Management Councils are hybrid forums where popular participants get involved with the design of public policies, with negotiations of collective interests, with the elaboration of programs and social projects, and with the supervision of governmental actions. The meaning and dimension of Councils to participatory democracy are enormous, justifying the importance of this study, based on an exploratory analysis of 12 local Councils on the municipality of Vicosa (in Minas Gerais state, Brazil). The goal is to evaluate the performance of these Councils. The performance evaluation took into consideration the same dimensional parameters, to both collecting primary data and to secondary data. Primary data collection was through the application of semi-structured questionnaires, to Council presidents of the Councils under research. Program SPSS was used (version 15.0) to the statistical analyses of the multiple-choice questions, and the technique of content analyses was used to the open questions. After this phase, a workshop took place with the Council presidents, aiming at obtaining new data and information. The Municipal Councils researched showed results with little discrepancies between the theory applied to the issue and the effective practice in the public arena. However, research showed a not-homogeneous institutional development levels councils. That is, there are councils which are better than others. The independent and democratic choice of Council non-governmental members revealed its independence level from the Executive Brach. In spite of that, it is necessary to capacitate the counselors in order to avoid the disfiguration of the councils. As to governance, Vicosa highlighted the degree and forms of applicability observed in the management of several policies. Similarly, a level of governability was observed, which confers legitimacy to the policies implemented. It was in the end verified that the effectiveness of societal accountability has been used by Councils in the arena of several sector-specific policies. As for the secondary data of analyses, they were obtained through a synthesis of supervisory reports by the General Controlling Office, on the Minas Gerais State's municipalities. All records related to municipal councils were identified, in Minas Gerais state from the year 2003 to the year 2006. The main problems refer to the municipal councils on health and social assistance. Among the many faults appointed, the gravest problems are in the constitution and operational routines of councils, resulting on the non-function of these mechanisms in the supervised municipalities. The performance evaluation of Vicosa local councils led to the conclusion that those mechanisms present a reasonable good performance for management and control of public policies in the municipality.
