La nuova dimensione dei servizi pubblici locali tra efficienza e informatizzazione. Riflessioni comparate tra Italia e Inghilterra

The high quality of local public services represents a far off goal, despite the efforts towards modernisation that for over two decades have involved the entire public apparatus. Administrative modernisation in Italy has been driven mainly by the legislator, that has introduced numerous and contradictory laws and regulations over the past twenty-five years, thus creating confusion that still undermines the efficiency of this branch of law. Moreover, as legislation is external to organisations (in this case public administrations), it cannot be deemed in its specificity as a determining factor with a view to continuous improvement. Indeed, considering that the Public Administration was created in order to exercise functions of public interest as well as to satisfy the basic needs of citizens, the real process of change aimed at finding the connection between public services and fundamental interests, between local government bodies and citizens, between the state organisation and general well-being must take into consideration that regulatory intervention does not in itself guarantee the commencement of innovation and modernisation processes. The general crisis regarding efficiency that, today more than ever, affects the sector of public utilities shows, among other things, that the logical law-making process in the field has often disregarded broader boundaries and new policy areas, to the detriment of the general interest that should be sought when exercising and organising any public service. Indeed, notwithstanding the apparent goal of efficiency, the main issue determining the various regulatory interventions in this field has almost exclusively been concerned with the question of whether public intervention in the management and modalities of appointment of the same public utilities was appropriate or not. Said sector, in Italy as in England, has thus become a battlefield between supporters of the supremacy of market and competition on the one hand, and supporters of control and of the indispensable role of the public power on the other hand; between those who believe public law tools and institutions should be applied and those who believe that private law tools should be applied; between instances to open up to global markets and barriers for the protection of municipal traditions; between the need for uniform rules and instances of decentralisation. The analysis on the complex framework concerning local public services shows that the paradoxical dilemma of our country, even today, is managing to combine the principles of legality and efficiency, since the excessive formalism and exasperation of procedures of administrative activities have led to a substantial lack of interest in the results of the management thereof. On the contrary, quality can become a key factor within an organisation only if all the persons concerned at different levels are willing and actually involved and, most importantly, provided that greater attention is given to the needs expressed by the community. The point of view of the private user of the service is, indeed, the resource on which the public entity in charge of the provision of services can actually base the improvement of the service provided. In this field, citizen satisfaction should be the guiding star for good administration and it should also be instrumental for the improvement of the public service representing a supporting factor in the organisation and provision of the services entrusted to the public administration. Computerization could represent a valuable aid in said field: it offers an opportunity for a change of perspective within the organisation of the public sector by providing a relocation of the central needs of the "machine" from which public services originate, and through which they are provided. It is well known that e-government is the result of the application of Information and Communication Technologies to the processes of change within the Government and it enables a transparent digitisation of the same: it is not only a matter of technology, but also a matter of service, a new way of providing old services and an opportunity to provide new ones with the aim of attaining a higher degree of efficiency by improving performance standards. Therefore, e-government is a tool for reforming the public sector, intended to confer a new role to the public administration different from the traditional role forged on the top-down structure that has led it to be superior and detached from local communities and citizens. Through the use of ICTs, the administration can dismantle traditional barriers, which for decades have hindered the actual implementation of the principles of transparency, economy, efficiency, effectiveness and simplicity, as well as the implementation of programs apt to provide public services inspired by a result-driven logic.