Innovation Spaces for Management in Public Services (BR0092)

Lead government institution Ministry of Planning, Development and Management Civil servant in charge for implementing at lead government institution Felipe Bragança Itaborahy Luanna Sant'anna Roncaratti Position - Department Advisors/ Public Management Department E-mail felipe.itaborahy@planejamento.gov.br luanna.roncaratti@planejamento.gov.br Telephone 55 61 2020 5571 Other involved actors Government Ministry of Planning, Development and Management Ministry of Justice and Citizenship National School of Public Administration (ENAP) Government Secretariat Hacker Laboratory – Chamber of Deputies Ministry of Health National Sanitary Surveillance Agency (ANVISA) Civil society, private sector, group of workers and multilateral actors Department of Public Policy Analysis (FGV/DAPP) Ceweb.br Public Agenda Columbia Center (Rio) Wenovate – Open Innovation Center Ms. Bruna Santos University of São Paulo/Co-Laboratory of Development and Participation (COLAB) Status quo or problem/issue to be addressed Need of expanding open innovation practices at the public sector with multi-stakeholder engagement, with effective transparency Main objective To collaboratively create and promote innovative tools and methods for public management and provision of public services on the federal level Commitment short description Strengthening of open innovation initiatives at the public sector through a network consolidation, which stimulates a cooperative and transparent action between government and society. OGP Challenge addressed by the Commitment Improving Public Services Increasing Public Integrity More effective public resources management Commitment relevance Promote innovation within the public sector, integrating government and society co-operation Goal Civil servants, public agencies and society more engaged and committed to innovation processes at the public sector. Services, products, processes and public policies built collaboratively.

9. Innovation Spaces for Management in Public Services

Commitment Text:

Consolidate an Open Network at the civil service, under a collaborative and transparent way with society

The commitment concerns the improvement of public management and public service delivery, in the context of the Federal Government, by means of collaboratively creating and promoting innovative tools and methods. Taking this perspective into account, it is aims at Strengthening of open innovation initiatives at the public sector through a network consolidation, which stimulates a cooperative and transparent action between government and society.

9.1 – Innovation Network manifesto instituting, with the participation of society (workshops & online consultation)

9.2 – Training activities promotion and support (one per semester), experience exchange and best practice dissemination (4 activities)

9.3 – Innovation Network capillarisation (communication) - (activation, mobilization and engagement)

9.4 – Range society ways of interacting at innovation processes to the civil service

9.5 – I Innovation Network Meeting, with the civil society (manifesto, initiatives) - (regional simultaneous events)

9.6 – Platform consolidation, in order to: register existing innovative experiences make available tool repository, processes and easy access methodologies

9.7 – II Innovation Network Meeting

Responsible institution: Ministry of Planning, Development and Management

Supporting institutions: Ministry of Justice and Citizenship, National School of Public Administration (ENAP), Government Secretariat, Hacker Laboratory – Chamber of Deputies, Ministry of Health, National Sanitary Surveillance Agency (ANVISA), Department of Public Policy Analysis (FGV/DAPP), Ceweb.br, Public Agenda, Columbia Center (Rio), Wenovate – Open Innovation Center, Ms. Bruna Santos, University of São Paulo/Co-Laboratory of Development and Participation (COLAB)

Start date: December 2016.. End date: November 2018

Context and Objectives

This commitment aims to address the lack of coherent support for government innovation by expanding open innovation practices in the public sector with multi-stakeholder engagement. The government seeks to establish an open network within the civil service through collaboration with civil society. The government expects the network to create and promote innovative tools and methods for public management and the provision of public services at the federal level. Through the network, the government will enable government and civil society to co-create public policies.

No previous government-led innovation network existed in Brazil. The commitment aims to address this gap. Open government represents a new frontier for government and civil society. Thus, these parties need to bring together initiatives and leaders inside and outside of the government to promote open government innovation. This work could include international organizations (such as the Organization of American States and its Open Government Fellowship Program)[1] or international foundations (such as the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation and its Research Network on Opening Governance).[2] OGP itself incentivizes the development of innovation networks, for example, through its working groups.[3]

The commitment’s level of specificity is medium. The action plan lists several measurable deliverables, such as the launch of an innovation network, training activities (once per semester), and two network meetings. However, few details in the commitment outline the expected characteristics of this network. Moreover, the government expects to design the main product during the implementation of the plan.

