When councils are analyzed as organizations that combine resources and try to deliberately accomplish a set of goals, the evaluation of their efficiency, not of their effectiveness, shall be centered on the capacity of accomplishing the goals established by the members. In Brazil, after the promulgation of Law 8142/90, health councils have begun to deliberate on issues related to health, making this a constant practice. This article analyzes the results of a qualitative research accomplished in order to evaluate the performance of the City Health Council (CMS) of the city of Natal, Northeastern Brazil, with respect to the financial and economic information provided by the City Health Department (SMS). The results have evidenced that the advisors have a low degree of understanding of the financial and economic information, due to the clearly weak and incomplete reports provided by the City Health Department to the Health Council, which implies that the Council has no opportunities to establish better inferences about an efficient application of the resources. Thus, it becomes more difficult for the advisors to exercise control, since information provided on a synthetic manner hinders, among other inferences, the comparison between what had been forecast in the budget and what has been effectively accomplished.
Health Councils; Accountability; Efficacy; Citizen Participation
