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A decree-law approved by the Italian Government on 10 February 1998 extends the ongoing "privatisation" of the public sector employment relationship to senior civil servants. It also introduces the use of fixed-term contracts and temporary work, as well as mobility for public sector workers.
For years, the Italian civil service has been the object of government measures and projects for its reform, but it has always taken a long time for any proposal to pass into law. Consequently, serious attempts at reform have begun only in the 1990s. One of the most significant legislative measures is law 29/93 introducing the "privatisation" of the employment relationship in the public sector - ie aligning the relationship, which has traditionally been governed by separate rules, with that in the private sector. In 1997, law 59/97 - the so-called "Bassanini law" - sought to overhaul the civil service by, amongst other measures, recasting the role of the state and decentralising numerous powers to the regional, provincial and municipal administrations. Again in 1997, reforms were made to the system of workers' representation and bargaining in the public sector (IT9709311F and IT9711217F).
On 10 February 1998, the Council of Ministers approved a decree-law presented by the Civil Service Minister, Franco Bassanini, which introduced substantial further changes to the employment relationship of public sector workers. The decree-law has three innovative aspects:
The reform of the status of senior civil servants concerns ministry officials (around 6,000 of them), a category excluded from the privatisation of the employment relationship introduced by decree-law 29/93. The decree-law approved by the Government in February 1998 introduces two categories of senior civil servants: senior executives and other executives. Whereas the former are responsible for implementing programmes defined by a minister, for handling budgetary spending, and for drawing up proposals, the latter perform a more administrative role, being responsible, amongst other items, for coordinating the activities of their departments.
Italian senior civil servants are now to be appointed on a fixed-term basis. Although their contracts last for five years, they are renewable. At the beginning of a legislature, the government may fail to confirm executives in their posts and move them elsewhere. Finally, senior civil servants may now be dismissed for serious shortcomings, like failure to achieve objectives or manifest incompetence.
The second innovative feature of the decree-law of February 1998 is its introduction of forms of flexible employment in the public sector, where it is now possible to use temporary work, work/training contract s, and fixed-term hiring. This use of more flexible forms of employment is flanked by the introduction of teleworking envisaged, initially in experimental form, by the Bassanini law.
The final innovation is "mobility" for public sector employees, which takes two forms:
Reactions to the decree-law approved by the Government have centred mainly on the privatisation of the employment relationship of senior civil servants, and especially the introduction of fixed-term appointments and the possibility of the government appointing senior civil servants at the beginning of the legislature. The senior civil servants' unions, Adige and Dirstat, have called for the introduction of certain guarantees for their members. In particular, to prevent a situation in which appointments are made according to political preferences, Dirstat has urged that performance evaluations should be made by an independent body. Adige has argued that a clear distinction should be drawn between the "directive" activities of ministers and the "management" activities of senior civil servants. Moreover, the latter should be given greater decision-making autonomy.
The decree-law approved by the government completes the privatisation of the employment relationship in the public sector that began in 1993. At least from the formal point of view, this process has gradually removed the distinction between public and private sector workers, whereby the former used to enjoy better rights and guarantees (although the two groups of workers still cannot be regarded as equal).
Moreover, laws, administrative rules and management practices have generated organisational structures with a high level of bureaucratisation which has had deleterious effects on the efficiency of the Italian public administration. The aim of the government reform is to introduce new management criteria. As regards senior civil servants in particular, it envisages transition to a system in which operational and decision-making autonomy should increase, and in which the importance of achieving results becomes paramount. The privatisation of the employment relationship of the senior civil servants is an important step towards realising these objectives. However, what the effects of introducing fixed-term contracts and the appointment of senior civil servants by the government will be, remains to be seen. There is a danger, in fact, that the independence of the civil service from political power will be reduced.
The introduction of flexible forms of employment in the civil service confirms the growing deregulation of the labour market in Italy, although it is only a gradual process. (Marco Trentini, Ires Lombardia)