Una public administration too fragmented and inefficient, increasingly old and not very digital. These are the great evils of the Italian PA according to the policy paper entitled "Administrative simplification - How to improve the relationship between the PA and businesses", edited by a team coordinated by Pierdomenico Zaffino, partner Deloitte.
"Reforming the bureaucracy is a priority absolute for Italy and it is also an essential condition for the resources of the NextGenEu to bear the hoped-for results in the coming years. Simplification, digitization and new skills are essential to transform our PA", explains the CEO of Deloitte Italia, Fabio Pompei, according to whom in order to allow the Italian Public Administration to make a change of pace it is necessary to "change the decision-making approach, review the organization and service delivery and change the way we work.
THE PHOTOGRAPHY OF PA ITALYNA
Over 10.500 institutions, each with its own operating methods and with its own skills. This number is enough to understand how much this fragmentation can affect the proper functioning of the Public Administration. To date, only 1,7% of bureaucratic bodies are centralized, while the remaining 98% are scattered among local bodies. “The result – underlines Deloitte – is an excess of rules and regulators that make life difficult for companies”.
A veritable administrative labyrinth in which companies can't help but get lost. Each of them spends up to 1200 hours in administrative procedures, which also entails an annual cost of bureaucracy of over 57 billion euros. “All Italian regions present levels of efficiency of the Public Administration lower than the average level of the countries of the European Union, with very accentuated criticalities in the South. In fact, in the Southern regions, the burden of bureaucracy subtracts up to 100 days a year from work in the company and the inefficiencies generated by the PA slow down the launch of new business activities. Furthermore, entrepreneurs in the South who supply goods and services to the PA have to deal with longer waits for payments from the PA: on average they wait 17 days more than their colleagues in the Centre-North. Conversely, the regions where the PA works best are Emilia-Romagna, Lombardy and Veneto, which have carried out simplification initiatives in recent years", he explains Guido Borsani, Government & Public Services Industry Leader.
To make the situation worse there is then the increasingly high age of the employees. In the central functions of the Pa the average age is around 55 years. According to calculations, only 2,2% of the workforce of the Italian Public Administration is represented by young people, against 30% of the German one and 21% of the French one. A reality that also affects the grave lack of digital skills of the personnel of the Italian public apparatus. “Furthermore, about 60% of employees do not have a degree: a figure which, together with the personal data of civil servants, helps to explain the low levels of digital skills possessed”, explains Deloitte.
THE COMPANIES
If there is still a long way to go to improve the performance of the Public Administration, businesses must also do their part. In fact, the Deloitte study underlines that around 95% of Italian businesses are micro-enterprises: "a feature that holds back investments in innovation and digitization". Furthermore, Italian business managers tend to be older than the average: 54% are over 60 and 28% are over 70. In the ranking of the DESI Index 2020, which measures the digital competitiveness of EU countries, Italy ranks well below the Community average: 22nd out of 28.
DELOITTE'S RECIPE
Simplification, digitization and new skills are therefore the three key elements to focus on to reform the PA. To do this, Deloitte recommends focusing on five factors:
1. Change decision-making approach: from decisions taken to correct individual problems to a strategy aimed at predicting the possible effects of each action on the administrative complexity perceived by companies.
2. Review organization and tools provision of public services, to move from a fragmented offer with multiple points of contact between business and the PA to a unitary and simplified approach.
3. More collaboration: it is important to build a network of stable relationships with institutional players at all levels to build together a long-term strategy for the entire PA.
4. Review the PA's way of working, no longer focused on simplifying individual procedures, but aimed at maximizing the entire company experience, in every moment of life and interaction with the PA.
5. regulatory: guide the regulatory evolution towards a structured and integrated change, abandoning punctual updates with new rules superimposing on those already present.
