La riforma della pubblica amministrazione italiana e il risk management: riflessioni su un processo in divenire

Approximately forty years after the surge of New Public Management, today an important key to improve public sector efficiency and effectiveness, in Italy as well as in other countries, is the introduction of risk management systems and their integration on existing management control systems. This paper briefly reviews the origins of public sector reforms that have been implemented since the early 1980s. Then it focuses on risk management and describes the features of this management tool and the potential gains from its exploitation in the public sector. It concludes with some reflections on existing problems, which limit an effective introduction of risk management in the Italian public administration, and on the need for specific strategies to overcome these limits.