Implementation of strategic and performance management reforms in italian central governments

Public policies promoting the use of performance management systems in the public sector are not new but have intensified in the past two decades as a result of a greater awareness of its relevance for national and international development and competitiveness. Previous research on performance management in the public sector has put the emphasis on an implementation gap between policy objectives and the public managers’ practices, especially in southern European countries (Cepiku et al., 2012). This implementation gap is exhibited through a formal approach to policy guidelines and limited employability of performance information in decision-making. The paper considers the state of development of performance management in the public sector as the result of the interaction between public policies and public management practice. Namely, it analyzes the impact of the latest performance management reform of 2009, promoting specific analytical models, on the ability of Italian central government to perform strategic analysis and formulation activities, and on the system to actually provide performance information supporting coherent decision-making. The empirical analysis reports a mixed and still unsatisfactory state of art of the implementation of measurement tools and techniques, which are reported and discussed.