently plan in force has more than half of its budget for thematic programs in the social area (equivalent to a total of approximately $ 2.6 trillion reais). In this regard, it is interesting to notice that one of the most highlighted aspects in the previous document was the need to include cutouts of race, gender, ethnicity, generational, sexual orientation and traditional peoples and communities of the countryside and the city in all programs, goals and initiatives of the PPA. This observation indicates the strong presence of social movement’s participants in the forum, and a defense of plural interests by forum participants.
8
The established figures to the last three plans, reviewed by the IPCA of July 2011, were: 2.5
trillion reais (PPA 2004-2007); 3.9 trillion reais (PPA 2008-2011); 5.4 trillion reais (PPA 2012-2015).
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Global Initiative for Fiscal Transparency In the preliminary report of the 1st Fórum Interconselhos (Inter-council Forum), however, it is possible to find three highly relevant critics to the analysis of the event. One of them is related to the preparation time for the query, since the participants considered it quite short. The other refers to the large amplitude of the goals of the plan. Even recognizing that larger objectives are important in long-term monitoring purposes, working with such types of goals make it difficult to have a more explicit and focused position by the forum participants. Finally, it was also pointed out that the presentation format of data through an exposition without opening to debate can be criticized since it doesn’t allow further discussion9. These facts may have been decisive to the low percentage of participants (15%) who said they totally agree with the sentence "The Forum has met my expectations". Other relevant point observed in the evaluation report of the event refers to the methodology that was used: approximately a quarter of the participants strongly agreed with the following sentences: a) "the objectives of the Fórum Interconselhos (Intercouncils Forum) were clearly defined" (26%); b) "the presented contents were consistent with the proposed objectives" (22%); c) "the language used in the materials (presentations and texts) was easy to understand" (27%). Although the percentage increases quite a lot when it includes the "partially agree" option (62%, 56% and 70%, respectively), the previous percentages indicate the need to do some readjustment of the methodology that was used. On the other hand, 89% of the participants said they felt motivated to participate in another Fórum Interconselhos (Inter-councils Forum), indicating that, even if the expectations of the majority were not met in this edition, there is a willingness of the participants to participate continually in discussions of this kind.
9
It is worth a note one of the observations made during the session of the I Fórum Interconselhos
(Inter-councils Forum) related to the excessive state interference in the process. In the words of one participant, "the preparation is not participatory. (...) We don’t even know who is working in the Ministry's actions" (Miguel Lobato; National Council of Cities).
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Global Initiative for Fiscal Transparency
Section 4: Results In Brazil, especially after the Federal Constitution of 1988, it is clear that the various initiatives of citizen participation in public policies are providing significant improvements in public administration. It seems that there is a real effort by the government to make public administration more open to the society participation and also more transparent. After Lei de Responsabilidade Fiscal, which introduced democratic standards in the budgetary system, there were more significant improvements due to the increased availability of data on public spending and also the approval of the Lei de Acesso à Informação (Law on Access to Information). New spaces for virtual participation (such as public consultations and the E-democracy Portal) also represent an important advance in social participation, bear in mind that they have been allowing and enabling the access for a greater number of citizens to political decisions. However, there is still a great need to establish mandatory targets and enable better assessments of outcomes of this process. Even being able to participate (timidly, though) in the development of the budget, citizens are still unable to evaluate whether in fact the resources spend by the government generated the desired results. It is also noticeable that the fact that many mechanisms of participation are still voluntary ends up making some public agencies not to encourage nor promote participation spaces, or promote a restrict participation, generating no binding effects on public management. In other cases, even if there is a requirement (as in the case of some public policy councils), it is not possible to guarantee the effective participation of citizens. Many spaces are created and maintained exclusively to comply with the conditions of government programs for the transfer of funds, and that doesn’t mean it is a mechanism of participation that works. Even in public hearings held by the committees of both houses of the Congress (such as the CMO and CLP), what it is seen is the participation of citizens only as listeners.
