public servant, integrity institutions, the system of human quality, and public management in general, highlighting the importance of 3.1.1 referring to an integrity system. Frameworks for reform from the standpoint According to the IDB, at the start of the decade of 2000, in almost of international stakeholders all the countries staffing had been more or less substantially reduced and there was no predictable ratio between the size of the civil service and the population, or between that and the workforce. It fluctuated between slightly more than 5 % (Chile) and more than At that time, the IBD promoted policies for the civil service that it 17 % (Uruguay). Twenty years ago, civil service systems of Latin called next-generation policies aimed at improving management America and the Caribbean had the following characteristics: rather than downsizing the state. These reforms included actions geared to restructuring the organizational aspects of the administrative apparatus, redesigning the state’s permanent staff, 1. The organizational charts of public administration show streamlining bureaucratic administrative norms, procedures, evidence of increasingly frequent horizontal structures that and paperwork, installing merit-based administrative career integrate the organizational structure, which creates, for stream systems, providing the staff with continuous training and the staff, a dual hierarchical and functional dependence. professional development, and improving information systems and their related computer supports. It also disseminated an analytical framework for the institutional assessment of civil 2. The designation of authority and responsibility to service systems, with which it would promote the implementation organizational units is based predominantly on functional of assessments in the systems in Latin America and the criteria rather than on results. Caribbean. 3. The criteria used to hire staff do not take into account Shortly thereafter, the Latin American Center for Public general procurement procedures based on competitive Administration and Development (CLAD), which was promoting bidding or the strict application of impartial transparent reform of the state and the civil service as a focus of study criteria. and making proposals, gave impetus to the Ibero-American Public Service Charter, adopted in June 2003 at the Fifth Ibero- American Conference of Ministers of Public Administration and 4. Responsibility for the process tends to be in the hands State Reform. The Charter summarizes a series of underlying of the director (or superior) of the body that ordered the principles for the civil service, which concur with various aspects procurement process to fill a job vacancy. of IDB’s proposals and that were used by several administrations to draw up their policies. 5. There are virtually no cases where there is an effective These benchmark criteria are as follows: and widespread application of formal performance evaluation systems. a) The preeminence of persons for the sound functioning of public services and the need for policies 6. Staff training consists more of an indiscriminate supply that guarantee and develop to the utmost the value of of courses, instead of a realistic identification of training human capital made available by governments and needs. public sector organizations. 7. In most countries, the salaries of lower-echelon state b) The professional development of the human employees are comparatively higher than those for resources at the service of public administrations, as equivalent staff in the private sector, whereas the opposite a guarantee for higher-quality public services provided is true for staff holding higher-echelon positions. to citizens. Cultivating a culture of integrity in the civil service in times of crisis 16