The malfunctioning of our public machine weighs on families and businesses for at least 225 billion euros a year. The tortuous and complicated rules of our state bureaucracy, the missed payments of the Public Administration (PA), the slowness of civil justice, the appalling infrastructural deficit, the waste in healthcare and in local public transport have long been a thorn in the side of the economy of our country. Although it is by no means easy to measure the economic effects of these critical issues, the CGIA Research Office has nevertheless tried to estimate them, arriving at the conclusion that they should cubate over 11 points of GDP per year, or around 225 billion euros.
Although it is always wrong to generalize, given that our PA can also count on central and local points of excellence that are envied in many European countries, the waste, squandering and inefficiencies present in our public bureaucracy are a bitter reality which, unfortunately , have and continue to hinder the modernization of the country.
• Waste compared with tax evasion, healthcare expenditure, GDP in the Northeast and PNRR
Combining the results of some analyzes conducted by half a dozen very authoritative institutions, the economic damage to families and businesses would be at least 225 billion euros a year. As an example, the latter is a digit has a dimension:
- more than double the tax and social security evasion present in Italy which is estimated at around 100 billion euros a year;
- almost double the health expenditure of our country (131,7 billion for 2023);
- equal to the added value (GDP) produced in 2021 by three regions of the Northeast (Trentino Alto Adige, Veneto and Friuli Venezia Giulia);
- slightly less than the resources that our country will have to spend by 2026 with the PNRR (235 billion).
• We are among the last in the EU for the quality of public services
Without bothering Cavour, who even took care of it in 1852 during the Kingdom of Sardinia, in more recent times the then premier, Alcide De Gasperi, aware that there was a need to make the work of our PA more effective, established in 1950 the first ministry for bureaucratic reform (Minister Raffaele Pio Petrilli). Although the problem has been felt since the beginning of our Republic, almost 75 years later the fight against bad bureaucracy has not brought great results. Of course, the advent of information technology has made the relationship between citizens and public offices less impervious, but the difficulties, however, remain and the perception of Italians on the level of quality rendered by our PA remains very low. Although we have recovered some positions compared to 2019, in the latest sample survey carried out at the beginning of this year, Italy ranks only 23rd at European level for the quality offered by public services. Among the 27 EU countries compared, only Romania, Portugal, Bulgaria and Greece have a worse result than ours.
• Bad especially in Basilicata, Campania and Calabria
Even from the comparison between all the regions of the EU countries it emerges that even at a territorial level we do not shine in terms of quality and efficiency. Out of 208 European regions monitored in 2021 by the University of Gothenburg, we see the first Italian reality in 100th place and it is the Autonomous Province of Trento. The public structures present in Friuli Venezia Giulia follow at 104th, those located in Veneto at 109th and those established in the Province of Bolzano at 117th. We are talking about the European index on institutional quality which takes into account citizens' perception of the quality, impartiality and corruption of the PA present in a specific regional area. The situation that emerges from reading the data referring to our southern regions is disheartening. Of the last 20 positions in this European ranking, as many as 5 are occupied by our southern regions: Puglia is in 190th place, Sicily in 191st, Basilicata at 196th, Campania at 206th and Calabria, penultimate at European level, at 207th place.
In the first five positions of the European ranking we see the regions of Åland (Finland), Midtjylland (Denmark), Friesland (Netherlands), Nordjylland (Denmark) and Småland med öarna (Sweden). The classification is closed by Severoiztochen (Bulgaria), Sud-Est (Romania), North-East (Romania), Yugozapaden (Bulgaria), Campania and Calabria. Finally, the black jersey of Europe is the Bucaresti-Ilfov region (Romania).
• Warnings about sources
How did it come to quantify the public waste present in our country at around 225 billion euros? The CGIA Research Office has collected and aligned the results of a series of analyzes on the inefficiencies and waste that characterize our Public Administration. In summary, it should be noted that:
- the annual cost incurred by companies for managing relations with the PA (bureaucracy) is equal to 57,2 billion euros (Source: The European House Ambrosetti);
- current trade payables of our PA towards its suppliers amount to 55,6 billion euro (Source: Eurostat);
- the slowness of justice costs the country 2 GDP points a year, or 40 billion euros (Source: Carlo Nordio, Minister of Justice in the government chaired by Giorgia Meloni);
- the logistic-infrastructural deficit penalizes our economic system for an amount of 40 billion euros per year (Source: Ministry of Infrastructure and Transport);
- waste in Cuban healthcare over 21 billion euros (Source: GIMBE);
- waste and inefficiencies in the local public transport sector amount to 12,5 billion euros per year (Source: The European House Ambrosetti-Ferrovie dello Stato).
It is evident that these malfunctions, drawn from different sources, cannot be added together, firstly because they refer to different years and secondly because in some cases the areas of these analyzes overlap. However, these precautions do not affect the correctness of the reflection expressed. In other words, that the amount of effects generated by the malfunctioning of our PA is large enough to hold it responsible for the level of backwardness that characterizes our public machine compared to those of our main commercial competitors (France, Germany, Spain, etc.).
• In addition to the PNRR, we also risk losing EU funds
As has emerged in recent weeks, we are not only lagging behind in grounding the PNRR, but also in spending EU funds. By 31 December 2023, the deadline for implementation of the 2014-2020 seven-year period, we must spend the remaining 29,8 billion (equal to 46 per cent of the total quota) of money that has been provided to us by Brussels, of which 10 are national co-financing. If we fail to achieve this, the unused share of EU funds will be lost. In short, a good part of the 19,8 billion that Europe has made available to us for at least nine years is at risk. The reasons for this difficulty in using European money have been known for some time. First of all, we suffer from a great difficulty in adapting our Public Administration to the procedures imposed by the EU. After that, the staff, above all in the technical area, is insufficient and those employed have low wages and, also for this reason, are often not very motivated. Specificities that affect the quality and productivity of the service rendered by these employees, especially in the regions and local bodies most in difficulty, which are largely concentrated in the South.