EVALUATION OF INDICATORS OF USE AND EFFICIENCY OF ICT SPENDING IN BRAZILIAN STATES

Abstract

This article aims to evaluate Information and Communication Technology (ICT) spending in five Brazilian states (Goiás, Paraiba, Pernambuco, São Paulo, and Santa Catarina). Specifically, it sought to identify patterns of ICT use indicators and compare the efficiency of spending, which required contextualizing the research problem, which refers to inefficiency in the delivery of information in public service, through a bibliographical review on Public Administration, ICT, ICT use in Public Administration, Public Administration in Brazil, and description of the accounting-financial systems. In fact, the general objective is to elaborate an analysis and diagnosis model of IT expenses in five Brazilian states based on data extracted from the Budget and Financial Preparation and Execution System (Siconfi) and the Transparency Portal. Methods and procedures used in the research were also exposed, proposing the complementation of ICT use indicators with efficiency comparative (DEA) results among the five states. The results showed the success of the model by using, as a selection criterion of the IT commitments their classification within the nature of the detailed expense which contains, in its basic coding structure, the expense element, that is, the object of spending. It concluded that it is necessary to identify the Siconfi data and validate them with the expenses referring to the agencies in order to refine the identification of the object of the IT spending. Regarding the diagnosis, the exploratory analyses and inferences on the transformed data (obtained after the organization of the base ) allowed to demonstrate mainly that, despite the noticeable increase in IT spending in the five states in the period considered (2014 to 2020), the average percentage of 13.3% of this volume refers to the costing of personnel expenses in relation to the total ICT spending for the five states (ITIC4).In the period studied, , there was an increase in the percentage of the states’s ICT expenses  as a percentage of the Gross Domestic Product - %ICT/GDP. The values of the states of Goiás and, especially, Paraíba, stand out. The exploratory analysis on personnel expenses shows that none of the federal units exceeded the spending limit of 60% of current expenses determined by the LRF (LC101/2000) for state entities. The state of Santa Catarina, followed by Sao Paulo, are the ones that have the most contribution by ICT per capita and the state of Pernambuco stand out in the ranking as the most efficient. For the state of SP, the nominal ICT values have proportions that are close to ten times the value of the other states however, due to the lack of standardization of indirect ICT spending by several departments, some indicators for this federative unit may have been affected.