Beyond the Spoils System
When reforming public administration, one of the thorniest issues is form that the relationship between politicians and public managers should take. This is by no means a new problem, and has been regulated in various ways in recent years in Italy, with periodic injections of elements taken from the American spoils system, subsequently corrected by other reforms. But the choice of public management model is not about whether the spoils system is desirable or not: is it possible to think public managers separately from politics, particularly when we are not talking about positions that are not political? Comparative studies on personnel management in the OECD have identified two models: one career-based, and the other position-based. The former hires mangers who have won an open and public competition. Once in the public sector, one's function and organization can be changed, and there is career progression in a hierarchical sense, but one's professional life unfolds in the public sector until retirement. By contrast, the position-based model calls for more flexible ways to access public management posts, looking at positions that needs to be filled and recruiting managerial personnel in ways that are similar to what occurs in the private sector: a revolving door exists, and the job is not for life.
Although recent reforms have favored hybrid forms of public management, the career-based system is still prevalent in Italy. Existing norms however call for a minority share of positions (8-10%) to be available for external actors having "proven professional skills". In current Italian discourse, this means politicians appointing their friends as administrators, which signals a certain confusion about the model of public management Italian politics has in mind. It is instead a precious opportunity for central and local government alike to benefit from professional skills acquired in the private sector in the attainment of given objectives, and within a given time period.
On the one hand, while it's good that jobs acquired through the spoils system have an expiration date, not all managers having short-term contracts were selected for being close to this or that politician, and luckily so. There are two circumstances which make it possible to hire managers without a competition: personal political advisors, and positions that require knowledge and skills that are not available among career officials. The former is a typical case of the spoils system, while the latter is more similar to position-based recruiting systems. In order to give value to this second category, selection and recruitment must mean something different from political co-optation. And at the same time, position-based systems must go beyond the mere public band. This means for public officials to equip themselves with tools that enable the evaluation of a candidate's managerial capabilities, such as application form analysis, skills assessment, and the job interview. The recent Italian reform of public management seems to give more latitude in hiring contract managers, especially in local administrations. But what will really consolidate the presence of managers that are not career officials, and yet are autonomous from the political class, is the professionalization of selection and recruitment systems in public administration.