The commitment could indirectly address all OGP values. However, it mostly relates to the value of civic participation, given the emphasis on creating a network of government and civil society actors to work on open government initiatives.

The commitment has a minor potential impact, due to the design of the commitment itself, which is largely limited to creating a network. Raising awareness of existing innovative initiatives and tools constitutes a positive goal. However, greater potential lies in using the network, once implemented, to connect actors that could transform open government standards in the country. This action, though, extends beyond the scope and timeline of the commitment as it is written.

Completion

The commitment has seen substantial completion.

Milestones 9.1-9.3 are substantially completed. Milestone 9.1 involves the innovation manifesto, designed with the participation of civil society through workshops and online consultation. The manifesto was not yet ready. However, the commitment webpage provides detailed information about the role of each stakeholder,[4] parties of the network,[5] their work,[6] and mechanisms for participation.[7] The government created the network before the start of the action plan, but there is clear evidence that new activities related to the commitment occurred after that.

Milestone 9.2 relates to the implementation of four training activities to exchange experiences and disseminate best practices. In May 2017, the government held several workshops. The news section of the network’s website lists a series of events from other agencies.[8] As for communication activities to raise awareness of the network (milestone 9.3), the website provides records of several communication efforts, including six bulletins published after the start of the commitment.[9]

Milestone 9.4 and 9.6 are less specific, which makes it difficult to assess them. Milestone 9.4 aims to systematize public interaction with the civil service. Milestone 9.6 refers to the consolidation of a portal that documents existing innovative initiatives and tools. The portal in question contains content relevant to milestones 9.4 and 9.6. Materials there include a library of reading documents, reports, annotated legislation, working group reports of activities, benchmarking of ongoing projects, and contact information. However, the platform was released in early 2016, before the start of the action plan (it has been updated since), and the information displayed is not properly organized. Thus, progress on these milestones is deemed to be limited.

The government held the first one-day Innovation Network Meeting[10] (milestone 9.5) on 25 May 2017 in Brasília. The agenda included lectures and workshops on innovation. The panelists included academics (e.g., Getúlio Vargas Foundation, University of Brasília), foreign government institutions (e.g., Nesta), executive branch representatives (e.g., Tribunal de Contas da União), and the lower house of Congress (i.e., LabHacker).

The second Innovation Network Meeting (milestone 9.7) was expected to take place during Open Government Day in November 2017. This date falls outside of the reporting deadline of this report.[11]

The government completed milestones 9.1 and 9.3 by the expected date, October 2017. Therefore, the commitment is considered on schedule.

Early Results (if any)

The commitment ultimately aims to improve public services, increase public integrity, and better management of public resources. All of these expected outcomes align with the commitment as written. However, no clear records connect innovation network activities directly to these goals.

The commitment involves a long list of participating organizations (55 from the government, 10 from the private sector, 4 from civil society, and 4 from academia). In addition, the use of the innovative tools and methods promoted by the government to properly analyze the commitment results are noteworthy. Nonetheless, the number of initiatives mentioned on the website is average (6 reported projects with updates, 6 working groups with updates, and around 40 posts and documents), though diverse (e.g., promoting topics such as public efficiency, citizen’s participation, and policy design).

Next Steps

For future steps, the government could adopt a more active role in promoting open government innovation within the civil service. In collaboration with civil society, it could incubate projects, provide mentors to promote initiatives, publish results, and evaluate impact.

9. Innovation Spaces for Management in Public Services

Commitment Text:

Consolidate an Open Network at the civil service, under a collaborative and transparent way with society.

The commitment concerns the improvement of public management and public service delivery, in the context of the Federal Government, by means of collaboratively creating and promoting innovative tools and methods. Taking this perspective into account, it is aims at Strengthening of open innovation initiatives at the public sector through a network consolidation, which stimulates a cooperative and transparent action between government and society.

