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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]

The analysis of the relationships between evaluation activities and re-organization of early educational provision in Italy shows the potential role of evaluation in the processes of modernization of public administration. Local governments need both to guarantee a good quality of the public as well as subsidized early educational centers and to build up an integrated network of all the centers in their area. In this perspective, evaluation becomes a basic tool of local governance. This paper will present a project of evaluation of infant-toddler daycare centers realized on demand of the City of Rome. The project implemented an articulated system of evaluation based on a process of discussion on the definition and evaluation of quality that was shared among different stakeholders and implemented according to procedures of documentation, analysis, and evaluation of the different components of the center quality. The analysis of this experience shows that, within an integrated local network of early educational centers, the evaluation activities aimed at institutional accreditation or at excellence accreditation are likely to be the same. The paper also discusses the value of an approach to the evaluation of early educational services based on inter-subjectivity and participation of many stakeholders. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research and innovation policies have been increasingly ascribed to regions as a con- sequence of devolving power and resources from the national level to the local level. Local administrators have been empowered with new and challenging responsibilities but often lack the necessary instruments and knowledge to adequately evaluate the under- taken initiatives and to operate consistently with the European and national dimensions. In this respect impact assessment brings in a new metrics that is neither exclusively related to the scientific and/or economic value of the innovation results nor to a support function to other policies. Experts and/or ad hoc organisations are often appointed by local administrations with the task of describing the dimensions of such impact - qualifying (and quantifying) its descriptive parameters and identifying interested parties. So far this approach has not produced robust results as for the causality links generated, the additionality issue and the role of the local dimension, while the available tool-box is quite poor. This paper is intended to illustrate the results of a pilot experience carried out in the last few years in Trentino. The analysis takes into account the relations among policy makers, available tools, resources, and the role of the public administration and of professional evaluators. Conceptual and interpretative approaches and tools need further development, but the mayor weakness seems to come from the relationship between customer-and evaluators. A new market based on new rules, professional roles and shared behaviours is needed in order to address a correct evaluation pathway and to analyse policies and activities within a common frame. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper highlights the process of social and institutional change within which evaluation practices are embedded in Italy. To recall the main institutional and normative framework through which the Italian public administration has read its own change can explain the reason why evaluation is necessarily a part of collective decision processes and of their institutionalization. The role participation procedures to public decision processes play in this change reveal the main social and cultural issues which are at stake: the due process and the separation of powers - the one no more considered, as it once was, as a criterion and a boundary for administrative action; the other no more assumed as a democratic criterion to distinguish public decisions as either political or administrative ones. Administrative action and political decisions can be no more conclusively identified within the legal framework. They are constituted by the procedural enactment of administrative planning processes; they are also the focus of what we define as civil evaluation: the kind of evaluation processes which are strategic in the re-definition of both citizenship and administration as well as in the institutionalization of their mutual relationship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]