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The paper presents a reflection on the policy of cost-cutting and spending review in the Italian public sectors. The thesis is twofold. First of all, the paradigm used by the spending reviews' policies is based on the macro-economic theory that doesn't take into account the complexity of the implementation processes. Secondly, the weakness of the administrative technical bureaucracies in coordinating modernisation processes produces an incoherent diffusion of innovations. The paper discusses, as empirical examples, two relevant national programmes in the field of the judicial sector; these programmes are mobilising an interesting governance network at the territorial (local) level and a vast number of projects in specific territorial areas. The implementation of these interventions shows, however, that many judicial offices of the Nation lack the necessary resources and capabilities to sustain modernisation projects and, at the same time, the difficulty of central bureaucracies to oversee and safeguard a coherent fulfilment of the diffusion objectives, due to the fragility of technical bodies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article addresses some issues related to the actual capacity of Independent Commissions to act independently. In fact the Commissions are very specific types of public organizations which are designed to relate independently by both the private and public powers. Therefore organizational autonomy of these bodies is a precondition to promote their independence of judgement and action. This paper focuses on this issue by seeking the help of studies in autonomy of public organizations and developing a substantive assessment and analysis of the autonomy of Independent Commission. Finally, some critical issues are raised arising from the condition of self-organization. This study concludes with an addendum where it is presented an assessment of an Italian authority: Commissione di Vigilanza sui Fondi Pensione. The basic thesis is that the autonomy of means does not ensure the effectiveness and quality of regulation which should be evaluated retrospectively on the basis of performance actually expressed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]