RIA Policy Coordination and Monitoring in Italy

1. CONFERENCE on Regulatory Impact Assessment Ankara - 19, 20 and 21 April, 2006 PART III : 21 April am RIA policy co-ordination and monitoring aspects 3. The situation in ITALY Mario Martelli [m.martelli@agora2000.it]

2. Contents • How RIA is coordinated and monitored in Italy • What conclusions can be drawn from country experiences for the setting up and institutional framework for a successful RIA system? How to get the maximum benefit from RIA?

3. How RIA is coordinated in Italy

4. Better Regulation and policy-making; how and at what stage does RIA fit into the Italian policy-making process? Regulatory Reform is conceived as apart of a more general Government Reform(including devolution to local authorities, reorganization of Central Government, reform of the civil service and of the public budget) • Regulatory Reform is concretized in a specific delegation of the Prime Minister to the Minister for Public Administration • Italy is moving from a mere “simplification policy” to a more global “regulatory quality” policy

5. What is the relationship between RIA and other tools such as administrative simplification and consultation? • A new, systematic use of two previously existing legal instruments (to “avoid the delays and incentives for poor regulation inherent in traditional legislative process”, as the OECD says): 1) “delegating laws” (leggi delega) 2) the “delegislation” (delegificazione) mechanism • The main pillars for the Italian regulatory quality: 1) simplification 2) codification (both referred to existing regulation) 3) regulatory impact analysis 4) consultation (both referred to new regulation) and (from 2005) 5) Taglia-leggi (Guillottine, for almost anything before 1970) • The crucial role of the “center of the Government”and a specific Unit in the PMO and (from 2005) in the Dipartimento Funzione Pubblica

6. RIA in Italy First experimental steps in Italy • Law 50/99: introduces RIA in Italian legal system (one of the first non Anglo-Saxon countries), foreseeing an experimental period • Two PM Decrees, in March 2000 and September 2001 (under two different Governments!): introduce the ATN (legal-technical analysis) and design the experimental period for RIA (both preliminary and final) • 2002-2004 support programs for sectoral Ministries • adoption of detailed RIA methods; • establishment of a task force in the PMO (both at the political and the technical level); • setting up of a specific training program

7. The key role of Regions and municipalities in RIA • Toscana: first pilot experience in Italy. Tuscany is nowadays considered the “leading Region” in practicing RIA • Formez-DFP: Training (14 Regions) and pilot experience (11 Regions) between 2002 and 2006. • Region Basilicata: the first regional law on RIA • Regional Parliaments now involved in RIA: Abruzzo, Campania, Emilia Romagna, Lazio, Piemonte, Toscana, Veneto, • City of Lucca (Tuscany): the first Municipality to establish a training and an experimental program on RIA. Agreement with the PMO

8. Consultation and RIA Potential power of a permanent consultative body • The experience of the “Osservatorio per la semplificazione”: a consultative body with representatives from all Ministries, Regions, Local Authorities and social parties • Important role of consultation in both preparing new regulation … • … and monitoring the reforms recently adopted to see if they really work

9. RIA in Italy The further steps for the future The difficulty of radically changing the Italian bureaucratic and legalisticculture: sectoral Ministries will need a strong initial support (and a strong push!) from the new PMO’s task-force • Need of extending the use of RIA to Regions and Independent sectoral regulators • For OECD, the new system is “well designed”becauseit “takes into consideration OECD recommendations and international best practices and contains interesting innovations (such as the two RIA reports and ATN report)” (OECD, Regulatory Reform in Italy, background report, cap. 2, par. 114)

10. How RIA is monitored in Italy

11. RIA - From indicators to monitoring and evaluation (1) • Policymakers need systems in order to verify whether implementation isperforming, and to what extent the regulation is achieving its foreseen objectives. • When regulation is not achieving its objectives, they also need to know whether this is due to flawed policy design or poor implementation in terms of i) identification of problems; ii) link problems-objectives; iii) right capability in the implementation phase; iv) arise of unknown assumptions/criticalities.