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Global Initiative for Fiscal Transparency In addition to that, the Brazilian government budget is a complex and highly technical issue, understood only by a few people of the public administration and almost unknown by most part of the Brazilian population. The result is that an issue as important as the budget definition ends up becoming something restricted to a few, giving them enormous power. Very often the civil society demands are sent directly to the House of Representatives. The preference for the direct channel (instead of the open channel of public hearings) does not allow the expansion of the proposals through deliberation and debate. Besides, there is no control by the citizens of how many direct suggestions were actually approved and became amendments. Therefore, it is not possible to know the effectiveness of such participation. Regarding the participation in the National Legislative, it is clear that the encouragement to the political participation is something that still depends on the political interest of the rapporteur of the budgetary process and the other members of the Comissão Mista do Orçamento (Budget Joint Committee). Once stimulated, there is a team of highly qualified budget technicians capable to respond to the directions of deputies and senators. However, the focus of the parliamentarians is more on conducting amendments resulting from the political bargaining between the Executive and Legislative than in promoting popular participation. The temporal issue also hinders public participation, since the time of analysis of the bills related to the budget is relatively short, jeopardizing the creation of a calendar of public hearings. It becomes necessary then to establish by law the mandatory participation (for example, the case of São Paulo and the Lei Orgânica do Município [Municipal Organic Law], which requires the completion of two public hearings and the Municipal Chamber to discuss the budget). This seems to be a way to ensure an opening to participation and not rely on political interest of parliamentarians. Until today, the greatest achievements that have been seen on the issue of transparency and social control in Brazil occurred from the creation of coalition networks. The networking seems to minimize the shortages and weaknesses
43
Global Initiative for Fiscal Transparency techniques, achieving more effective results. Some good examples of this include the approval of the Lei da Ficha Limpa (Clean Record Law) - in which volunteers CNBB, OAB and the Movimento de Combate à Corrupção no Brasil (MCCE [Movement Against Corruption in Brazil]) achieved a record number of signatures from Brazilian citizens and the 1st CONSOCIAL, to which the various entities, associations and civil society institutions were able to gather a significant number of participant citizens in the preparatory stages. Considering the various participative conferences and councils, it is noticeable that there are great variations in the achieved results and in the way the social control is established. In a more general way, this variation can be explained by factors such as: a) Different levels of mobilization and organization of the sectors involved in the councils and conferences. For example, the public health movement is one of the most organized since the 70s, which reflects in a strong presence in the participation forums of the sector. b) Scale of participation processes. Instruments of direct participation in the municipalities, such as the Orçamento Participativo (Participatory Budget), tend to have a greater presence of the society and be more effective than mechanisms of large scope, such as those established at the federal level. c) Political culture and historical associations. In regions where previous experiences of social organization were strong, such as Recife and Porto Alegre, budget processes became strongly rooted in the relationship between society and state. d) Decision-making character of participatory forums. Deliberative characteristics of the forums tend to encourage more the participation in relation to processes that are more consultative. For example, public hearings tend to be less attractive than the conferences of policies. e) Decentralization degree of instances. More decentralized mechanisms generate more possibilities of participation and influence on public policies directly, such as the case of the Councils and the Orçamento Participativo (Participatory Budget).
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Global Initiative for Fiscal Transparency f) Type of public policy in debate. Traditional policies such as health, social care and education mobilize more than diffuse rights, gender issues and rights of gays and lesbians. g) Amount of available resources. Policies with greater resources (e.g.: health) mobilize more than those less portioned (e.g.: sports). h) Level of public appeal with the electorate. Policies such as education have more appeal than actions in the culture area, for example. Historically, the participation was always something in the Agenda of left-wing parties. However, the discussion of transparency and social control has also been used in the speech of other partisan groups given the higher pressure for accountability of the governments by the civil society organizations and the population in general. It is also significant the presence of a great international pressure encouraging the promotion of transparency and social control. The clearest reasons that justify a greater involvement of the citizens and civil society in the political context have to do with issues of political culture, and there seems to be a greater political maturity of the Brazilian society. In general, it has been seen in Brazil: a larger number of civil society organizations open to the participation of the society, with no ties to political parties or unions greater encouragement to the development and improvement of civil organizations with the creation of new participatory arenas; institutional incentives, laws and rules favorable to the participation; examples of social movements that managed to obtain social benefits by pressuring political representatives; continuous publicity by the formal media of the actions involving public policies; greater public debate on the issues of transparency and social control. Nevertheless, the greater social participation does not seem to have had an immediate effect on the bureaucratic machine. Even though the processes of social participation have evolved since the 1980s, these initiatives, in general, do not include mechanisms of administrative modernization to ease society participation and capacitate bureaucracies (technical or street level) to better interact with the society.
