Abstract

The regulatory changes introduced by article 35 of the 2002 Financial Law have profoundly innovated local public services, which are now to be run by joint-stock companies, with a sharp separation between management and control. The latter still falls within the competence of the Municipalities, but the latter must introduce mechanisms and procedures designed to ensure truly effective control which also comprises the monitoring and regulation of production in order to optimize results. The essay provides an overview of the control systems introduced in eight Italian municipalities forming a significant sample from both the demographic and historical-geographical points of view and reflecting the variety of local public service delivery. The analysis is divided into two phases. The first consists of the collection and processing of data, the sources for which are the Municipalities and Confservizi, the industrial association for companies delivering public services; the second consists of comparison between the results obtained and the direct experiences of key informants, such as the staff of the municipalities studied and of the companies controlled by them.