12. From indicators to monitoring and evaluation (2) Monitoring and evaluation arrangements(M&E), including generating data on the basis of indicators might provide valuable information in this regard and help in defining how to optimise the intervention. In this respect, already when the RIA is under way, the analyst have to define some care indicators far the main policy objectives and to outline the monitoring and evaluationarrangementsenvisaged

13. M&V – setting up a system for RIA (1) • It’s quite important to define some care indicators far the key policy objectives (i.e. far the so-called ‘overall objectives’) and it is fair to assume that these general objectives are reasonably stable across the various alternative policy options envisaged in the RIA. • These indicators must be checked against the purpose they are supposed to serve, i.e.measuring to what extent a policy has been properly implemented and its objectives achieved. Consequently, their credibility and clarity are very important. • Another important factor in the choice of indicators is the ease with which relevant data can be collected; collecting data on an indicator should not be more costly than the value of the information they provide.

14. M&V – setting up a system for RIA (2) • Where a preferred option has been identified, the analyst should i) describe briefly how the data needed far the monitoring of the intervention's implementation and effects are to be collected and ii) (2) outline the nature, frequency and purpose of subsequent evaluation exercises. Questions to be addressed should include: • To what extent do monitoring/evaluation structures already exist?Does new capacity need to be put in place? • What will the monitoring data and evaluation findings be needed/used for? • Who are the key actorsin providing and using such information and for what purpose? • What will be, in general terms, theroles and responsibilitiesof these actors? How will information be shared and eventually aggregated? • Is thebaseline situation sufficiently well knownor will further data collection be necessary once the proposal has been adopted?

15. What conclusions can be drawn from country experiences for the setting up and institutional framework for a successful RIA system? How to get the maximum benefit from RIA?

16. Lessons from preliminary RIA experience in Italy • An ‘Italian RIA’ is feasible • RIA work teams have to be composed of internal/external experts, not only from legal departments but also from statistics, economics, etc. • RIA is not appropriate for everything so we need a priori selection criteria

17. In Italy effective RIA is not … … a deus ex machina capable of reaching the maximum in terms of justice, effectiveness and efficiency … … but is a qualified machine to produce information regarding the major and more relevant effects of a regulation. The policy maker will have to chose if using results and in what way …

18. What to avoid in the development of impact assessment tools? Regulatory Impact Analysis • is NOT an ex postjustification … • does NOT replace the need for a political decision – rather, it provides some of the factual information essential to a good policy development process and a well-informed final decision; • should NOT define each problem putting at the centre the view of Ministerial structures – rather, ther should be an effort of evaluating the “whole dimension”, the whole latitude of each problem

19. Planning pitfalls 1 • Starting whenpolicy decision already taken • Fuzzy objectives (reduces options) • Failure fully to assess impacts on market/stakeholders • Inadequate time or planning

20. Planning pitfalls 2 In any case, at least • Use appropriate expertise to assess all relevant impacts • Quantify where possible • Acknowledge and reflect uncertainties in results

21. What are the particular challenges in introducing RIA?My personal experience (coherent with the international experience) • the success of regulatory reform needs asustained political supportfrom the highest level; • regulatory reform is not a ‘one shot policy’ but an ongoing process; • avoid ‘too general and abstract’ programmes and set clear and measurable objectives; • regulatory reform needs not merely legal, but multidisciplinary approach; • evaluate the legal effects of regulation, but mostly the concrete impacton the “real life” (utility, not only legitimacy!); • involve citizens, business and other “regulated” subjects; create a “sense of ownership”; • don’t give anything for granted: monitoring ex post has the same importance of evaluating ex ante • people are crucial beside tools: coordinate the efforts among the Government, create regulatory management capacities; • spread similar tools also for regional andlocal regulators.

22. Improving RIA with RIE (Regulatory Impact ex post Evaluation) • The “next step” of a developed RIA system is to extend the approach from an ex ante assessment to an ex post evaluation, using similar methods • An ex post monitoring can relate to a “compliance analysis” system, which evaluates the level of “complance” of a regulation • The role of failures (and of poor RIAs): learning from poor RIAs can be very useful. However, self-evaluations are not sufficient and often may not be objective enough. A more formal, independent and objective check should therefore be provided