More specifically, the commitment was set out to achieve the following milestones:

9.1 – Innovation Network manifesto instituting, with the participation of society (workshops & online consultation)

9.2 – Training activities promotion and support (one per semester), experience exchange and best practice dissemination (4 activities)

9.3 – Innovation Network capillarisation (communication) - (activation, mobilization and engagement)

9.4 – Range society ways of interacting at innovation processes to the civil service

9.5 – I Innovation Network Meeting, with the civil society (manifesto, initiatives) - (regional simultaneous events)

9.6 – Platform consolidation, in order to: register existing innovative experiences make available tool repository, processes and easy access methodologies

9.7 – II Innovation Network Meeting

Responsible institution: Ministry of Planning, Development and Management

Supporting institutions: Ministry of Justice and Citizenship, National School of Public Administration (ENAP), Government Secretariat, Hacker Laboratory – Chamber of Deputies, Ministry of Health, National Sanitary Surveillance Agency (ANVISA), Department of Public Policy Analysis (FGV/DAPP), Ceweb.br, Public Agenda, Columbia Center (Rio), Wenovate – Open Innovation Center, Ms. Bruna Santos, University of São Paulo/Co-Laboratory of Development and Participation (COLAB)

Start Date: December 2016...                         End Date: November 2018

Commitment Aim:

The commitment aimed to address the lack of coherent support for government innovation by expanding open innovation practices in the public sector, with multi-stakeholder engagement. The government sought to establish an open network within the civil service through collaboration with civil society. The government expected the network to create and promote innovative tools and methods for public management and the provision of public services at the federal level.

Status

Midterm: Substantial

The commitment showed substantial completion. Milestones 9.1–9.7 were underway. They included the publication of an innovation manifesto (9.1), which was under final consultation. These milestones also included four training activities (9.2) that were partially completed and awareness-raising activities in amongst their network peers (9.3). The awareness-raising activities were underway and scheduled to last until the end of the commitment. Milestones 9.4–9.6 were less specific, which made it difficult to assess them in detail. Milestone 9.4 involved the consolidation of a portal that documents existing innovative initiatives and tools. Milestone 9.5 concerned ­­­­­­­­­the organization of an in-site event, with representatives from different states and cities, and Milestone 9.6 concerned the publication of a library of documents. Most milestone activities extended along the timeline for the whole commitment. Milestone 9.7, involving the II Innovation Network meeting, was completed in November 2017, during the second year of implementation.

End of term: Complete

The government completed all milestones.

Milestone 9.1 involved the publication of an innovation manifesto, which was published in 2018 at their regular network event host every year. [60]

Milestone 9.2 involved the implementation of four training activities to exchange experiences and disseminate best practices. [61] The government completed three of these activities before the midterm report. The remaining training activities were completed as planned in 2018. At these activities, actors from different sectors received training on and shared experiences of working with innovation practices in the public sector. [62]

Milestone 9.3 involved regular communication activities on the project website. This task was completed. The blog, in particular, received regular contributions every month in 2018 [63] from civil society and a wide range of government institutions.

Milestones 9.4 and 9.6 were less specific, which made it difficult to assess their completion status. Milestone 9.4 aimed to systematize public interaction with the civil service, while Milestone 9.6 involved the consolidation of a portal that documents existing innovative initiatives and tools. However, the IRM researcher found evidence of complete activities in both cases. The IRM researcher had access to the library of projects and ideas [64] and working group activities, [65] the Twitter account with 2,100 followers, [66] and a WhatsApp group with 200 users.

Milestone 9.5 involved the organization of the I Innovation Network Meeting, and Milestone 9.7 involved a second edition of the same event, which occurred in October 2017, as scheduled. [67]

Did It Open Government?

Civic Participation: Marginal

The commitment aimed to address the lack of coherent support for government innovation by expanding open innovation practices in the public sector with multi-stakeholder engagement. The government planned to establish an open network within the civil service through collaboration with civil society. By the end of the commitment’s timeline, the updated network included 59 institutional members, 28 percent of which came from civil society. Public statements came from, for example, BrazilLab [68] and Brazilian Association of Lawtech and LegalTech. [69] Communication among members of the network is frequent and open. Such communication indicates that a contribution to civic participation in public innovation was achieved (considering the previous status quo, where no periodic and planned civic participation existed).

Carried Forward?

The government did not include this commitment in the fourth national action plan. The network, however, is still active. The 2018 yearly event took place in November 2018. [70]