Electronic System for the Citizen Information Service (e-SIC) - Observatory of Public Sector Innovation

The Electronic System for the Citizen Information Service (e-SIC) was developed to enable, in a cost-effective and efficient way, the reception and processing of access to information requests. The system facilitated the implementation of the Access to Information Act and serves as an essential tool for monitoring its implementation.

Innovation Summary

Innovation Overview

The Law nº 12.527/2011, known as the Access to Information Act (LAI), establishes procedures to be followed by all constituent public bodies of the three power spheres in order to guarantee the accomplishment of the right to information, established in art. 5º of the Federal Constitution. The Law was published on November 18, 2011 and entered into force 180 days after that date, on May 16, 2012.
At the time, its implementation was a huge challenge within the Federal Executive Branch, because there was a short period of time to mobilize and prepare the public bodies to a new way of action in which the access is the rule and the secrecy is the exception.In order to ensure the required structure to the full functionality of the Law from the first day of its validity, the Federal Government needed of a mechanism to facilitate the access to public information and the communication between the government and the citizens.

Thus, the Federal Comptroller's Office (CGU) created the Electronic System of the Citizen Information Service (e-SIC), which is a unique system that centralizes all requests for access to information addressed to the Federal Executive Branch. The main objective of the e-SIC is to organize and address citizen's access to information requests, to provide the administration with a monitoring mechanisms for the implementation of the Law and to produce statistical reports.

The e-SIC is available on the Internet and allows any individual or legal entity to forward access to information requests to the bodies of the Federal Executive Branch. Through the system, it is also possible to monitor the compliance with the deadline for replying, to check the responses received, to lodge appeals, to present a complaint, among other actions.

The instrument also allows, in accordance with the law, for public servants to respond to requests and resources; extend the deadlines for response; redirect the requests to the bodies, manage the servants that can respond to the requests; update information from the Citizen Information Services (SICs); and perform a follow-up of the services response through reports. The e-SIC offers, therefore, many advantages to the citizens and to the government, like:
• Availability via web for any interested citizen that has access to the internet
• Low cost for the citizen to make requests for accessing the information and also for the public body to send the responses;
•Celerity in the process of receiving and sending requests and responses
• Comprehensiveness of the entire Federal Public Administration, facilitating the submission of requests and the extraction of statistical data to monitor the Law;
• Implementation of computerized routines for the flow among requests and responses

The CGU is the body responsible for keeping the full operation of the e-SIC, to implement improvements and to guide the Federal Executive Branch and the citizens about its functioning. Since it was launched on May 16 2012, the system had already incorporated some modifications, aiming to adapt it to the normative that regulates the Access to Information Act in the scope of the Federal Executive Power (Decree nº 7.724/12) and to better serve the users and the public servants.

In November 2018, for example, the e-SIC started to enable a function allowing citizens to preserve their identity in cases of information requests that could substantiate a report on any public agent or body. Therefore, the possibility for citizens to protect their identity was introduced, through the Citizen Information System (e-SIC), when they lodge an information request whose nature may be subject to a complaint.

From the recognition that the system has obtained, the CGU is preparing a proposal to potentially extend its scope to sub-national entities. Thus, these entities may also use the e-SIC to receive and process their requests for access to information.

Innovation Description

What Makes Your Project Innovative?

In order to facilitate and simplify the procedure to send, as well as process, access to information requests under the Access to Information Act, there was a need for the Federal Executive Branch to develop an integrated system, available on the web and easily accessible to all citizens. Thus, considering that it is the State's duty to guarantee the right of access to information, the Office of the Comptroller General developed the Electronic System for the Citizen Information Service (e-SIC), an innovative instrument in the country, launched on the 16th of May 2012, the same date that the Access to Information Act entered into force.

It should be noted that the creation of e-SIC is also an important example of innovation in the electronic and automated provision of public services, since it allows the whole cycle of access to information - from the entry of demand to the output of the response - to be performed by the system. In addition, e-SIC is administered by the CGU, the monitoring body.

Innovation Development

Collaborations & Partnerships

The resources required for the development and launch of the e-SIC were obtained under the technical cooperation project signed between the UNESCO and the Office of the Comptroller General (CGU), entitled "Brazilian Policy on Access to Public Information: democratic guarantee of the right to information, transparency and citizen participation". Through this technical cooperation, two notices were issued for the hiring of consultants in charge of developing the system.

Users, Stakeholders & Beneficiaries

Currently, more than 345 thousand citizens are registered (and have already registered requests for access to information) in the e-SIC system. In addition, 1,463 civil servants and more than 310 bodies and entities of the Federal Executive Branch are registered in the system.

Innovation Reflections

Results, Outcomes & Impacts

The e-SIC has been adopted by almost all institutions part of the Federal Executive Branch and, with the opening of its source code and the disclosure actions carried out by the Transparent Brazil Program, the system model has been used in several States and Municipalities.
By becoming available on the internet, e-SIC contributes to a larger number of people being able to demand and receive public information, since citizens are not required to go personally to the body's headquarters to make a request. Between May 2012 and January 2019, more than 700,000 (seven hundred thousand) requests for access to information in the e-SIC system were registered. In addition, more than 345 thousand citizens are registered (and have already made requests for access to information).
The information obtained by citizens through the e-SIC allows them to know better the performance of the Public Power and its agents. Therefore, access to public information can be considered a fundamental condition for the citizens.

Challenges and Failures

The implementation of the e-SIC has proved to be a major challenge in the scope of the Federal Executive Power, since the deadline to mobilize and prepare public bodies and entities for a new logic of action, where access is the rule and secrecy is the exception, was quite small. In response to this challenge, the CGU, prior to the entry into force of the Act, promoted face-to-face courses aimed at the civil servants that would integrate the Citizen Information Services (SICs) teams. In addition to preparing them to comply with the procedures of the Act, the training had as objective to instruct the servants on the operation and operationalization of the e-SIC. More than 700 people were trained from various agencies and entities of the Federal Executive Branch.

Conditions for Success

The success of this innovation is due to the wide dissemination made at the time of its launch, the training of civil servants to operate it, the creation of didactic-use manuals and the constant work of maintenance and updating of the system.

Replication

The e-SIC is adopted by almost all the bodies of the Federal Executive Branch, and access to the source code of the e-SIC system is already available for bodies or entities of the public administration of States and Municipalities that wish to broaden access to information. Currently, a project related to the use of the same e-SIC platform by subnational entities is in progress, in order to standardize the electronic system for receiving and managing requests for information access between federal, state and municipal levels.
This initiative has already been shared with a couple of countries.

Lessons Learned

In the system implementation process, we observed the importance of the training of the servants that composed the teams of the SIC`s. In addition, the preparation of the manuals, the information made available on the web and the channel for clarifying doubts were very effective. Awareness of the importance of the Access to Information Act and the orientation of how to use the system were lessons learned from this initiative.

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