A seguito della riforma federalista in atto, il tema del controllo della spesa degli Enti locali si è spostato dalla ricerca di un contenimento della stessa alla determinazione degli standard di costo e di prestazione, passando da un’ottica prettamente finanziaria di utilizzo delle risorse, ad una squisitamente economica, di destinazione delle risorse e di determinazione di misure congrue delle stesse. Se da un punto di vista teorico la determinazione di standard di costo non trova ostacoli, da un punto di vista pratico l’effettiva individuazione di misure oggettive e soprattutto coerenti con le realtà locali, appare assai complessa:n come dimostrato dai risultati della ricerca, rileviamo, ad oggi, l’effettiva difficoltà nel definire standard di prestazioni e, conseguentemente, standard di costo.
As a consequence of current federalist reforms, the question of controlling local authority spending has passed from simply trying to limit it, to determining cost and performance standards. There has been a shift from a purely financial approach in using resources, to an economic one, considering how resources are allocated and what suitable measures might be in using them. While, in theory, setting cost standards is not difficult, in practice, actually deciding on measures that are objective and, above all, applicable locally would seem to be rather complex: as research results show, at present, we found real difficulties in defining performance standards and, consequently, those of cost.
As a consequence of current federalist reforms, the question of controlling local authority spending has passed from simply trying to limit it, to determining cost and performance standards. There has been a shift from a purely financial approach in using resources, to an economic one, considering how resources are allocated and what suitable measures might be in using them. While, in theory, setting cost standards is not difficult, in practice, actually deciding on measures that are objective and, above all, applicable locally would seem to be rather complex: as research results show, at present, we found real difficulties in defining performance standards and, consequently, those of cost.
