"A poor politics, invaded by incompetent and businessmen, continues to prefer weak institutions and an environment of opaque rules, because in this environment it is easier to exchange favors for businesses and interest groups with support for one's own party, one's customers, private ambitions". She wrote it in one of his speeches in 2006 Stephen Micossi, general manager of Assonime and member of Ceps. Despite the temporal distance, those words from five years ago can still be considered valid, as well as the decalogue which Micossi attached to his analysis, given that so far no initiative has been taken to change the situation.
According to the general manager of Assonime, “public demand could be a source of innovation and new technologies, forcing companies to compete. Instead, it becomes an opportunity to favor low-quality companies, often involving corruption”. Often “the first to circumvent the laws on public administration and public authorities are precisely the members of the elected assemblies and public administrators. If their behavior is not changed, placing the issue at the center of a political campaign, urging strict scrutiny of the voters, no matter how good laws are made, results will not be obtained”.
The solutions proposed by Micossi are divided into "ten chapters of legislative and regulatory interventions that tackle the root problem of the rules and the improper role assumed by politics in the Italian economy". Here they are:
1) Appointments and managerial positions in the public administration
(I) Abolition of the spoil system at all levels of government, with the sole exception of a mandatory list of top positions of political appointment, restricted to very few positions.
(Ii) Provision of a suitable minimum and maximum duration for managerial positions (from 3 to 5 years, as already in the latest version of Legislative Decree 165/2001), and improvement of the evaluation mechanisms for confirmation or revocation;
(Iii) Drafting and publication at each level of government of the list of publicly appointed posts, with an indication of the professional requirements; selection by public tender based on merit among candidates who meet the requirements; execution of tenders through selection commissions that include people outside the administration and are bound to respect the rules of motivation and publicity of the procedure; publication of the curriculum vitae of the winners
(Iv) The personnel of the offices directly collaborating with the political offices and bodies (ministers, presidents of the Chambers, etc.) must leave office at the end of the mandate of the contact person, without the possibility of being hired or stabilized in the position in any form.
2) Remuneration and incompatibility of public officials
(I) Fixing of all-inclusive pay limits for each level, also extended to temporary contracts, to be made public; obligation to transfer to the administration any remuneration received from private individuals for any reason
(Ii) Incompatibility rules that prohibit members of elected assemblies and government executives at all levels from assuming managerial positions in bodies, agencies and public enterprises in their sphere of government for 3 years from the end of office; ineligibility of members of independent authorities in elected assemblies for 3 years after the expiry of office
(Iii) Incompatibility rules and “cooling-off” periods for entering the private sector, after the cessation of public positions involving the allocation of funds or the regulation of private activities
(Iv) Drastic restriction on the exercise of arbitration and consultancy functions by magistrates of all levels
3) Contracts and concessions
(I) Strict application of the Community principles on the transparency of awarding procedures also for sub-threshold contracts and concessions;
(Ii) Use of bodies outside the administration for the technical evaluation of the offers; strict supervision of the evasive mechanisms of the tender obligations (Public Works Authority) and the restrictions of competition through the tender (Agcm)
(Iii) Clarify the specific quality of service and investment commitments in the concession contracts, with defined sanctions, up to revocation, for non-compliance
(Iv) Prohibition of in-house awarding of public services, except in cases where there is total public ownership of the company and where it is subject to the accounting controls in force on the PA
4) Public ownership of companies
(I) Apply management selection criteria in line with best market practices (selection, "long" scheduling of turnovers, etc.)
(Ii) Reserve of publicly appointed director posts on boards of directors to persons of clear professional reputation, not from politics, who qualify as independent
(Iii) Limit political interference in management to formal executive guidelines, referring to the exercise of the corporate powers of the public shareholder, with the exclusion of any direct intervention in company management
5) Purchases of healthcare services
(I) Separation of the purchase of healthcare services from the regional administrations, and assignment to funds set up for this purpose of the mutual (non-profit) or financial-insurance (for profit) type, which act on behalf of the citizen-patients. These would exercise their power of choice by adhering to one of these funds and making, with this deed, their per capita contribution paid by the state for health care
(Ii) Remediation of the parasitic system of private clinics and diagnostic centers that have grown up under the umbrella of the public system, often owned by politicians, administrators and doctors, restoring order to the accreditation system and investing in the public system: using for this purpose the policy act provided for in article 8-quater of the legislative decree. 502/1992 (amended by Legislative Decree 229/1999), never issued
6) Framework law to limit regulatory and administrative restrictions on competition
Adoption of a state classification rule – pursuant to art. 117 of the Constitution - which binds all regulatory interventions at every level of government to respect the general principles of freedom of economic initiative and imposes limits of necessity and proportionality to interventions restricting competition (restrictions on entry, prices, timetables, authorizations, etc.), according to the principles already established by the European Court of Justice
7) Autonomy and budget constraints of public bodies
(I) Establish, through negotiated agreements, stable programmatic targets for the current debt and the total debt amount of decentralized government entities and all public entities, such as universities, that receive state funds or for which the state is called to cover deficits (internal stability pact);
(Ii) Regulate the insolvency proceedings of these public bodies by law, on the basis of what is already provided for the municipalities, excluding the compensation by the state or any other form of state guarantee on the debt
(Iii) Sanctioning insolvent directors with immediate forfeiture of office and disqualification from new administrative appointments for five years
8) Common rules of transparency of the quality of services and administrators
For all the administrations and management of public companies it is necessary to establish systems of transparency and publicity, based on the systematic comparison of the performance of similar administrations (benchmarking):
(I) of the quality of services: punctuality, quality, costs, degree of user satisfaction
(Ii) the quality of management: budget results; setting goals and verifying achievement
9) An independent authority to control the accounts of all public administrations and elected assemblies
Compliance with the above rules - in particular those on the budgetary constraints of public entities and those of appointment and incompatibility for public posts - and the scrutiny of the quality of expenditure and management should be entrusted to an independent authority for the control of public accounts, established in Parliament, also equipped with penetrating powers of inspection
10) Financing of parties and politics
(I) Pass a law on party funding that reserves the majority of reimbursements to those who have obtained a significant national consensus (eg 4 percent of the votes cast);
(Ii) Expand the possibility of private financing of parties, in compliance with full publicity rules (without exclusion thresholds from the publicity obligation), with severe penalties for cases of violation
(Iii) Limit the number of members of elected assemblies and their salaries; prevent, through ethical codes, special approval procedures and publicity mechanisms, the multiplication of the "benefits" of the elected representatives of national and decentralized government bodies (internal stability pact). 1 A transitional rule will be needed for the confirmation or removal of the names of the last round and for the fixing of their remuneration according to the principles indicated in point 2i.
