Central Public Administration is the driving force behind decisions that shape investment, development, and the country’s major transitions. However, it operates within a context marked by regulatory complexity, implementation delays, and growing demands for accountability. In this scenario, the digitalisation of central public administration is not an IT project, but a fundamental governance lever: it is essential to improve the quality of public decision-making, accelerate policy implementation, and make results measurable.
Digital innovation and national governance
Ministries, national agencies and major public bodies are where the country’s strategic trajectories are defined: fiscal and industrial policies, social interventions, the ecological and digital transition, and the use of European and national resources.
Yet the ability to translate these choices into concrete outcomes is often under pressure due to structural factors. The data confirm this. According to the eGovernment Benchmark 2024, Italy remains below the EU average in terms of quality and maturity of digital public services, particularly with regard to key enablers of digital governance such as interoperability and data use, scoring 62 compared to the European average of 74.
This gap is not only technological: it has direct effects on the capacity of central public administration to coordinate complex policies, monitor their implementation, and provide timely and reliable accountability to Parliament, citizens and European institutions.
The good news is that digital transformation holds significant potential as a governance lever, as it enables the integration of fragmented information, strengthens coordination among different bodies, supports evidence-based decision-making, and helps communicate milestones through strong, data-driven narratives.
Where does the public administration machine get stuck?
Today, central public administration operates in a context characterised by:
• fragmentation of funding sources and a growing number of regulatory constraints;
• increasing demand for transparency and measurability of public policies;
• pressure on implementation and spending timelines, particularly for European programmes.
It is therefore unsurprising that the effectiveness of public action is increasingly linked to the ability to govern data, processes and skills in an integrated way.
From the analysis of the context, four key areas of criticality and opportunity emerge.
Breaking down "silos" in public administration to govern cross-cutting policies
One of the most critical issues concerns the fragmentation of information systems. Central administrations manage a vast stock of data and procedures, often distributed across platforms that do not communicate with one another, the so-called silos.
Consider, for example, a ministry that needs to reconstruct the implementation status of a policy measure involving multiple departments and an implementing agency: without interoperable systems, the information must be pieced together manually, requiring weeks of work and leaving ample room for error.
The outcome is well known: operational frictions between administrations, longer timelines due to repeated activities, frustrated staff, and difficulties in building a unified view across multiple directorates or entities. As a result, the ability to deliver coordinated policies is significantly weakened.
According to European monitoring, system interoperability and data reuse remain among Italy’s main Achilles’ heels. Yet we have long since entered the Application Programming Interface (API) economy: breaking down silos in public administration is both possible - by investing in system interoperability - and essential to align policies, budgets and results, and to make governance truly data-informed.
From spending to results: measuring policy impact
Central public administration is increasingly being asked to answer a key question: what effects do spending decisions actually generate?
The issue is not merely how resources are spent, but how to demonstrate the impact of public policies on economic growth, employment, incomes, environmental sustainability and social cohesion. This is particularly true for programmes financed at European level, where ex ante and ex post public policy evaluation has become a structural requirement.
For example, how can the refinancing of a measure aimed at boosting employment be assessed without a structured ex post evaluation of its territorial benefits?
Here too, technology provides a concrete answer. The use of socio-economic impact analysis tools makes it possible to estimate the effects of policies on GDP, tax revenues, employment and ESG indicators, transforming public policy evaluation from a formal exercise into a tangible support for decision-making.
Clearly, dashboards and analytical tools must be consistent with international methodologies and standards, as well as with regulatory requirements. Only in this way can directors general and evaluation teams rely on authoritative, reliable and comparable information that can effectively strengthen institutional accountability.
Reducing administrative friction in fund management
The management of public funds is one of the areas where administrative complexity and inertia produce the most visible effects.
Data on Italy’s National Recovery and Resilience Plan (PNRR) show that, despite unprecedented levels of funding, a significant share of projects is progressing with difficulty. The total value of projects launched and under implementation amounts to €162.8 billion, more than €30 billion less than the overall financial allocation. According to Italia Domani data, payments amount to €77 billion, equal to 47.3% of the total project value.
Delays are also evident in the new European programming period 2021–2027. As of 31 August 2025, compared to the total resources programmed under the Structural Funds, progress stands at 27.16% in terms of commitments and just 8.03% in terms of payments.
Consider, for instance, a situation in which, during an audit, a central body must reconstruct ex post the authorisation and control process of a project, retrieving documents and information from multiple systems. The root cause of this slowness is not only a lack of resources, but also the multiplicity of rules, the complexity of controls and the high administrative burden placed on central structures.
In this context, digital platforms that support the entire fund lifecycle - from criteria mapping to reporting - make it possible to streamline processes, reduce the risk of errors and improve the quality of controls, with a clear positive impact on disbursement and collection timelines.
Skills and human capital as drivers of acceleration
Digital transformation cannot succeed without people. Here too, data help to frame the context, while technology helps improve performance.
According to estimates by Confartigianato, only 41.3% of Italians interact with public bodies via the internet, compared to an EU average of 54.3%. This figure is mirrored by another data point from the European Commission’s Digital Decade Report 2025: in Italy, fewer than half of people aged 16 to 74 possess basic digital skills according to European standards—just 45.7%, below the EU average and far from the Digital Decade 2030 targets. The same report also places Italy 23rd in the EU for the provision of digital public services to businesses.
This has a direct impact on public administration. The adoption of advanced tools for governance, data analysis and policy evaluation requires skills that must be developed and widely embedded within administrations.
The adoption of platforms, when combined with upskilling pathways, represents a crucial opportunity to make digitalisation a structural capability of central public administration.
For example, providing advanced yet user-friendly software solutions, accompanied by widespread training, enables more efficient application of procedures, allows multiple funding sources to be managed without increasing stress on administrative structures, and raises the overall skill level well beyond a small group of specialists — strengthening the digital capabilities of managers and civil servants at all levels.
Conclusion: from complexity to governing capacity
The figures show that the challenges are real, but they also point to a significant margin for improvement. Today, technologies, models and partners exist that can support central administrations along this path—without disrupting organisational structures, but rather by enhancing what is already in place and combining technological solutions with targeted training programmes. It is on this ground that central public administration can strengthen its strategic role and more effectively guide the country’s major transformations.
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