(Finance) – “For those who want to investigate the reasons that are at the origin of the disastrous conditions in which the Italian PA finds itself, we recommend reading the latest report by the State General Accounting Department on public employees, released a few weeks ago with data updated at 2021. A veritable mine of information to which too many give only a casual glance. Data on the cost of public labor show that in the last ten years the Central Functions are the only sector of the PA – together with the Local Functions – where recorded a percentage drop, despite the salary increases of the 2016-2018 contractual round. The drop is the consequence of the policies to reduce employment levels in ministries, non-economic public bodies and tax agencies”. That’s what he underlines Sandro Colombi, general secretary of UIL Public Administration.
“In absolute values, the total cost of personnel in the PA – he explains Doves – grew by around 9 billion euros in the ten-year period 2012-2021, considering the same entities. But in the Central Functions it decreased by 1.5 billion. And it went even worse for Local Functions, with a drop of around 4 billion. In percentage terms, the blow is revealed in all its massive evidence: minus 13.3% for personnel costs in the Central Functions, minus 15.1% for the Local Functions. And today the same people who demolished the PA are weeping crocodile tears over the inefficiency of the Ministries, Regions and Municipalities which risks making us lose the billions of the PNRR. Irresponsible and hypocritical. There’s no other way to call them.”
Finally, Colombi analyzes the payroll expenditure. “Here too the RGS numbers speak for themselves. In ten years (2012-2021) – continues the secretary general UIL Public Administration – the Central Functions saw a drop of 12.3%, which goes hand in hand with the minus 14.5% recorded in the same period for the Local Functions. All the other sectors have seen an increase, perhaps modest, as in Health, or more marked, as in Education. This means that public finances in 2021 saved more than 3 billion euros compared to 2012 for the gross salaries of permanent staff of Central Functions and Local Functions. And that these savings have covered part of the expenses for salary increases in other sectors. In short, a round game. Where the least of the problems that interested political decision makers was to take care of the efficiency of ministries or municipalities. The vision of the future of the current government will be seen in a few days, when the DEF 2023 will be presented. We will see concretely what investments it proposes to make for public work. We will see what real resources it intends to make available for the relaunch of the PA, including those to be allocated to the next contractual renewals. In the meantime, – he concludes Doves – we read in the usual newspapers the drafts of a new PNRR-saving decree which would contain a sort of program of new recruitments in ministries. But the numbers are so small that it looks like a late-breaking April Fool’s joke.”