Reseña

This book investigates on the role played by the performance assessment within the NPM framework through the analysis of the two most recent italian public sector reforms: "Brunetta" and the following "Madia".
The main elements of these reforms can be summarised as: the implementation of the "Performance Cycle" and the principle of performance-based budgeting, a reorganisation of the public authority's bodies, the reduction of collective bargaining's role in public sector management, an increase in the public administration's transparency, and a small increase in citizen customer involvement and empowerment. These implementation aim to improve public sector performance and to make public agencies more customer-oriented while increasing fiscal efficiency, within a system designed to pursue an overall cost reduction of the public expenditure. Both legislative interventions are characterised by the implementation of NPM principles such as monetary efficiency and employee's performance evaluation, in a context characterized by a strong legal tradition, an over-present political influence, and especially in recent times, by little or absent social dialogue and scarce use of bottom-up decision-making process.