Il monitoraggio del MEF sulle società a partecipazione pubblica: lo stato dell’arte e le prospettive future

In recent years, the Italian public sector has made a commendable effort to create telematic platforms and sophisticated and updated IT databases. Consistent with this approach, Legislative Decree No. 175 of 2016 (Consolidated Act of Companies Participated by Public Administrations) assigns to the Ministry of the Economy and Finance (MEF) the task of managing the monitoring of companies participated by public administrations. Legislative intervention, through the rationalization of the census, aims to increase transparency in a field which has so far remained rather opaque and ultimately to reduce the presence of the public hand in so many companies that, above all on a regional and a local level, have sometimes had the only purpose to ensure privileged positions in corporate boards or to assume staff without merit. This contribution, which is divided into five paragraphs, is devoted to the monitoring activity carried out by the MEF on publiclyowned companies. The first paragraph gives some figures on the current dimension of the public-owned companies, both on a central and a local level. The sources from which the data are extracted are the Treasury Department, the Department of Public Service, the Court of Auditors and the Istat. In the second paragraph, I have analyzed the trend observed in the last twenty years regarding the proliferation of local capitalism, linked to distorting behaviors taken by the local governments. The third paragraph outlines the new tasks that Legislative Decree No. 175 of 2016 entrusts to the MEF with the aim of unifying the information sources and simplifying the census. The fourth paragraph examines the nature and the tasks of the directorate of the MEF which is in charge of monitoring public companies. The fifth and the last paragraph focuses on the application difficulties which may hinder the achievement of the purposes of reform. Regular publishing and updating of information on public companies may encourage a more mature debate on this specific theme and make available useful tools of knowledge and choice not only for the policy-maker but also for the public opinion.