Public career has challenge to contain political factor, but qualifications help

Changes in government and the consequent nomination of several hundred people to public office renew debates about what weighs for the development of a consistent public career.

Both for those who aspire to a vacancy in the State and apply for public service and for those who are already civil servants and want to advance in rank, competence, preparation and updating are fundamental, but the challenge of containing the impetus of political interference and breaking the rigidity of some state structures exists and it is a debate between those who think about the public professional of the future in Brazil.

The beginning of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s (PT) third administration, with the appointment of two career female employees as presidents of Caixa Econômica Federal and Banco do Brasil, highlights the discussion.

Rita Serrano, 53, the fourth woman to chair Caixa, has been a bank employee for 33 years. She has held several positions throughout her career. Tarciana Medeiros, 44, joined Banco do Brasil in 2000, holding various positions. In 2018, she took over as an executive in the directorate of loans and financing at BB. She is the first woman to assume the presidency of the institution.

For Cibele Franzese, undergraduate and graduate professor in public administration at FGV, the fact that the two civil servants reached the leadership position is salutary, but that does not mean that the choice was not political.

“It’s a government agenda to strengthen gender issues, to have women in management positions and in the leadership of the company and to have career people, who know the life of the company itself. This shows a little that we don’t have a system of senior management in public positions with selection based on competence. This process takes place very much by touch”, says the professor.

The gender issue in the Lula government gained even more strength with the nomination of journalist Kariane Costa, 41, for the presidency of EBC (Empresa Brasileira de Comunicação). Ten years ago at the state-owned company, the journalist was working as a political reporter.

According to data from the Brazilian State Atlas, women represent 59% of civil servants in the country. But, in leadership positions, the majority are men: 57%. And the higher the level, the lower the female participation.

The Constitution establishes that management, leadership and advisory positions are freely appointed and dismissed. According to Franzese, the political class has an electoral commitment agenda to fulfill, and it is legitimate for them to nominate people they trust to make this agenda happen. However, changes are needed to make the choice more technical.

Franzese also points out that the person already enters the public service with a career outlined by law. “It’s not very institutionalized and very limited for anyone who wants to plan their career. The functional evolution is in the salary table, because the function doesn’t change. You get promoted and 20, 30 years from now, when you retire, you’re doing the same thing provided for by law .”

Fernanda Sanches Martins, 39, managed to escape that path. She entered as public servant of the São Paulo City Hall in April 2003, in an administrative function. Today, she is the project coordinator for the city hall.

She graduated according to the opportunities that appeared throughout her career in public service.

“When I took the exam, the position required only high school and some specific skills. But I really missed evolving even though it wasn’t mandatory in my career, so I graduated throughout that period. Today I have a secretarial technician, I have a bachelor’s degree tourism and I’m a student of information technology.”

For Paulo Modesto, professor of administrative law at UFBA (Federal University of Bahia) and president of the Brazilian Institute of Public Law, there will always be a political component in a position of trust. That’s why they exist, “they are the bridge between the political actor and the technical actors”, he says.

“But that this political component is filtered, with a competence test, by a certain proportion between positions of trust and effective positions. It is important to avoid a colonization of politics in relation to public management.”

According to Franzese, there is a lack of evaluation rules that can stimulate the public servant and chart a career different from the one given to him.

“We don’t have server performance management. If you don’t have a leader who manages performance, if the leader is a politician who was appointed and doesn’t look at the server’s face the whole year, how is he going to be evaluated?”

Modesto goes further. According to him, the career system is not good and what supports this is the low range of careers within the public service.

“We have a few strata between the first and last levels of remuneration. The server, quickly, with a few years of work, is already at the maximum level of the career, which creates disincentives to maintain efficiency, dedication to the service”, says the teacher.

Another factor that fuels the discussion is where the server is allocated, according to economist Francisco Gaetani, from the Extraordinary Secretariat for the Transformation of the State of the Ministry of Management and Innovation in Public Services.

“If you look at the Esplanada, you will see a domino of ministries and the tendency is to think that they are all the same, but in fact they are very heterogeneous. There are more professionalized ministries and others that are less professionalized”, says Gaetani.

“There are ministries that have a set of positions of trust. At the first level, it is more natural for people to be outside. At the second level, intermediate. all levels and has areas where the house staff occupies all levels.”

Lawyer Ricardo Marques, 52, went through the political change in the federal administration recently. In July 2022, she had assumed the Secretary of Electric Energy of the Ministry of Mines and Energy. But, in just over six months, he was exonerated.

He entered public service in 1999 in a commissioned position. In 2005, he was appointed public servant at the National Electric Energy Agency. “It took me that long to get where I am. I went through several positions, I built my career little by little. That’s the general rule”, he says.

“To reach a higher position, you have to have a baggage built for you to be able to give the answers. It’s not just academic or technical knowledge.”

Project coordinator Fernanda Martins shows that it is possible to align this knowledge to strengthen your career within the public service. “I had many obstacles, things that even strengthened me, contributed, and today I give back all that I had a little more difficulty in consolidating myself as an experience for my team.”

For Professor Paulo Modesto, two measures could value the preparation and qualification of the server. One would be to require a higher level for positions of trust, and another that the maximum limit of 50% of positions of trust should never be exceeded in relation to effective positions.

“There is much to be done, whether creating blockages or inhibitions for the political colonization of these positions. It is important that there is resistance against abuse, that there is memory of public bodies, that civil servants can preserve the continuity of public service.”