45
Global Initiative for Fiscal Transparency Thus, civil servants - here understood as the state bureaucracy - are still characterized by having a behavior of bureaucratic profile, because: a) require the society to adjust to the existing rules; b) adopt technical language that makes the communication with the society more difficult; c) have difficulty to accept that the society defines policy priorities; d) do not give value and participate little in the policy forums. On the other hand, public servants who are leaders in the public administration tend to be friendlier to the forms of participation of the society and value these instances. It was on this environment that the processes of public policy conferences have grown in the last ten years of the federal administration. Therefore, there has been a dual behavior of public servants: in the everyday life of the administration, the classical bureaucratic logic tensions negatively the participation processes; on the other hand, in the logic of policy formulation, leaders tend to value the participation mechanisms of the society. There is, thus, a gap between the logic elitist, bureaucratic and patrimonial, which is typical from the state formation in Brazil against a process that seeks to "politicize" the public administration with greater participation of the society. All in all, the greatest successes of the social participation come from the following points:
Previous organization of the society and/or social segment. For example, in the areas of education and health, if there were no previous forms of mobilization and sectorial organization it would be unlikely that councils and conferences were representative and able to press the public power. In cases of experiences of the Orçamento Participativo (Participatory Budget), the existence of community associations with certain autonomy from political parties helped to mobilize the population, especially in outskirts areas, as occurred in Recife and Porto Alegre.
Small co-optation of social movements. In places where parties and governments were not able to co-opt the social movements, these kept some autonomy to participate in instances of public policy without losing their political identity. For example, it seems to be the case of the urban social movements in the housing area with homeless workers and the Central Única de Favelas (Single Central of Slums).
46
Global Initiative for Fiscal Transparency In such cases, social movements keep their ability to criticize and request from governments.
Respect the autonomy of policy instances and collegiate. Since in Brazil governments tend to co-opt member, their legitimacy ends up being reduced. The classic
case
occurs
when
mayors
manipulate
the
indication/election
of
representatives of councils, losing their capacity to monitor public policies. Changes in the composition rules of certain forums to constitute government majorities are also seen, for example.
Institutional rules of policy arenas. The rules of the game tend to favor or discourage the presence of legitimate actors in instances of participation. For example, guardianship councils have counselors who can be elected and paid, which stimulates the "competition", despite the poor working conditions. In another example, in the area of public safety, councils in the municipalities are very rare (just over 10% of the cities). In this case, even with the possibility of decentralizing resources, the greatest responsibility left to the state governments, reducing the interest on this type of local popular participation.
Volume of resources involved and universality of politics. Areas with higher amounts of resources tend to mobilize more actors with different interests, increasing "competition" and participation. The most typical cases are health and education. The opposite example can be seen in sanitation and local development, which are two areas usually undervalued by the federal government. As a result, councils dealing with these issues are very rare or, if they exist, they involve many other areas, such as environment questions.
Awareness of the segments involved. Issue such as the environment mobilize actors on a more crosscutting agenda from the partisan point of view, which makes this policy more "palatable" to the middle segments and less prone to disputes. That may be one if the main reasons why after social policies, channels to popular participation on environment public policies are the most well organized in the Brazilian municipalities.
Decentralization of resources. The greater the extension of this process, the greater the possibility of control and use of resources. One example is on the
47
Global Initiative for Fiscal Transparency provision of school meals since, as municipal councils in charge of it; they are responsible
for
managing
100%
of
resources
allocated
to
this
policy.
Decentralization, however, still faces the challenging of patronage and clientelism; in fact, in many cases it has been associated with their increase. Anyway, it can be denied that decentralization has also been an important tool to stimulate the creation of participatory instances especially in social areas since the end of the dictatorial government.
Political will of governments. Although the active presence of the society is vital, if governments do not offer acceptable working conditions, if they do not take into account the decisions of councils and conferences and also if government is not open to dialogue, instances of popular participation loses capacity to legitimize public action. This is a key variable once in Brazil the governmental action is still relevant to mobilize political and economic resources.
Improving fiscal language. A better knowledge of fiscal issues is a prerequisite to dialogue. On the other hand, simplifying the fiscal language can be an important way to ease the popular participation, increase transparency and also the effectiveness of participation. For example, the Brazilian budget planning system seems to be the one of most important cases in which the "technicalities" of the language greatly reduce the society’s ability to participate.
