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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 paper discusses the evolution of public performance evaluation from the early nineties to the present, age of the so-called spending review. It is a re-reading of facts with an operational dimension, also to orient future choices and the growth of the country, promoting policies for the development of productive public spending and acknowledging merit. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The current economic and social crisis calls for new practices within the public administration: an increase in its productivity could be obtained by the mobilization of social energies and the diffusion of leadership capacities. Spending review, performance management and evaluation of public policies are separate activities that converge in view of reaching the objective of "doing more and better with less". For each of these activities it is necessary to decide which method to apply. If the democratic alternative prevailed in each of them, it would be possible to overcome those conditions (centralism, legalism, compliance) that are at the origin of the present crisis, and that would be reinforced were those activities conducted according to the traditional way. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]