PSI: how is Italy doing?
I’m afraid not really good
Bringing the focus back to the Italian territory the phenomenon of public sector innovation in its several typologies preserves some of the already described characteristics. But as expected we can identify differences due to the peculiarities given by the political, social, and cultural context.
Changes in the public context have finally made Italian Public Administration realize the need to do things better and differently. The most important driver lies then in this newfound perception of the existence of new needs that require a rethinking of the role of the PS, especially in the field of social policies.
“The Italian contemporary public sector organization is designed for a context that no longer exists.” — Cosimo Palazzo
Bureaucracy and public services are in fact a real nightmare for Italian citizens. This is what is highlighted by the work of the CG of Mestre on data from the European commission regarding the quality of services offered by the public offices of the 19 Eurozone countries. Results are particularly far from satisfying, regarding the public sector only Greece index (19.1) is inferior to ours (24.7), which is still pretty far away from the top of the ranking, Finland, the Netherlands and Luxembourg.
Limits and barriers for innovation in the Italian public sector are several and of different dimensions and level of importance. Some of them are particularly critical in the development and understanding of a possible design solution to facilitate the diffusion of innovation.
The Public administration contemporary method in allocating resources for services and for service innovation is to proceed by successive approximations and through incremental mechanisms. This type of process and method is mainly based on the internal belief that there is perfect knowledge of the situation, but also on the awareness of the “monopolistic”power of public sector on certain types of services. This way of reasoning is a barrier because the allocation of resources is not necessarily the main question to be focusing on when innovation should be done. Sometimes it even annihilates the need for innovation
Producing consent and approval is one of the most fundamental and hard things to do in the Italian Public administration according to several assessors, directors and managers. Although some innovation processes and services are carried out without the need for consent because they are believed to be necessary by the higher level of the administration however many others cases need to produce consensus around the presented idea. This type of “lobbying” activity is not normally asked of public manager, let alone public servant. Since no-one is allowed to proceed a do things on its own in the Public Sector, any solution must always be completely integrated within the ecosystem otherwise this innovation is not happening in the public sector.
“To make innovation happen you must be free, to be free you must have freedom in the practices and in the actions and choices you have to take.” — Cosimo Palazzo
Public procurement still remains a big problem under several points of view. The Italian procurement system as it is designed right now is one of the greatest barriers towards innovation. The big public tenders where big services are put into play are structured in a way that usually allows only big companies to participate. Thus the system usually cuts automatically out those smaller realities and start-ups that often focus mainly on the productand not on the administrative modalities. Participating in a public tender is an administratively important and demanding process and small startups with a brilliant idea or more advanced skills usually lack the expertise to relate with.
Nonetheless there are still sparks of hope, initiatives such as the Team per la Trasformazione Digitale and many enlightened Public Managers are constantly making an effort to help the Italian public sector advance into a better state of welfare. Surprisingly the necessary push could come and it is starting from the smaller centers that although struggling with the lack of resources they are showing great resilience in this new context.
.thanks to Dr. Cosimo Palazzo and Dr. Chiara Daneo for our helpful interview.
.for more information regarding the Italian Public Sector:
