A saving of 13 million. This is the goal set by the Senate for next year. Senator Angelo Cicolani, of the PDL, commissioner of Palazzo Madama, confirms that "there is a process of review of expenses still underway, both as regards the senators (annuities, per diems, absences) and as regards services in general. We have set ourselves targets: in 2011, a saving of 1% on the Senate endowment, equal to 6 million, and for 2012 the goal is to save 13 million”.
Of these, 3 million and 600 thousand euros will be the result of interventions decided by the Presidency Council of the Senate: revocation of the ongoing tender for the global service contract for maintenance services in the building-plant engineering area and for the energy supply; execution of a tender for the maintenance services contract with a reduction of the starting price of approximately 20 per cent; execution of another tender for the supply of energy, again with an expected reduction of 20 per cent of the total costs for electricity and gas; initiatives aimed at improving energy efficiency; green light to the operation which will lead to the complete abandonment of the typographical printing of parliamentary acts in the coming months, with the transition to online availability and reproduction on paper exclusively according to the 'print on demand' criterion.
“This chapter allows for considerable savings”, Cicolani points out: by 2012, in fact, a reduction in volumes on paper is foreseen from the current 80 million pages to less than 20 million, with an overall cost that will go from 2,6 million to 700 thousand euros per year. The hiring stop is also in the field: this year – Cicolani explains again – there will be 40 sales assistants who will retire and who will not be replaced. Only the recruitment of 7 parliamentary councilors, who have already won the competition, is scheduled.
