The ongoing digital transformation process for public administration services represents one of the key elements modernizing our country. Over the years, this goal has not always been achieved using proper available resources and it has lacked a medium and long-term strategic approach. The Government National Recovery and Resilience Plan has significantly changed the process, identifying PA digitalization as one of the key factors for Italy’s recovery strategy while allocating a significant part of community funds.
National Recovery and Resilience Plan and PA digitalization process
PA digital transformation process is part of the strategic plan for digital transformation: the plan has been approved in the frame of NRRP (PNRR) with 13 billion euros of which 6.74 billion euros are addressed to PA digitalization. In 2021, PA sector started embracing NRRP strategic measures and it continued with the approval of numerous notices aimed at allocating European and national resources. The main goal of Italian NRRP is to support the country achieve a full and ecological digital transition becoming the leading nation at European level within 2026. To do so, five goals should be achieved:
- Make sure that 70% of citizens will resort to it;
- Fill the digital gap among citizens;
- Make sure that at least 75% of Italian PA will be able to use could services;
- Make sure that 80% of essential public services will be delivered online;
- Partner with the Ministry of enterprises and Made in Italy (MISE) to reach 100% of households with broadband networks.
EU funds reaching 53% of targeted goals
According to Osservatorio Agenda Digitale of School of Management from Politecnico di Milano, Italy is properly managing NRRP’s funds: more specifically, the country has already reached 53% of targets (151 out of 290) and milestones agreed upon with other European countries. Italy is the main country which successfully achieved digital transformation goals, allocating 74 billion euros from 2021 to June 2026 (40 billions for Missione 1 and for five other initiatives): this amount corresponds to 37% of the overall European resources outlined in the Next Generation EU. It is about such a higher amount compared to the one allocated by other member states: Spain is likely to allocate 20 billion euros, Germany 13 billion euros, France 9 billion euros and other 19 states less than 2 billion euros each. 60% of NRRP resources (more specifically 33% of those available for Missione 1 and for the digital transformation) will be addressed to central, local or public companies.
Looking at the big picture, by the end of 2024 Italy should be able to confirm last year’s targets about public tenders and about the management of relative payments; the Country has to send, at least, 3 million compliance letters and create revenues amounting to 2.7 billion euros. Our country is also called upon to reduce the number of pending cases in ordinary courts by 65% and those in civil appeals courts by 55%. The Observatory from Politecnico di Milano has analysed its Digital Maturity Indexes, gathered in 2023 from the European Commission, comparing EU countries approach towards achieving 2023 Digital Decade goals, highlighting an unclear scenario. Despite the encouraging results in open data resources (ranking 7 in Europe), our country is still far behind the European average in terms of pre-filled eGovernment forms available to citizens, in terms of digital public services available to companies and, more in general, the transparency of digital public services.
Italy is keeping up with our countries only in terms of 2023 Digital Decade indicators about the number of citizens resorting to digital medical reports; nonetheless, we surpass European average on the number of citizens who interact online with public administration (76% of Italians compared to 74% Europeans citizens). Data from Politecnico di Milano underline how Italy is stepping forward the development and delivery of digital public services known as Government as Platform.
At the end of 2023, the 4 pillars of PA digitalization model positively increased: dataset and shared components, platforms to centralize the demand for public services, interoperability models based on api and clous solutions. One of the most consolidated solutions among shared database is Anpr, National Registry of Resident Population, (Anagrafe nazionale della popolazione residente) which includes the most part of Italian municipalities and gives citizens the chance of downloading 15 birth certificates. Furthermore, several steps are being taken towards merging electoral rolls, digitalizing processes to register and manage government records, and making General Register Office more interoperable. The electronic health record is still not 100% working but more than 418 million of digital records are still accessible and the NRRP will allocate 1.3 billion euros to make it work.
Moreover, the portal dati.gov.it is getting more and more busy with more than 60.000 automatically imported open data from participating PAs (897). Among digital working platforms used by Italian citizens, there is PapoPA, with more than 16 thousand users, and since its launch, over 209 billion euros have been transacted through the payment gateway. In this context, NRRP allocates 370 million euros to activating and migrating services exceeding 250.000 euros. 36 million Italians are using Spid while over 40 million digital ID have been issued. The Government aims to converge the two platforms and make them evolve towards the digital identity wallet: the NRRP will thus allocate 285 million euros to issue 42 millions digital IDs by next June 2025. 36 million Italian have already downloaded IO app while 15 million PA have provided citizens with more than 247 thousand services which will be further implemented using NRRP’s 390 million euros.
Digitalization process spreading out for Italian municipalities
Both the Digital Innovation Observatory from Politecnico di Milano and Assosoftware (Italian association for software developers) and the Observatory for the Digital Agenda, have recently run a more in-depth analysis on PA digitalization process. According to these data, Italian municipalities are progressing at two different levels: in 2023, and in the frame of NRRP, 94% of municipalities showed migration plans to Cloud-based platforms while 68% already holds its own cloud software. When it comes to talk about the real digital transformation, the scenario is quite different: only 3% of small municipalities have trained employees against 46%.