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Global Initiative for Fiscal Transparency
Section 5: Conclusions Popular participation has been steadily increasing around well-assigned social policies since Brazilian democratization in the 80’s, with the introduction of laws requiring the organization, at all levels of federation and about many different issues, of councils with the presence of the society. The political councils and conferences are the type of forums that exist in all levels of federation (municipalities, states and federal government). The forms of participation are strongly influenced by the federal legislation, which regulates the existence and the operation of policy councils that supervise federal funds received by the subnational governments. Thus, the design and operation rules of each public policy are key factors to be considered. Institutional innovations such as the Fórum Interconselhos (Inter-councils Forum) implemented in the federal PPA for the 2012-2015 period are recent in terms of conceiving crosscutting and inter-sectorial shapes of participation. There are only a few popular initiative laws in Brazil, which makes the study of this subject relevant to increase the direct participation of the society in the national policy and the institutional norms and forms that can stimulate this type of action. Referendums and plebiscites are still unusual experiences in Brazil after 1988, which are also used to evaluate the conditions, issues and possibilities of using this direct participation resource of the society. Audit Institutions lacks popular participations. Besides that, accountability is still very weak since the control of the budgetary execution is up only to the representatives. Channels that allow public participation are very rare. Public hearings and consultations should advance to be effective mechanisms of social participation and not mere formal means to fulfill legal requirements, which makes its reach to become limited and generates loss of legitimacy of this feature. The agenda dedicated to constitute a National Policy of participation should be encouraged and widely discussed with the civil society. As an example of some cities that held conferences to discuss their strategic direction (such as Vitoria and Porto
49
Global Initiative for Fiscal Transparency Alegre), the debate with the Fórum Interconselhos (Inter-councils Forum) could be expanded in order to help the constitution of the national system of participation.
50
Global Initiative for Fiscal Transparency
Section 6: References Abrucio, F., 2005. A coordenação federativa no Brasil: a experiência do período FHC e os desafios do governo Lula. Revista de Sociologia e Política, 24, 41-67. Abrucio, F., Pedroti, P. and Pó, M., 2010. A formação da burocracia brasileira: trajetória e significado das reformas administrativas. In Abrucio, F., Loureiro, M. and Pacheco, R. (orgs.), Burocracia e Política no Brasil: Desafios para a Ordem democrática no Séc.XXI. Rio de Janeiro : FGV, 27-72. Affonso, R., 2000. Descentralização e reforma do Estado: a federação brasileira na encruzilhada. Revista Economia e Sociedade, 14, 127-152. Almeida, M. and Sorj, B. (orgs.), 1983. Sociedade e Política no Brasil pós-64. São Paulo: Brasiliense. Almeida, M. Federalismo e proteção social: a experiência brasileira em perspectiva comparada. (mimeo). Available on: Almeida, M., 2005. Recentralizando a federação? Revista de Sociologia Política, 24, 29-40. Amorim, W., 2012. As greves de 2011 e 2012. Temas de economia aplicada. (fev). São Paulo: FIPE. Arretche, M., 1999. Políticas Sociais no Brasil: descentralização em um Estado Federativo. RBCS- Revista Brasileira de Ciências Sociais, 14 (40), 111-141. Arretche, M., 2009. Continuidades e descontinuidades da Federação Brasileira: de como 1988 facilitou 1995. Dados, 52 (2), 377-423. Banco Central do Brasil, 2009. Evolução do IDH das Grandes Regiões e Unidades da Federação. Boletim Regional do Banco Central do Brasil. Brasília. Bersch, K., Praça, S. and Taylor, M., 2012. An Archipelago of Excellence? Autonomous State Capacity among Brazilian Federal Agencies. (mimeo). Available on:
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Global Initiative for Fiscal Transparency Brelaz, G. and Alves, M., 2013. O processo de institucionalização da participação na Câmara Municipal de São Paulo: uma análise das audiências públicas do orçamento (1990-2010). Revista de Administração Pública, 47 (4), 803-826. Brazil. Ata da Comissão de Direitos Humanos de Legislação Participativa Nº. 01 de 2006. 2006. Available on:: Brazil. Constituição Federal (1988). São Paulo: Editora Revista dos Tribunais, 2010. Brazil. Constituição Federal de 1988. Brasília: Senado Federal. 2013. Available on: . Brazil. Decreto de 8 de dezembro de 2010. Convoca a 1ª Conferência Nacional sobre Transparência e Participação Social – Consocial, e dá outras providências. Available on:: . Brazil. Decreto de 8 de julho de 2011. Convoca a 1ª Conferência Nacional sobre Transparência e Controle Social – CONSOCIAL e revoga o Decreto de 8 de dezembro de 2010. Available on:: . Brazil. Lei complementar n.º 101 de 25 de maio de 2000. 4 reimpressão. Brasília: Senado Federal. Subsecretaria de Edições Técnicas. 2005. Available on:: http://www2.senado.gov.br/bdsf/bitstream/handle/id/70313/738485.pdf?sequenc e=2. Brazil. Regimento Interno: Resolução nº 93, de 1970. Brasília: Senado Federal. 2011. Available on:: .
