Trasferimenti statali e analisi della performance dei servizi locali: due casi di studio
di Tommaso Agasisti, Giancarlo Vecchi (Politecnico di Milano)
In recent years, the debate on funding policies for local authorities in Italy has highlighted the limitations of a system based primarily on indicators of expenditure and the volume of services provided. In this context, there is a need to supplement these measures with indicators capable of capturing the quality of services delivery, so as to support both public policy planning and resource transfer mechanisms more effectively. This paper analyses the role of objective quality indicators for municipal services, with specific reference to nursery and home care services. The research questions addressed concern, on the one hand, the ability of local authorities to systematically collect objective quality indicators based on reliable administrative data available in time series; and, on the other hand, the possibility of using these indicators to guide national funding policies and strengthen local authorities’ accountability mechanisms. The analysis is based on the results of two empirical surveys conducted between 2021 and 2025. The first involved a selected group of Italian municipalities in a collaborative process aimed at defining and validating a set of objective quality indicators, as well as collecting historical data on the services analysed. The second survey extended the data collection to a larger number of local authorities, with the aim of verifying the replicability and dissemination of data collection on a broader territorial scale. The results show that, despite voluntary participation and the limited number of authorities involved, the identified objective quality indicators are generally detectable through administrative data available at the municipal level.
Furthermore, these indicators make it possible to highlight significant differences between regions and service management models, providing useful information for comparative analysis, benchmarking and organisational learning. The evidence therefore suggests that the integration of objective quality indicators into existing information systems could represent a significant tool for improving the design of national funding policies and supporting the strengthening of local social and educational services.
