Since 1980s private sector managerial practices have spread into traditional public administration, with the aim of improving service quality and efficiency among public administrations all over the world. Local governments have been particularly affected by this paradigm evolution, given their proximity to citizens. Despite these 30-year efforts, public administrations (and, among them, local governments) are often far from realizing the full potential of the new approach. More recently, the current crisis and the scarcity of resources have been challenging the processes aimed to enhance the levels of service quality and citizen-involvement. Given these premises, the purpose of this paper is to evaluate whether the mentioned processes are still going on or have slowed down due to the austerity programs. At the same time, this paper intends to investigate how public officials perceive the current challenges. To answer to these research questions, a study is presented, based on an analysis on data we collected from a sample of 155 Italian local municipalities in May and June 2012. These data are also compared with those we collected in a previous study in 2010, making it possible to adopt a longitudinal perspective. Moreover a qualitative analysis on the additional large amount of information we collected from Italian local municipalities in 2012 is presented. Contrary to common sense, findings show that, on average, austerity programs have had limited negative effects on service quality and on citizen orientation within Italian local municipalities. On the other hand, the reduction of resources is stimulating several virtuous reactions, including: reorganizations and rationalizations, extra-efforts of the municipalities’ employees, the adoption of some e-government tools, and so on. From a managerial point of view, these reactions may serve as best practices for other municipalities. Nonetheless, some final concerns emerge due to the absence of a clear picture for the next years, making it impossible to plan long-term interventions to improve services quality.
Public services quality, citizen orientation and austerity programs: An empirical study of trends and evolving practices within Italian municipalities
CASSIA, FABIO
2012-01-01
Abstract
Since 1980s private sector managerial practices have spread into traditional public administration, with the aim of improving service quality and efficiency among public administrations all over the world. Local governments have been particularly affected by this paradigm evolution, given their proximity to citizens. Despite these 30-year efforts, public administrations (and, among them, local governments) are often far from realizing the full potential of the new approach. More recently, the current crisis and the scarcity of resources have been challenging the processes aimed to enhance the levels of service quality and citizen-involvement. Given these premises, the purpose of this paper is to evaluate whether the mentioned processes are still going on or have slowed down due to the austerity programs. At the same time, this paper intends to investigate how public officials perceive the current challenges. To answer to these research questions, a study is presented, based on an analysis on data we collected from a sample of 155 Italian local municipalities in May and June 2012. These data are also compared with those we collected in a previous study in 2010, making it possible to adopt a longitudinal perspective. Moreover a qualitative analysis on the additional large amount of information we collected from Italian local municipalities in 2012 is presented. Contrary to common sense, findings show that, on average, austerity programs have had limited negative effects on service quality and on citizen orientation within Italian local municipalities. On the other hand, the reduction of resources is stimulating several virtuous reactions, including: reorganizations and rationalizations, extra-efforts of the municipalities’ employees, the adoption of some e-government tools, and so on. From a managerial point of view, these reactions may serve as best practices for other municipalities. Nonetheless, some final concerns emerge due to the absence of a clear picture for the next years, making it impossible to plan long-term interventions to improve services quality.
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