Abstract
This chapter presents the initial situation of public bureaucracies in Republican Italy. Then it illustrates the various unsuccessful attempts aimed at introducing performance assessment and improvement tools. Legislative Decree 29/1993 was followed by Legislative Decree 286/1999, subsequently followed by Legislative Decree 150/2009. Many bureaucracies succeeded in obstructing and frustrating the implementation of such acts. The most recent is Legislative Decree 74/2017. External independent watchdogs could have been an appropriate solution, in principle. However, this has not been the case either with the CIVIT (which was very weak and lasted only 5 years, as far as independent performance evaluation is concerned), or with real life OIVs, at least so far.
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Notes
- 1.
Massimo Severo Giannini, a scholar of administrative law.
- 2.
Such scholars and specialists were coordinated by Pietro Ichino—who also wrote newspaper articles and kept a blog on his website—and Bernardo Giorgio Mattarella (see in particular P. Ichino “Aspetti tecnici della proposta sui nullafacenti della PA”, lavoce.info, 8/9/2006; P. Ichino “Amministrazioni pubbliche: la politica degli annunci e la dura lesina della riforma”, 2009, https://www.pietroichino.it/?p=5568; P. Ichino & B.G. Mattarella, “Il progetto di legge per l’istituzione dell’authority sul impiego pubblico”, Corriere della Sera, 12/12/2006; Bill on “transparency and efficiency assessment and the performance of PAs and their employees. Delegation to the government regarding performance evaluation of PAs and their employees, and accountability, Senate, AS 746, presented in 2008).
- 3.
Among other things, law 15/2009 announced the intention to restrict the spoils system (also in line with the decisions of the Constitutional Court), by reducing the number of appointments which can be conferred to managers coming from outside the civil service, by asking for a proper performance assessment when appointments are revoked and by introducing some incompatibilities. However, legislative decree 150/2009 did not implement consistently all the relevant provisions of law 15/2009. Other acts (such as decree law 78/2010 converted by law 122/2010) aimed to reduce managerial autonomy and expand the scope of political influence again. More specifically, the political authority can avoid continuing an existing appointment when it has expired, even if the manager had not received unfavourable evaluations.
- 4.
The actual use of performance tools by Italian public administrations presented in the remainder of this paragraph was already and more extensively treated in the unpublished paper by A. La Spina “Quality, output and outcome indicators in public administration: methodological issues and actual applications in performance improvement” for the Symposium “The paradigm shift from output to outcome measures in the public sector”, 7th Azienda pubblica workshop, “Theory and Experience in Management Science”, Palermo, 25-26-27 May 2016.
- 5.
Occhilupo and Rizzica (2016) analysed the performance-related components of the wages received by Italian executives in 2012 and detected the flattening of such rewards, which are mainly linked to the age of the executive, rather than to other aspects (such as specific experience or skills). There are some differences, but these are mostly related to the criteria and practices followed by the different ministries, not to the merits of individuals, especially when first-level executives are concerned (some more variability can be observed for second-level executives). Some ministries are more “generous” than others. Goals programming, as well as managerial and organizational autonomy, appears to be lacking. See also Rebora (2015).
- 6.
Alessandro Boscati “Ddl Pa, i dubbi dei giuristi, Boscati: ‘Aumenta legame fiduciario coi partiti’”, Il Fatto quotidiano, 7/4/2015 (see also Boscati 2014); Roberto Mania, “La rivolta dei dirigenti ‘Volete licenziarci per dare i nostri posti a chi è lottizzato’”, La Repubblica, 17/3/2015; La Spina (2016).
- 7.
Some analogous suggestions had also been briefly made by Melis (2015).
- 8.
Such an analysis of feasibility typically involves the application of the methods of empirical social sciences, such as legal sociology, science of administration and policy analysis and evaluation. In Italy, the idea was advanced by Bettini, who spoke of the need for an “administrative coverage” of legislation (1976, 1977, 1990). From 1999 onwards, the drafts of legislative bills, legislative decrees and other regulatory acts issued by central administrations of the state are expected to be supported by an ex ante regulatory impact assessment, which includes feasibility evaluation. Therefore, the Council of State, when formulating their due opinion about drafts of legislative decrees, also examined such assessments. In this particular case, it specified that the remarks concerning feasibility preconditions were not “extra-legal”, given that if it is objectively impossible that “some of the mechanisms” introduced actually work, then this would undermine the legitimacy of the proposed new rules, implying a violation not only of the law of delegation, but also of some constitutional provisions (Parere 02113/2016, 5.1).
- 9.
The text of the draft legislative decree on public management submitted to the council of ministers for his approval is available here: https://www.eticapa.it/eticapa/testo-del-decreto-legislativo-sulla-dirigenza-pubblica-entrato-in-cdm/.
- 10.
- 11.
The national list of people eligible to be OIV members is regulated by a decree of the Minister of Public Administration issued on 2 December 2016; it stipulates a requirement of a laurea (a master’s degree, without distinction of fields) and a field experience for a certain number of years. The result is, again, that if a person is not a competent evaluator (e.g. with regard to the assessment of indicators, their weights, available evidence and consultation techniques) or has actually demonstrated not to be sufficiently attentive to such aspects, but has anyway served as a member of an internal control service and/or an OIV for enough time, he/she would be entitled to be included in the register. The same decree also foresees that the people enrolled in this national register will be required to improve their qualifications by earning training credits through attendance at seminars, conferences, and courses. However, if OIV members are expected to be independent experts, they are supposed to be already very competent in the field of evaluation. A different approach to the construction of the register would be to screen the applicants through an exam, focusing on their actual expertise, and their attitudes and lived experiences regarding independence in the evaluation of administrative activities.
- 12.
The DFP’s relevant office (http://www.funzionepubblica.gov.it/performance) manages the Performance Portal (http://www.funzionepubblica.gov.it/performance/il-portale-della-performance). One can find there, among several other information, the guidelines for the systems of performance measurement and assessment, performance plans and performance assessments reports (which substitute the previous guidelines issued by the CIVIT), the documents (such as quality standards) uploaded by some compliant public bodies, the project RiformAttiva, the announcement of prizes granted to a few selected OpenGov Champions or Digital Agenda high performers, as well as the first annual (January 2019) and bimonthly reports issued, since March 2018, by the office itself. However, the latter reports just show how many public administrations are formally in line with the various requirements related to performance evaluation. They do not inquire either how much their activities were executed properly, or, ultimately, whether their performance is actually improving.
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Cavatorto, S., La Spina, A. (2020). Obstacles to Performance Evaluation and Improvement. In: The Politics of Public Administration Reform in Italy. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-32288-5_5
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