This thesis proposes a reflection on the municipal management of social assistance policy, inserted in the Brazilian historical, social and political context and in the particular sphere of the State. Therefore, we approach the theoretical-methodological, technical-operative and ethical-political dimensions of the field of social assistance policy management. We also analyze some of the paradigms present in the historical trajectory of the management of this social policy and we also propose to analyze the social assistance management in the municipalities of the state of Rio de Janeiro, based on defined indicators and from the perspective of managers and representatives of society civil. Notwithstanding the legal guarantees provided for in the Federal Constitution of 1988 and the Organic Law of Social Assistance (LOAS), social assistance continued to face difficulties in materializing as a social right and public policy until 2005, when a new model was implanted of management for this public policy, the Unified Social Assistance System (SUAS), which has been credited with high expectations and responsibilities. On the one han, the expectation that this system would be able to promote significant ruptures in the model of social assistance lived in Brazil until then, strongly marked by historical patronage practices, patronage and social protection provision, often assistentialists, curators and subalternators. And, on the other hand, and no less challenging for an area marked by punctual and emergency and quot;social actions and quot; carried out by non-professionals, the expectation of consolidating a management reference that demonstrates the capacity of the state to respond in an active, professional manner, agile and modernized - in its operational, administrative, political and institutional procedures - the new functions of the social assistance policy - of protection, social assistance and defense of rights. To this end, social assistance management has a set of strictly complex responsibilities. We start from the understanding that the work of management in the field of social assistance is not limited to the administration of the technical-operative, organizational and institutional responsibilities, foreseen in the NOB / SUAS 2012. It also has political and ethical dimensions that allow observing the decisions of the governments in meeting the social needs of citizens and their commitments - or not! - to concretely influence the transformation of the reality of social inequality. We hope that this study will contribute to broadening the debate about the work of the municipal management and that it will strengthen the commitment of the managers with the qualified consolidation of the policy of social assistance and SUAS in Brazil.