Guidelines of the smart working Organisational Plan approved

The Minister of Public Administration Fabiana Dadone approved the Guidelines that will aid Public Administrations in drawing up the Smart working Plan with special reference to defining suitable performance indicators.

Despite it being a way of working already regulated for some time now by Italian law, it is only because of the Covid-19 health emergency that the Public Administration has had to recourse to large scale use of “smart working”. Until now in fact it has been the subject of limited experimentation and some attempts at implementation. To such an extent that Public Administration have had to expose strengths and weaknesses that have generated a broad and widespread debate on it.

The smart working Organisational Plan is a specific section of the Performance Plan, an instrument for programming smart working, or rather its method of implementation and development, to be adopted by 31 January each year. The basic idea has a strong organisational significance: smart working is not improvisation, and therefore an emergency situation, but programming, in keeping with the various instruments established by the legislator (such as the Three-year Information Technology Plan, the Three-year Staff Needs Plan or the Three-year Staff Training Plan).

Adopting the Plan is not obligatory but the Legislator has established that smart working must nevertheless apply to at least 30% of employees (instead of 60% if the Plan is adopted), as prescribed by the Madia Law. The choice of progressiveness and gradual development of smart working is however referred back to each administration.

Lastly, minimum indicators are identified to be introduced and monitored in 2021, in the advisory phase, in order to create the starting point for subsequent historic series. These indicators make reference to:

• the conditions enabling smart working, assessed in terms of Organisational Health, Professional Health, Economic-Financial Health and Digital Health;
• the quantitative and qualitative status of implementation;
• the organisational performance, in terms of efficiency, effectiveness and economy;
• the external and internal impacts.

The Guidelines will be presented by the Scientific Director of the Public Value Research Centre (CERVAP) Prof. Enrico Deidda Gagliardo to the Administrations and to the supervisory board during the live-streamed meeting scheduled for 16 December, from 10.00 to 16.30, for the launch of the 2021-2023 performance cycle.