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Global Initiative for Fiscal Transparency Brazil. Regimento Interno: Resolução nº18, de 1989. Brasília: Câmara dos Deputados. 9ª ed. 2012. Available on:: http://bd.camara.gov.br/bd/bitstream/handle/bdcamara/1926/regimento_interno _9ed.pdf?sequence=9. Câmara dos Deputados. Atividade Legislativa. Comissões. Comissão Legislativa Participativa. Available on:: http://www2.camara.leg.br/atividadelegislativa/comissoes/comissoes-permanentes/clp/conheca-a-comissao. Câmara dos Deputados. Atividade Legislativa. Comissões. Available on:: http://www2.camara.leg.br/atividade-legislativa/comissoes. Câmara dos Deputados. Portal E-Democracia. Available on:: http://edemocracia.camara.gov.br/. Acesso em 15 de junho de 2013c. Câmara dos Deputados. Registro das Reuniões. Available on:: http://www2.camara.leg.br/atividade-legislativa/comissoes/reunioes/registrosdas-reunioes. Canela, G. and Nascimento, S. (coords.), 2009. Acesso à informação e controle social das políticas públicas. Brasília: ANDI; Artigo 19. Carvalho, J., 2006. Cidadania no Brasil: o longo caminho. 8th ed. Rio de Janeiro: Civilização Brasileira. Controladoria Geral da União. 2012. Aspectos Metodológicos da 1ª Consocial. Brasília. Controladoria Geral da União, 2010. Programa Bolsa Família: orientações para o acompanhamento do Programa Bolsa Família. Coleção Olho Vivo. Brasília. Controladoria Geral da União. Portaria nº 309, de 14 de fevereiro de 2011. Constitui a Comissão Organizadora da 1ª Conferência Nacional sobre Transparência e Participação Social – CONSOCIAL. Available on:: . Controladoria Geral da União. Regimento Interno da 1ª Conferência Nacional sobre Transparência e Controle Social – 1ª Consocial. Available on:: .
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Global Initiative for Fiscal Transparency Controladoria Geral da União. Relatório Final da 1ª Conferência Nacional sobre Transparência e Controle Social – 1ª Consocial. Available on:: .. Controladoria Geral da União. Texto-Base da 1ª Conferência Nacional sobre Transparência e Controle Social – 1ª Consocial. Available on:: . Daniliauskas, M. and Gouveia, T., 2010. ABONG: panorama das associadas. São Paulo. Delforge, T., 2012. A governança pública no combate à corrupção. 6º Concurso de Monografias da CGU. Brasília. Demo, P., 1992. Democracia e Desenvolvimento. Ciência & Trópico, 20 (2). Recife. 281-308. Dieese. 2013. Balanço das greves em 2012. Estudos e Pesquisas, 66. São Paulo. Draibe, S., 1994. As políticas sociais do regime militar brasileiro: 1964-84. In: SOARES, G. and D´Araujo, M. (Orgs.). 21 Anos de Regime Militar: balanços e perspectivas. Rio de Janeiro: FGV. 271-315. Fagnani, E., 1997. Política Social e Pactos Conservadores no Brasil: 1964-92. Economia e Sociedade, 8. Campinas. 183-238. Faria, C., Lins, I. and Silva, V., 2012. Conferências de políticas públicas: um sistema integrado de participação e deliberação? Revista Brasileira de Ciência Política, 7. Brasília. 249-284. Ganança, A., 2006. Associativismo no Brasil: características e limites para a construção de uma nova institucionalidade democrática participativa. Dissertação (Mestrado em Ciência Política)-Universidade de Brasília. 144p. Giacomoni, J., 2012. Orçamento Público. 16th. ed. São Paulo: Atlas. GOVERNO FEDERAL, 2010. Brasil 2003 a 2010. Brasília.
