At the moment there are 37 public non-economic state bodies and institutes canceled by the cutting-institution rules that have followed one another, and 36 presidents and 353 administrative positions have ceased. With the spending review we are not faced with real scissors, but the cleaning and reorganization of small public bodies continues with the unification of Isvap and Covip in a new supervisory institute for insurance and pension savings, the Ivarp, and the suppression of the Microcredit Body, the Luzzatti Association, the Valore Italia Foundation and Arcus spa, whose functions will be absorbed by the supervising ministries, as well as the cancellation of various research and cultural institutions, such as the Institute of High Mathematics and the Fermi Center.
The problem of thinning out and canceling so many entities considered useless or duplicates has been dragging on for half a century. The point of reference is the law n.14 of the now distant 1978. Since then various regulations have followed one another: to stop at the present day, the Budget Laws of 2002, the one of 2007, the following one, the law 122/2010 up to reaching the decree of last February on simplification and development and now the spending review. The current situation records the suppression of 37 entities as a consequence of the rules cutting entities, which is however matched by the simultaneous establishment of 4 new ones: Ispra, Assi, the Ice Agency, the Transport Regulatory Authority.
It is curious to browse the list of institutions that have been suppressed or transformed. Among others: the Institute for wildlife, Ispel, ISAE, the Italian mountain body, the Committee for the link between the government and the FAO, the body of elected seeds, the Agency for management of the register of municipal and provincial secretaries, the National Test Bank for small firearms and commercial ammunition, the Agency for non-profit organizations, the Canned Food Institute, the National Security Agency, that for water regulation, the Institute of Naval Architecture Studies.
And again, a whole series of "experimental stations": for the canned food industry, glass, silk, fuel, paper and cardboard, the oil and fat industries, leather and tanning materials, the experimental station for the industries of essences and citrus derivatives. Inps will merge with Inpdap and Enpals. Among the bodies suppressed, there is the institute for foreign trade, which however has somehow been resurrected through the Ice Agency. More or less similar happened to Unire, which was transformed into the Assi agency for the development of the horse-racing sector.
The story of three pre-Alpine Consortia is curious: the Ticino Consortium, the Oglio Consortium, the Adda Consortium. With the law of 2011, their suppression had been ordered, entrusting their functions to a new national consortium for the large pre-Alpine lakes. But a subsequent decree canceled this decision, suppressing the birth of the new consortium and returning their activities to the 3 previous consortia. Then there is the story of the institution for the development of irrigation and land transformation in Puglia and Lucania (Eipli): first its suppression was ordered, then its activity was extended until the end of September of this year, transferring the functions to a subject which, however, has not yet been established.
Overall, the cuts led to the suppression of 36 president and 353 other directorships. But the establishment of Ispra, the Ice Agency and the Transport Regulatory Authority will entail the appointment of 3 new presidents and 18 new administrative positions. Particularly noteworthy is the "slimming" of the members of the various Authorities: they have been reduced to 3 (the only exception being the Communications Authority, where the members have been set at 4), with a cut of 25 directors.
