Name: EDUARDO MARTINS DA ROCHA
Publication date: 18/09/2017
Summary: Proper handling of public funds has been a constant concern in the public sector, not
only due to corruption carried out by government employees, but also because of bad
administration, low efficiency and efficacy, and poor budgeting when allocating
resources and executing public policies. In the quest for better performance standards
in public sector governance, the Brazilian institution Tribunal de Contas da União
(Federal Court of Accounts) also known by the acronym TCU, has proposed a series
of internal checks to be used as an internal control model; the adopted guidelines are
very similar to the ones proposed by the Committee of Sponsoring Organizations of
the Treadway Commission (COSO), which are internal control parameters observed
in the private sector. From a public governance perspective, this research sought to
analyze internal control practices used by the Federal Police Superintendency in the
state of Espírito Santo, Brazil, and its compliance with internal control procedures
outlined as essential by COSO I. Based on this premise, this study is an exploratory
research of qualitative nature that used the methodological approach to examine the
case study. In addition to documentary and legal research, data gathering also
consisted of semi-structured interviews. Results indicated that the analyzed
documents and information collected are consistently close to the conceptual basis of
COSO I in the dimensions 'control environment', 'control procedures' and 'monitoring.'
Another takeaway was that the Federal Police places high value on maintaining
integrity and ethical values, which is in line with the proposed model standards.
However, the findings also uncovered the need for improvements, especially in the
dimensions risk assessment and information and communication, which failed to
meet the internal control structure recommendations outlined by COSO I. The
identified discrepancies reinforce the need for applicability analysis geared towards
reference models in an organizational context, taking each organizations
particularities and specificities into account.
Keywords: Public governance. Internal control. Federal Police. Public administration.
COSO