Despite big achievements there are still some delays
The great leap forwards an innovative approach after codiv19 pandemic hasn’t sufficed to fill the gap between Italy and other EU digital countries. According to Benchmark Report 2023, our country remains below the European average concerning the efficiency of digital public services. The document from the European Commission, monitoring the digitalization level of 27 EU member states (plus Albania, Iceland, North Macedonia, Montenegro, Norway, Serbia, Switzerland, and Turkey), has been jointly drafted by a coordinated group including Capgemini and Politecnico di Milano. On a total score set at 100, the average performance of European digital public services is 70% with a strong contribution from Malta, ranking first with 91 points, Estonia (92), and other member countries like Luxembourg (89), Iceland (88), Finland (86), Netherlands (85), Lithuania (85), Denmark (85), Latvia (82), Turkey (81) and Norway (80). Despite increased progresses over the last years, our country gets 61 points. The eGovernment Benchmark Report evaluates online public services’ 14 indicators into 4 dimensions:
- The focus on main user while providing a specific service;
- Information transparency compared to services’ supply;
- Key technological factors to service deployment;
- Availability of cross border services.
The report uses mystery technology shopping methodology: in 2021 and 2022 the so-called shoppers, simulators to access servcies, analysed more than 15.000 PA websites, testing users’ journey with provided services. According to the report, European countries should undertake three actions in order to get 100% of public services digitalized by 2030. Let’s have a look to these actions:
- First of all, member states should fill the gab between in house and cross border users, overcoming language barriers and enabling people to get digital IDs, which should be compatible with the European eldas standard;
- Secondly, they should lower the gap between European citizens and companies: while they can still resort to more innovative digital technologies, one European citizen out of five can’t interact online with his/her own public administration;
- Finally, they should fill the gap at institutional level as digital services are mainly provided by central administrations, followed by regional ones and, to a lesser extent, by local ones
The Organization for Security and Co-operation states that Italy is well behind other EU countries in the digital transformation process
Even the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) highlights some gaps in the PA digital transformation process. Italy is, indeed, raking 19 in the 2023 report from OSCE Digital Government Index: the raking evaluates government’s efforts to create the necessary conditions for implementing the digital transformation process in the public sector. Leading countries in digital advancement and innovation are Korea, Denmark and UK which stand out for their notable achievements in Digital by design services, PA data-driven, Government as platform services, open administration, user-driven administration and proactiveness.
The analysis, conducted between January 1st 2020 and October 31st 2022, is based on 155 data across 33 member states, notably 4 adhering countries and 1 partner country. What really affects Italian performance is data driven index for PA:0.534 against 1 from Korea, 0.8.333 of Denmark and 0.598 in UK. In this framework, the first 10 leading countries are Korea, Estonia, Ireland, Norway, Denmark, France, Columbia, Australia, Latvia and Sweden: for them all, the management and use of government data represent the greatest priority reflecting global efforts both to strengthen data governance in public sector and implement access and data sharing.
The crux of employees’ training
Kickstarting PA digital transformation will pave the way for training employees who will be tasked with managing the new processes towards technological innovation. According to the EU Digital Economy and Society Index, Italy doesn’t have encouraging training indicators; the index uses a series of indicators analysing the main components making up the complex facets of digitalization within a country’s system, providing a comprehensive evaluation. According to it, over the last years, Italy’s position has been fluctuating, being always in the “relegation zone”: raking fourth and second compared to other countries, like Romania, Bulgaria, and Greece. Based on the eGovernment indicator, the worst performances in our country relate two indicators: less than 40% of users use digital platforms whereas EU member states’ threshold is 65%. At the same time, the score for the indicator on pre-filled forms is below 50 (specifically 49 out of 100), whereas the EU average is approximately ten points higher. The situation is definitely better for companies’ digital services (85 out of 100) and for online services (user friendly procedures to register to the general register office, to register change of address, car’s change of ownership etc) with 90 points out of 100.
Final thoughts
In recent years, Italy has undoubtedly made significant strides in terms of digitalizing the Public Administration. More specifically, soon after NRRP approval and thanks to the huge investments to achieve its goals, there has been a significant implementation in digitalizing processes and services provided to citizens by public administration sector. Furthermore, Italy is showing great ability while using European resources and adhering to Brussels Road map regarding goals to be achieved within the allowed timeframe for using community funds. Many of the key indicators related to the digitalization of public administration services, as well as the usage of the digital tools made available by the public administration to users, show a significant improvement. There are still some gaps to be bridged, like those pertaining the efficiency of provided services and trainings to personnel. About the ability to find an agreement to solve digitalization’s crux, Italy will do its best to complete the digital transformation in PAs.
