The managerial perspective and system of accountability in Italian public administration observations on the measurement of effectiveness and efficiency.

• Author: Comite, Ubaldo
• Position: Company overview - Report

1. THE ROLE OF REGULATIONS IN PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION: BETWEEN OPPORTUNITY AND CONSTRAINTS

   Discussing the role of regulations in the area of managerial innovation in public administration is necessary for two motives:

1. Regulations in public administrations have always been an important determiner in management, organization, and surveying, thus conditioning the operative modalities on the basis of typical structuring of bureaucratic checks; according to which, only what is foreseen by the regulations is carried out, and only according to the criteria established. One cannot therefore exclude from the institutional framework what the regulations designate in order to consider the operative modalities of the public administration and their developmental possibility;

2. the interventions that followed and that still continue today represent stops along the long process of change whose arrival point has contours that are progressively delineating themselves, yet with a direction that they seem to have been taking being clear from the beginning. It should be noted that the fact that the reforms can be adequately interpreted only by taking into consideration the characteristics and the aims at the base of public intervention, the achievement of which, though, is possible only in respects to company compatibility (Giannesi, 1961; Anselmi, 1995; Borgonovi, 1979; Sibilio Parri, 1983).

   The departure point for the great changes that have interested public administration in these last few years is made up of reform processes that can be defined "as explicit modifications of the rules of system operation (Borgonovi, 2005)". A positive change in a determined situation is implicit in the implementation of these reforms. With reference to public administrations, the necessity to carry out these transformations springs from various motivations, traceable to a gap that was progressively widening between what the public administration should have done from the institutional point of view and what it was really doing, faced with an ever-growing quantity of absorbed resources.

   In short, reform acts as a factor that produces, promotes or facilitates change, in that the system that is the subject of the reform manifests a movement of inferior development in respects to that which would be necessary. Regulation constitutes a fundamental passage in order to institutionally give credit to the innovation in the duties of planning and checks and the introduction of new organizational and managerial instruments.

   The typically bureaucratic approach brings about doing what is foreseen by the law and not doing what is not expressly foreseen, instead of implementing that which is deemed useful (as long as it is not forbidden). It is, in fact, somewhat peculiar that the introduction of instruments that companies activate spontaneously without any legal obligation must be imposed by law, just so that the availability is valued positively. Under equal conditions, the insertion of logics and instruments that reveal themselves functional to the maintenance or betterment of the conditions of operation, coherent with the institutional mission of the public administrations and a balanced internal and external vision, should not need a law to be carried out.

   The assumption that issuing a regulation is sufficient to obtain the outcome desired finds a limitation when the expectations involve the operation of social systems, such as public administrations.

   A final issue concerns the link between the regulation, the context in which it must be applied, and the changes expected. In effect, the doctrine underlines how the regulation constitutes the culmination of a process that, starting from the procedures, inspires the elaboration of theories and therefore represents the formalization and acknowledgement of trends that are properly contextualized (Anselmi, 2005; Brondino, Bruzzo, 1988; Cavazzoni, 1988; Cepiku, 2005; Del Bene, 2000).

   Some regulations, however, seem to have fallen from above into situations that are not technically or culturally ready to give effective implementation rather than to derive from a process of abstraction from the procedures, later formalized into provisions set out by the law. Frequently, the path is reversed and the regulations stumble upon a situation that is not prepared to acknowledge changes, even in terms of contextual and cultural conditions, with the result being that, in the best of the hypothesis, the application is only formal, when instead the out-and-out non-application is not verified.

   In these settings, formally applying the law is not sufficient and it seems more representative of the classic passive assumption of responsibility that is typical of bureaucratic control, for which the only aim is to comply with the regulatory provisions so as to not incur sanctions, heedless that it could or could not give rise to results substantially appreciable or not.

   It is therefore evident that from this perspective, every instrument that must be activated and every document that must be edited, are heavily constituted so that they are not interpreted as utilities to better the management, but as fulfilments. Therefore, what is obtained are often documents that are formally correct, but composed in such a manner (from both the process and the technical point of view) as to cover a utility that is rather low.

   In the Italian situation, a thaumaturgical power has often been attributed to the reform regulations, almost so that, once the law has come into effect, it can automatically modify the proceedings.

   To this end, it is worth reflecting on two points. Public management is not a neutral, technical process, but an activity intimately tied to politics, laws, and to the wider civil society. Reforming public management therefore means interpreting certain directions rather than others, given that even the improvement of managerial effectiveness and efficiency can be attained in various ways. The second point is that managerial activity is founded on structural factors such as good work, informative instruments, technology, operational mechanisms, but also on soft factors that refer to values, culture, the capacity to establish relationships, the modes of operation and the use of those technical elements in typical processes, that cannot be regulated by laws (Meneguzzo, 2006).

   It is undisputed that these criteria constitute the recognition of collective interests of a great social importance, which are added to and intertwined with those of the proper management of public resources. And indeed, public administration has the task of taking care of the interests of the community in concrete terms.

   In effect, public administration ensures the respect of the principle of good performance in administration. In short, it must take an interest in the rights of citizens, with the aim of achieving public interest. The latter, it should be noted, regards not only the individual citizen, but the entire community.

   Good performance, in recent interpretations, therefore adheres to the relationship that is more advantageous between the instruments of use in order to reach results established based on the goals to meet and the results that are concretely met. Even in this aspect, its ties to efficiency emerge (Borogonovi, 2005).

   It is therefore necessary to "overcome the logical opposition between the relevant values in such a manner as to integrate efficiency and legality in the sphere of the overall needs of good performance and impartiality of the actions of public administration" (Borgonovi, 1990).

   2 THE PRINCIPLE OF EFFICIENCY BETWEEN LAW AND ECONOMY

   The principle of good performance is commonly interpreted as an expression of efficiency and effectiveness. In law, the principle of good performance therefore implies that it is the duty of the administration to carry out its own activity, so that the maximum and most uniform guarantee of rights is valid throughout the entire national territory. It is also the duty of public administrations to apply a reasonable balance of the advantages towards the various interested parties (public interests and law); the administrative activity will show a "degree" of efficiency and effectiveness that is more elaborate in relation to a higher resulting balance between such components. Indeed, no easy solution is presented in formulating an exhaustive definition on efficiency, unless one uses sic e simpliciter the analysis that business sciences offer.

   In particular, scholars in these disciplines argue on the efficiency of public administrations. Generally, it can be characterized as an ability to generate a determined effect (consequence), in anticipation of the completion of particular results. It can also be acknowledged that the result is the only term that is not subject to modification within other possible definitions on efficiency; it results, furthermore, unequivocal that efficiency places the result in relation to the capacity of its accomplishment (Borogonovi, Fattore, 2009).

   Originally, as a matter of fact, the interest in the concept of efficiency and the respective use is due to economists; they, in fact, recognized the fundamental criterion in efficiency that was necessary to observe in the exercise of an economic activity. Today, within the reform procedure of public administrations, a wider significance tends to be attributed to the object in principle. It seems opportune, at this point, to insert the concept of effectiveness and economy alongside efficiency from the moment that the principles that they propose, "coming" from the principle of good performance, lately hold a notable importance. Juridical activity in these principles is very clear, because the legislator has sanctioned that economy, effectiveness and efficiency must orient the actions of public administration.

   In this regard, it was noted that the principles of speed, streamlining, efficiency, effectiveness and...