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Global Initiative for Fiscal Transparency IBGE, 2004. Fundações Privadas e Associações sem Fins Lucrativos no Brasil 2002. Estudos e Pesquisas: informação econômica, 4. Rio de Janeiro. IBGE, 2008. Projeção da população do Brasil por sexo e idade 1980-2050: revisão 2008. Estudos e Pesquisas: informação demográfica e socioeconômica, 24. Rio de Janeiro. IBGE, 2012. Contas regionais do Brasil: 2010. Contas nacionais, 38. Rio de Janeiro. IBGE, 2012. Síntese de Indicadores Sociais: uma análise das condições de vida da população brasileira. Estudos e Pesquisas: informação demográfica e socioeconômica, 29. Rio de Janeiro. Instituto Polis (2005). DICAS: Ideias para a ação municipal. n. 230. Available on: . IPEA, 2012. Audiências Públicas no Âmbito do Governo Federal: análise preliminar e bases para avaliação. Relatório de pesquisa. Brasília. IPEA, 2012. Desenvolvimento Rural. In Políticas Sociais: acompanhamento e análise. 20. Brasília. 247-311. IPEA, 2012. Relatório. Participação social na administração pública federal: desafios e perspectivas para a criação de uma política nacional de participação. Projeto Apoio aos Diálogos Setoriais União Europeia–Brasil. Brasília. Ivo, A., 2001. Sociedade e Política. In Ivo, A., Metamorfoses da questão democrática. Governabilidad e pobreza. CLACSO. Buenos Aires. 85-132. Khair, A., 2000. Lei de Responsabilidade Fiscal: guia de orientação para as prefeituras. Brasília: Ministério do Planejamento, Orçamento e Gestão; BNDES. Kinzo, M., 2004. Partidos, eleições e democracia no Brasil pós-1985. Revista Brasileira de Ciências Sociais. 54 (19). 23-40. Lamounier, B., 1989. Partidos e Utopias: o Brasil no limiar dos anos 90. São Paulo: Edições Loyola. Lamounier, B., 2005. Da Independência a Lula: dois séculos de política brasileira, São Paulo: Augurium Editora.
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Global Initiative for Fiscal Transparency Lima Júnior, O., 1993. Democracia e Instituições Políticas no Brasil dos anos 80, São Paulo, Loyola. Luna, F. and Klein, H., 2009. Desigualdade e indicadores sociais no Brasil. In Schwartzman, L. et all (orgs.). O Sociólogo e as Políticas públicas: Ensaios em Homenagem a Simon Schwartzman. Rio de Janeiro: FGV. 97‐116. Magalhães, N., 2008. ONGs e IDH no Brasil: uma visão do século XXI. Universidad Internacional de Andalucía Sede Iberoamericana de Santa María de La Rábida. Brasília. Mancurso, W., 2008. O lobby da indústria no Congresso Nacional: empresariado e política no Brasil contemporâneo. São Paulo: EDUSP. Marconi, N., 2010. Uma radiografia do emprego público no Brasil: análise e sugestões de políticas. In Abrucio, L. e Pacheco, R. (orgs.). Burocracia e Política no Brasil: Desafios para a Ordem democrática no Séc.XXI. Rio de Janeiro: FGV. 219276. Martins, C., 2012. Processos participativos nas Assembleias Legislativas: estruturas, dinâmicas e limites. Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul. Programa de Pós-graduação em Ciência Política. Dissertação. 168p. Ministério do Desenvolvimento Social e Combate à fome, 2010. Exercendo o Controle Social do Programa Bolsa Família. Brasília. Ministério do Planejamento, Orçamento e Gestão, 2012. Secretaria de Gestão Pública. Boletim Estatístico de Pessoal, v.17, n. 197. Brasília: MP. Ministério do Planejamento, Orçamento e Gestão, 2012. O modelo de planejamento governamental: PPA 2012-2015. Brasília. Ministério do Planejamento, Orçamento e Gestão, 2012. Perfil das Empresas Estatais Federais, 2011. Brasília: MP/SE/DEST. Nicolau, J., 1996. Multipartidarismo e Democracia: um estudo sobre o sistema partidário brasileiro. Rio de Janeiro: FGV. Nicolau, J., 1999. Sistemas eleitorais: uma introdução, Rio de Janeiro: FGV.
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