The Government involves the certification, inspection bodies and laboratories in the context of the NRP, National Recovery and Resilience Plan, and public procurement. “One of the key words of the PNRR is measurement, which is expressed in the” measurability “of initiatives and their measurement”, – declares Paolo Salza, President of Conforma, association of certification and inspection bodies, today after the hearing in the Chamber of deputies on the committees that deal with the NRP. “The certification, inspection bodies and accredited laboratories can verify the correct application of the Recovery Plan”, he underlines, “by immediately measuring the effectiveness and progress of the plan’s initiatives in a third, competent and independent manner”.
Conforma started its business in 2012 and is made up of the main national and international companies operating in Italy in the sector of independent and accredited third party conformity assessment, i.e. the set of certification activities for management systems, products, personnel and services; inspections; CE marking and laboratory tests and calibrations. This is the so-called ICT (Testing, Inspection & Certification) industry, which in Italy includes over 360 certification, inspection and verification bodies, 1,200 test laboratories and about 200 calibration laboratories, for a total market estimated at 4.2 billion. euro with an employment base of 33 thousand employees. According to Conforma, the ICT industry is able to support the Public Administration immediately and in a qualified and independent way in the definition, development and application of PNRR and in finding that balance point between speed and compliance with shared rules and objectives, eliminating the time necessary for the PA to identify, hire, train and deploy new resources throughout the territory. The so-called Genoa model, adopted for the construction of the San Giorgio Bridge, has demonstrated the effectiveness of the PA’s recourse to professionalism on the market. In infrastructures, Conforma also notes, the verifications of the projects for the purpose of their validation make it possible to identify in advance any critical issues that could generate variations and disputes, which end up invalidating or prolonging the construction of the works. Another initiative that highlighted the positive contribution of the ICT Industry in the field of administrative simplification is Industry 4.0, in which the certification bodies verify the presence and validity of the requirements to access tax benefits, both in terms of the characteristics of the technologies acquired enabling, that of their effective insertion in the production chain. Conforma has therefore made its know-how of skills and experience available to the deputies, and hopes to be involved in the institutional technical tables.