In recent months I have dealt with several times of the 'process of revising the Code of Digital Administration (CAD) launched by the Government 19 February 2010 that, in the coming weeks, will lead to the change of D. Decree no. 82/2005.

Network are already available in the motions of my comments ( here an article I wrote for the Courier Communications , here my contribution to the Guide to Local Authorities and the Sole24Ore here an interview that made ​​me his friend Dominic pole for the same periodical; with the ' Institute of Policy Innovation and UnaRete we also produced a paper that e-Gov is being published in serial form ), but I think right crystallize in a post on this blog the reflections matured in recent months.

The modification of the CAD is, undoubtedly, a positive event, a passage of decisive importance for innovation in the public sector, where governments, professionals and citizens should watch very carefully. The code should have been the "magna carta" of Italian e-government, a milestone, a Copernican revolution, but instead was largely disregarded, becoming one of the least known and respected standards of the entire Italian legal system. In addition, the rapid evolution of technology has determined that the new rules become obsolete without being really applied, so the government decided to intervene: the process of computerization of the public sector, which has experienced a stalled again dutifully by the DAC and its revitalization.

Well, there is no doubt that reform is absolutely necessary and that the purposes of government are shared: not random, in fact, that Italy will always occupy the last of the charts in terms of e-government.
According to the latest survey included in the annual World Economic Forum report on the progress of information technology (available online at: http://www.weforum.org/documents/GITR10/index.html) our country is far behind in the overall (a 48 th place out of 133 very dishonorable, if you only have about that Italy is one of the eight largest economies in the world) and it is not an episodic event, indeed, in recent years the trend of our country is decidedly negative (less than 6 positions lost in just two years). If we read the specific data concerning the Public Administration, is understood as a major cause of backwardness of Italian is really going to search for in the public sector (120 ° place for the overall effectiveness of public policies and 87 th place for the use of technology in the administration).
Some readers may wonder what enters the rules, well, in a highly bureaucratized PA like ours, the quality and obsolescence of the regulatory framework is no stranger to this situation (for the record, our legal system is all square ' 84 th place and the effectiveness of our legal framework at 116 °).
Among the provisions that did not work, we can tell, there is certainly the Digital Administration Code and the credit of the Minister Brunetta is surely to have noticed it and wanted to remedy this situation.

(Photo by silvestrodam )

However, the solutions contained in the draft decree approved by the Government seems too timid and should, before its final approval, the measure is enriched and perfected.
There are aspects of method and substance upon which it appears useful reflection.
First, it should be noted that - despite a few cases - the debate on the reform of CAD is struggling to take off or, better, to leave the confines of the usual "experts". This is an aspect perhaps underestimated the Digital Administration Code is not a body of law that applies only to public bodies, on the contrary, one of its major innovations was precisely to introduce a series of many (and insightful) for digital rights citizens and businesses (such as the right use of technology in dealing with the Public Offices). Yet, citizens and businesses have had no cognizance of their new rights and, therefore, not acted to enforce them. Just think, four years after entry into force of Legislative Decree no. 82/2005, there is still no significant case law on the Code, in a country with high rate of litigation is a fact that should make us reflect on how little or nothing has been done to inform users as provided by rules computerization of the Administration.
It would certainly be desirable to open the 'process of change in the CAD (and its contents) to all citizens, beginning the first truly digital public consultation, however it was the CAD to state (Art. 9) that "the State or favors any form of use of new technologies to promote greater participation of citizens, including foreign residents, the democratic process and to facilitate the exercise of political rights and civil individual and collective "what better occasion to apply this rule?

In this respect, the reform seems to have only part of the large delegation from the Parliament granted by Art. 33 of Law no. 69/2009 and, thus, the changes are limited to revitalize the provisions of 2005, without introducing noticeable innovations and set new goals as urgent, for example, in Italy to implement the principles of 'Open Government or a more pervasive use of e-democracy tools to involve citizens in decision-making.
On the contrary, too many provisions are dedicated to the digital signature and electronic document, the aim of simplifying the legislative framework does not seem to reach. The rules are still confusing, complex and - thanks to the court for further technical rules to be adopted in the future - could be a hindrance, not a stimulus, the digitization of the public sector.
And then the excessive emphasis on these instruments may be misleading: as important as the revision of CAD can not be exhausted in the discipline of digital signature, the "euphoria tecnicistiche", so far, have not brought us far.

For this reason I do not think you can still talk about "reform" or "New CAD", a new code, drawing lessons from what went wrong in the original formulation, should resolve a crucial issue: the government does not provide much online services to its users, without consequence, while the few excellences are not properly exploited. Lacks a broader perspective which also makes the code a text suitable not only for today's challenges, but also for the near future (just think of things to the internet) and establishing garrisons of protection for innovators.
One should not underestimate that often the innovators in the Public Administration must confront a series of internal resistance, and often there has been disciplinary complaints for civil servants whose only crime was to interpret the rules in an evolutionary sense, for this therefore, to encourage innovation should also mean ensuring that innovators are not isolated and marginalized, but rather enhanced.

Finally, you should make sure that the timing for the implementation of the reforms were even shorter. In the U.S., Obama has predicted that the bodies mettessero online all your data within 45 days while in Italy it is expected that for the preparation of a disaster recovery plan it takes 15 months if it is too slow is not true innovation.

So I think that we should move higher up the bar of the objectives to be achieved by decree delegated the real challenge is to make editing the CAD real reform, to ensure that the Administration will become the digital memory for Godot by Beckett and that we, after some time, we are left desolate to say "nothing happens, nobody comes, nobody goes, it's terrible!"