Integrity in the public service is vital to ensure that resources are used to serve the public interest and pursue the government’s policy goals. Ultimately, integrity policies seek to promote the application of shared values and to achieve sustainable change in organisational cultures in the public administration and in the behaviour of public servants. Without such change, integrity policies may end up existing primarily on paper or, at best, becoming a check-the-box exercise of ensuring compliance with regulations and standards without real ownership and commitment.

Mainstreaming integrity policies to ensure their effective implementation throughout the public administration is a challenge in all countries. Gaps are often observed between what legislation or policies on integrity stipulate and what is put into practice in public entities, hampering change in organisational cultures and the behaviour of public servants.

Reflecting the federal nature and size of the country, the integrity system in Brazil is complex. Recognising this challenge, Brazil introduced the Ethics Management System of the Federal Executive Branch in 2007 and, in 2021, the Public Integrity System of the Federal Executive Branch (SIPEF). This chapter provides a snapshot of this system and focuses on the challenge of mainstreaming integrity policies throughout the federal executive branch. Brazil could improve significantly both clarity and coherence of the system by transferring the responsibilities for supporting the management of public ethics and conflict of interest to the SIPEF and its institutions. In turn, aspects related to enforcement should remain separated and the current institutional arrangement reviewed.

The institutions of the Public Integrity System of the Federal Executive Branch (SIPEF) in Brazil are the Integrity Management Units (UGI) as the sectorial units, and the Office of the Comptroller General of the Union (CGU), as its central organ. This chapter reviews the current design and functions of the UGI. The UGI should focus on promoting open cultures of organisational integrity by co-ordinating, planning and monitoring the Integrity Plans, providing guidance and training to public servants on public integrity and supporting integrity risk management, including managing conflict of interest. To carry out these tasks, the organisational structure and capacities of the UGI should be aligned with their responsibilities. The chapter further recommends to clarify the division of labour within CGU’s Secretariat of Transparency and Corruption Prevention and with respect to how the CGU can contribute to strengthening the SIPEF by providing support, guidance and facilitating exchanges between public entities.