## Notes from 07 May 2025 [[2025-05-06|← Previous note]] ┃ [[2025-05-08|Next note →]] I recently discovered an [interesting analysis](https://britishprogress.org/uk-day-one/recruiting-and-retaining-civil-service-technologis) from one of Britain's emerging think tanks in the progress/abundance space, the [[Centre for British Progress]] ([Matt Jukes also commented on it](https://digitalbydefault.com/2025/04/23/recruiting-and-retaining-public-service-technologists-beyond-improving-the-salaries/)). Their ideas on recruiting and retaining technical talent in the UK civil service mention several institutional mechanisms that resonated with me, especially since we lack these structured frameworks in Brazil. The UK has developed several sophisticated talent management instruments that function as "policy artifacts." These are institutional tools that shape how government values and retains technical expertise: - **[Government Digital and Data (GDaD) capability framework](https://ddat-capability-framework.service.gov.uk/)**: A job classification system that not only maps technical roles by function and skill level, but also defines expected capability standards. This enables departments to align training, conduct assessments, and offer standardized pay uplifts based on demonstrated competencies, creating a direct link between skills and compensation regardless of traditional civil service grade. - **Pivotal Role Allowance**: Targeted retention payments (up to £20,000 for 24 months) specifically designed for critical positions where the individual is considered likely to leave and whose expertise is essential to operations. - **R&D Classification for Salaries**: A budgetary mechanism that reclassifies spending on certain groups of positions as research and development expenditure. This allows the associated costs to be shifted from operational to capital budgets, effectively circumventing standard civil service pay caps (as seen in the [AI Security Institute](https://www.aisi.gov.uk/), where it enabled salaries up to twice the usual limits). - **[Secondment Schemes](https://www.civil-service-careers.gov.uk/secondments/)**: Formalized pathways for talent to move between government and industry, building capacity while creating porous boundaries between sectors. One thing that enables the existence of these artifacts is the environment in which they operate: a position-based personnel structure. This is a fundamental challenge in Brazil: our public personnel architecture is organized around rigid structures known as _carreiras_ ("careers" or "corps," roughly translated) - sharply defined legal categories to which most public service roles are tied. This system, however, is anything but coherent; these _carreiras_ are abundant, defined and managed in radically different ways, mostly shaped by accumulated corporate pressures rather than analytical or managerial consistency. Instead of focusing on the work to be done and the skills required to do it, the Brazilian system focuses on the legal status of the civil servant. It is not about HR. It is about the law. A _carreira_ is not just a job track; it is a legal identity and a marker of differentiated status, reflecting a deeply embedded "rank-in-person" logic. Civil servants are attached to their legal career, not to a specific position or function. Once someone enters the civil service, their rights, salary, and duties are anchored in their _carreira_, regardless of where they are placed or what task they perform. This makes it institutionally difficult to reassign or replace someone based on changing work needs. A person may hold a position, but their legal status within the system is independent of it. Their relationship with the administration does not depend on occupying a specific role. Once someone joins the corps, the system is obliged to find them a place, regardless of their particular skills. By contrast, position-based systems operate with a "rank-in-position" logic, where the role itself, not the individual, is the organizing unit. If the task changes or the role becomes obsolete, the position can be redefined and the person replaced. This approach is better suited to managing evolving skill needs, especially in technical fields. In Brazil, a variety of mechanisms have been superimposed on the career architecture over time to cope with rigidity, such as _funções gratificadas_ (in-role bonuses granted to civil servants for taking on designated responsibilities) and at-will positions (_cargos de livre provimento_), which can be filled either by political appointees lacking technical expertise or by highly qualified outsiders, subject to ministerial discretion. It’s important not to confuse Brazil’s _carreiras_ with what countries like the [UK](https://www.civil-service-careers.gov.uk/professions/), [Australia](https://www.apsprofessions.gov.au/) or the Netherlands have recently termed _professions_. In those systems, _professions_ are not legal identities but coordinated functional streams (such as digital, finance, or HR) managed through common capability frameworks and shared development strategies. This matrixed approach to position management supports consistency across roles with similar functions, without tying individuals to rigid, status-based tracks. **Even the UK's "problems" would be solutions for Brazil** What's striking is how UK challenges highlight profound advantages over Brazil. The UK's lament over "[nearly three years](https://www.zdnet.com/article/its-the-biggest-job-in-tech-so-why-cant-they-find-anyone-to-do-it/)" to fill a Chief Digital and Information Officer role due to uncompetitive pay starkly contrasts with Brazil, where such senior technical positions lack transparent, open, or competitive recruitment altogether. Instead, Brazilian equivalents are typically filled by opaque political appointments or restricted to a diminutive pool of career civil servants via function-based allowances, with the position itself often devoid of independent identity or transparent selection. Consequently, the mere concept of open, merit-based recruitment for high-level technologists, with clear compensation, would be revolutionary for our system. Similarly, while the UK's GDaD framework faces criticism for limited adoption or inconsistent application, having even an optional, partially implemented framework is infinitely preferable to our situation in Brazil, where there is no formal mechanism whatsoever for recognizing technical skills. The UK's concern that its [Digital, Data and Technology profession](https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/digital-data-and-technology-profession) constitutes only 4.8% of the civil service (against a 6% target) is another revealing instance. In Brazil, we lack even a formalized cross-government classification of these roles, rendering it impossible to set targets, let alone measure progress. **What Brazil could learn** The crucial lesson for Brazil isn't simply about adopting specific position-based tools or mimicking salary strategies. It's the sobering realization that our foundational public HR architecture, the rigid and often incoherent _carreira_ system, makes many such advanced discussions tragically premature. Debating fine points of competitive pay for technical roles, for example, sidesteps the crippling reality that our system often lacks the basic mechanisms to properly define, value, or manage these positions in the first place. Frameworks such as the UK's GDaD, while valuable examples, primarily underscore our deeper predicament. They assume an underlying system that can logically accommodate and support such position-focused, skills-based approaches. Attempting to simply layer them on top of Brazil's current _career-based_ model, without addressing its inherent flaws, is akin to decorating a condemned building; the efforts, however well-intentioned, will ultimately be undermined by the unstable foundations. This fundamental decay also explains why a truly flexible, results-oriented approach to HR remains so elusive. While others may debate the nuances of centrally mandated versus optional inducted HR policy artifacts, Brazil is hamstrung because our rigid system inherently limits departmental autonomy and the ability of sectoral HRs to be judged on tangible results, such as building technical capacity. An HR function cannot evolve into a strategic business partner if its core operational mandate is dictated by archaic legal-centric structures and entitlements (rather than flexible, work-based management tools). Brazil's main challenge, then, is not simply to adopt new talent management "artifacts" or to engage in salary bidding wars (though necessary). This will be fruitless unless we courageously confront and overhaul the rotten foundations of public sector HR, which means picking a fight with the corporatist interests that underlie the actual chaotic foundations of our career-based system. In this sense, it is sad to say that until we undertake this fundamental, painful reform, all talk of sophisticated strategies or competitive compensation will remain a frustrating distraction, treating superficial symptoms while the underlying disease fatally compromises our government's ability to build state capabilities its citizens desperately need.