Organization

The history of Italian bureaucracy has witnessed a fluctuation between opposing ideological models of civil service regulation, transitioning from one mythology to another. The traditional mythology revolved around a purely public model, emphasizing the political aspect of bureaucracy and its connection to the State. In more recent times, an opposing mythology has emerged, primarily based on a private model that highlights the economic dimension of the civil service, previously neglected, and its relationship with the Market. However, theory has always remained distant from practice, and myths from reality. While the founding mythologies experienced discontinuity, the actual arrangements often displayed continuity. The first part of this contribution focuses on the myth, providing a brief account of the transition from the old to the current ideal model of the Italian civil service, which underwent constitutional transformation. The second part explores reality, examining how this model has been implemented over the past 30 years.

The Secretary-General ensures (also) an independent control over the activities of local authorities. Therefore, in the light of this function, in addition to that of coordination and oversight, he/she cannot advocate acts of management, except in the event of default. The Administrative Tribunal (TAR) of Calabria, by judgment n. 1653/2022, has declared illegitimate, for relative incompetence, the award of a contract with a decision taken by the Secretary-General rather than the responsible Public Officer.

The paper analyses how the “culture of suspicion” hinders the contractual activity of public administration. The “culture of suspicion” consists in the perception that every negotiation procedure is the harbinger of crimes and/or “maladministration”. The effects of this “culture of suspicion” consist of immobilism and inertia, since they inhibit the full recourse to discretionary and efficient actions, so that public officials avoid choices which can be risky in terms of penal, civil and administrative liability. In this context, the idea of contracts awarded by central purchasing bodies (contracting authorities) can play a crucial role. This is because the attribution to a single body of the competence to buy goods and services on the market, in addition to achieving positive “economies of scale”, can also increase the professionalism of the public officials operating within the contracting authorities and promote the transparency of tendering procedures. The paper focuses also on a critical analysis of the current regulatory framework, both at the national and EU level, trying to evaluate and propose necessary reforms and improvements.

Boris Johnson was swept to power as prime minister of the United Kingdom with an unassailable majority of eighty members of parliament (MPs) after the general election in December 2019. The man who was to ‘get Brexit done’ seemed in complete control of his party, the House of Commons and the country. One of the most controversial prime ministers in our history, Johnson was propelled from one cause célèbre to another. His rule exposed weaknesses in the contemporary UK constitution and how those weaknesses can be exposed by a politician determined not to be bound by conventional constraints on his office. The following tracks Johnson’s downfall and resignation and suggests areas in prime ministerial governance that need to be addressed by the incoming UK prime minister.

Public administration has long been regarded as an obstacle to economic development because of high degrees of complexity, formalism and inefficiency. On the assumption that one can do without an inefficient administration, we are witnessing an expansion of administration by law. To cope with this phenomenon, there have been several reforms aimed at the so called “de-bureaucratisation”. Administrative simplification, however, cannot be conceived as a simple reduction of complexity, which in fact reflects that of the reality administered. The regulation of Special Economic Zones offers an interesting opportunity to reflect on the different types of administrative simplification that can be envisaged. On the one hand, it allows one to isolate some mutations suffered by traditional institutions, such as the conference of services. On the other hand, it allows one to define the tension between the decision-making and the "cognitive" instance, as it is precisely the latter that makes it possible to highlight the need for a recovery of the administrative technical capacity, which could help identify fruitful paths of administrative reform. Simplification alone is not a sufficient solution to solve the crisis in public administration. The National Recovery and Resilience Plan seems to be starting from this consideration, promoting the selection of the best skills and qualifications, through a review of the public competition’s procedures and the promotion of merit in the context of Public Administration.

The Italian Civil Code has been characterised, ever since the original text dated 1865, and also in the legislative act issued in 1942, and still in force today, by its durability and resistance over time: first of all the paper analyses the reasons underlying this temporal permanence. In the same way, and also over the course of time, strong connections have been highlighted between the rules contained in the Civil Code, and their application with regard to public administrations: these connections are also discussed in the paper, both with regard to specific areas of the organisation of public administrations, and with regard to the general principles, deriving from civil law, that are applied today within administrative activity.

The three-year Staff Needs Plan, as now provided for in Article 6 TUPI, is a tool aimed at 'identifying the needs of public administration'. It presupposes a mapping of administrative functions and requires consistency with the Performance Plan, as currently provided for in positive law. The three-year Staff Needs Plan must not, however, constitute an obstacle to good performance of public administration. Such good performance requires annual updating and compliance with the principles set by the Court of auditors. That Court has the duty to review so that its implementation is not arbitrary and does not harm the interests of the community.

The contribution analyses, in the context of the relationship between State and market, the so-called "golden power". Through an in-depth analysis both historical and of the regulatory framework, the author identifies its origins, its procedural, organizational and control modalities, as well as the prerequisites for its compatibility with the European legal system.

The essential points of the reasoning developed in this article are: Covid-19 has brought to the fore the role played by the administration as a bridge in the (conflictual) confrontation between the power of science and political power; the health emergency has cast light on the importance of the functioning of parliamentary institutions for the defence of democracy because the executive branch (objectively) gets the upper hand. The administration of the European Parliament is a very interesting case study in this respect because it has succeeded in coping with the emergency thanks to several factors; EPA implemented a programme of structural digitisation of the European Parliament in recent years. Finally, EPA worked for activating an administrative capacity to manage the “unprecedented measures” that had to be adopted: this capacity was achieved by carrying out the actions within the strict framework of the governance of the European Parliament and under its permanent scrutiny.

Since 2009, Italian local authorities – and, more broadly, Italian public administrations – have faced a progressive increase of transparency obligations with regard to the publication of administrative documents on institutional websites as well as concerning their internal organization and activities. Prompted by an Italian privacy authority’s sanction based on the illicit online treatment of personal information, this paper analyses the correlation between the quantity of these obligations as well as the correct compliance thereof, and employees’ level of ICT training. The percentage and the characteristics of the employees that have acquired an adequate ICT training – with a particular reference to their age – represent a clear provisional indicator of their capability of complying with the obligations of publication and transparency without violating the privacy rights of the documents’ subjects and whose information is being published online.