Brazilian public controllership institutions theory versus practice

Abstract

The creation of a General Controllership (CGU) in the executive branch of the Brazilian federal government in 2003 brought in its wake the creation or transformation of a variety of institutions in public controllership at the state level. We have assumed that this development resulted from the needs of public managers for institutions that can not only monitor the actions taken by the public administration but also provide information useful to government managers, but this assumption needs to be tested. This article investigates whether the functions actually performed by the institutions of the Brazilian public controllership match the controllership functions defined in the literature. We studied a sample of 14 Brazilian public sector controllership institutions, one at the federal level and 13 at the state level. We found that in addition to contributing to the decision process, the studied public controllership institutions provided public managers with a means of monitoring the activities of public programs. Therefore, the data demonstrate that the functions performed by the institutions of Brazilian public controllership conform with the definitions of controllership functions found in the literature.