ICT from Below: ELISA Program and the Innovation of Local Government in Italy

Abstract

In the last two decades, there has been a shift in the fundamental paradigm of Public Administration, from New Public Management, characterized by a managerial, microeconomic and sectorial approach, to Multilevel Public Governance, characterized by an integrated, strategic and holistic approach. The current Multilevel Public Governance paradigm is particularly useful to study and to approach to the Italian local government sector, due to its extreme fragmentation that needs cooperation to overcome its limits. It is in this theoretical framework that we present the ELISA program and its efforts in modernizing the local administration with ICT… from below.

ELISA program (Enti Locali – Innovazione di SistemA, Local Government – System Innovation) is a national government project for the innovation in the Public Administration, guided by the Department for Regional and Local Affairs. The project promotes innovative instruments to develop software and technological public platform in three different main fields: taxation and cadastre; info-mobility; quality of services. The ultimate goal is to increase the efficiency of the administrative structure and provide better and technologically advanced solutions to respond to the needs of the citizens.

Considering the success of the ELISA program, the Department for Regional and Local Affairs, in cooperation with Politecnico di Milano and Invitalia s.p.a., activates the eGovernment Laboratory with the aim in guaranteeing the replicability and the uniform dissemination of the best solutions all along the country. One of its action lines is to develop and implement the Innovation Communities raised in connection with the best practises of the ELISA program. For this purpose, it encourages sustainable and innovative management models, which are able to spread significant benefits by passing on administrative skills and knowledge to other Public Administrations and, furthermore, promoting the implementation mechanism and the deployment of the experiences.

For that to happen, system-oriented measures are needed in order to redefine the relationship between the Local Authorities and the Central Administration: the first ones have the task to identifying both problems and needs of their territories and design proper solutions accordingly; the second one has to guarantee constant and consistent funds, coordinate the actions and oversee the whole process. One example of system-oriented measure is ItaliAE project, a complex and technological program, financed by European structural funds and born to follow the implementation of the local authority reform provided for by the law n. 56/2014 and to support the transformation of the Italian administrative geography and to improving its efficiency.