agencies

Ciro Fernandes

Ref Batch
V
Focus Area(s)
Ref Batch Number
2
Country of Reform
Interviewers
Rushda Majeed
Name
Ciro Fernandes
Interviewee's Position
Program Director and Special Adviser
Interviewee's Organization
Brazilian Ministry of Administration and State Reform
Language
English
Nationality of Interviewee
Brazilian
Town/City
Brasilia
Country
Date of Interview
Reform Profile
No
Abstract
Ciro Fernandes recounts his experience in Bresser-Pereira's team in the Ministry of Administration and State Reform. The initial reform team was recruited from pools in the larger civil service bureaucracy, the Secretariat for Federal Administration that served as immediate basis for the Ministry, and Bresser-Pereira's university network. The first mandate under President Cardoso focused on articulation of specific goals for the reform program, including (i) decentralization of public administration, especially for service delivery; (ii) development of performance indicators with support from international consultants; (iii) reform of the hiring process for civil servants; and (iv) strengthening of the civil service core through enhanced recruitment strategies. Fernandes identifies the reform blueprint of Plano Diretor as the most significant product of the reform inasmuch as the ideas contained therein have served as bases for a long-lasting revolution in thinking about public administration. Under Fernandes' direction, there was a coordinated and three-pronged media outreach strategy predicated on (i) a magazine targeting a wide audience of practitioners, (ii) a collection of papers for specialists who may be interested in replicating the reform, and (iii) a website in a decade when the potential of the internet remained largely untapped. Due to this visibility, Bresser succeeded in putting civil service at the top of the agenda of the reform-focused Cardoso administration. However, during the second mandate there were significant challenges to implementation. The main sources of resistance were civil service unions and specific advisers in the executive and legislative branches who identified managerial reform with the neoliberalism they denounced. Fernandes discusses specific implementation challenges in decentralization through creation of state-funded, administratively autonomous social organizations, as well as through creation of executive agencies. In both cases, the difficulties in establishing pilots and managing anxiety among the personnel contributed to limited successes. In this climate, the Ministry was ultimately absorbed by the Ministry of Planning. The resulting discontinuity among the key reform managers frustrated successful implementation of the reform at the federal level. Nonetheless, the dispersion of the reform team resulted in further dissemination of the key ideas of the Plano Diretor as the reform staff was incorporated into other teams at the state level. 
 
Profile

A career civil servant, Ciro Fernandes worked as a project manager for the Ministry of Social Security. He joined the newly-created Ministry of Administration and State Reform under Fernando Henrique Cardoso.

Full Audio File Size
112 MB
Full Audio Title
Ciro Fernandes Interview

Strengthening Public Administration: Brazil, 1995-1998

Author
Rushda Majeed
Focus Area(s)
Country of Reform
Abstract
In 1995, when Luiz Carlos Bresser-Pereira took charge of the Brazilian ministry responsible for administration and reform, problems plagued the nation’s public sector. Laws and regulations prevented ministries and public sector organizations from working efficiently. Payrolls had ballooned because of rapidly rising retirement costs. Irregular recruitment and a lack of proper training had eroded the talent pool. Soon after taking office, Bresser-Pereira put together an ambitious plan to overhaul public administration. He proposed amending the constitution to loosen constraints on hiring and firing. At the same time, he pressed for a new model of governance that relied on restructuring ministries and public sector organizations as contract-based “executive agencies” and “social organizations.” Under his leadership, the Ministry of Federal Administration and State Reform (MARE) collected and centralized payroll and personnel data, recruited successfully to fill crucial policy and management positions, and set up regular training programs. By 1998, MARE had guided the constitutional amendment through Congress and set up pilot programs for executive agencies and social organizations. While some efforts stalled after MARE merged with another ministry in 1998, the ideas and principles put forward by its team continued to inform subsequent changes. This case offers insights into the challenges of building accountable services.
 
Rushda Majeed drafted this policy note on the basis of interviews conducted in Brasilia and São Paulo, Brazil, in September 2010.
 

Rethinking the Role of the Cabinet: Maryland's Center of Government Reforms, 2007-2012

Author
Michael Scharff
Focus Area(s)
Country of Reform
Abstract

When Maryland Governor Martin O'Malley assumed office in January 2007, he took over a government hamstrung by ineffective coordination and imprecise monitoring. The state had 20 executive departments, 80,000 state workers, and a $30-billion budget. Winning cooperation to work toward shared goals and keeping tabs on progress posed daunting challenges. A Democrat who had served as mayor of Baltimore, Maryland's largest city, O'Malley had staked his campaign on promises to reform the education sector, increase public safety, safeguard the environment, make health care more affordable, and improve the state's economy. As he had done while mayor of Baltimore, O'Malley decided to focus his cabinet on several main priorities and set specific goals. Then he and his team (1) invested substantial amounts of time to come to understand the inner workings of the various departments, (2) developed measures of department performance, and (3) met regularly with department heads to evaluate progress. Because the governor was able to keep abreast of what was getting done and what wasn't, his team could focus on department performance in a timely manner and from a position of knowledge. O'Malley called the process StateStat. The implementation of StateStat kept departments focused on the governor's priorities, promoted greater coordination among departments and agencies, and produced measurable progress toward goals set by the center of government. 

Michael Scharff drafted this case study based on interviews conducted in Annapolis, Maryland, in October and November 2012. Additional interviews were conducted by phone in February and March 2013. Although the governor was unavailable to be interviewed for this case study, aides and officials close to O'Malley described the reform process in detail. Case published July 2013.

Associated Interview(s):  Matthew Gallagher