Many skills but too many staff shortages: the Italian prefectures are in trouble. All the more so if we consider that to the numerous and varied functions already attributed, now must be added all the complicated anti-mafia checks on the 222 billion euro contracts of the PNRR, on which the government is betting the recovery of the country.
45% of deputy prefects and additional deputy prefects are missing, to which must be added a shortage of 30% of contracted executives and 20% of non-managerial staff, that is all that part of administrative staff who physically take care of the chores to allow the normal functioning of the prefectures. Yet, at the end of last May, an amendment to the Pnrr 2 decree – shared by all political forces – provided for the recruitment of a maximum of 800 temporary workers (an estimated 500) to be distributed in the prefectures for a period of eighteen months at a cost of 18 , 4 million for 2022 and 36.9 for 2023. A measure that, in the intentions, was to make Pnrr checks easier to avoid “possible mafia infiltrations”, reads the explanatory report. But at the last minute it was rejected. The lack of economic coverage by the Ministry of the Interior has blown the bank, without the Government having followed up on the announcements, including recent ones, of the desire to strengthen anti-mafia controls, finding the necessary resources in the state budget .
The staff
Now the prefectures will have to work with the staff available, so much so that often there are deputy prefects who have to take on positions, for which they do not always have specific training. Not only that: sometimes they are also called to carry out investigative functions that should be exercised by missing personnel. Consider that with respect to the staff of 20,746 between executives and non-executives, there are 15,585 units in service. Simply put, there is a shortage of 5,161 administrators.
Vice-prefects and added vice-prefects, on the other hand, are only 517 but they should be 931. In Milan, for example, 50% is missing, in Rome 26% and in Naples 36%. In the North there are clear cases, such as those of Varese (-70%) and Parma (-63%), while in the Center there is Fermo (-66%) and Florence (-57%). But in the South, which has a large density of mafia companies, there are openings in strategic prefectures: Palermo (-44%), Agrigento (-50%), Syracuse (-67%), Cosenza (-50%), Reggio Calabria ( -46%), Caserta (-46%), Bari (-50%) and Lecce (-45%). And to think that 86 billion of the 222 billion allocated by the NRP are destined for the South.
New skills required
According to the Interior Ministry, without considering the upcoming Pnrr checks, the prefectures are experiencing considerable workloads. Suffice it to consider that from the 510 anti-mafia bans in 2006 it has gone to 2,263 in 2021, with a percentage increase of 344 percent. The total certifications issued in 2021 alone, on the other hand, were 506,203. This is because they have a very broad expertise. They range from the coordination of technical tables on public order and safety to that with local authorities, for example in the health sector, as in the case of Covid. Then there is all the part relating to road litigation, immigration, the management of proceedings relating to decriminalized offenses, the normal anti-mafia supervision of the Administrations and the monitoring of contracting stations for communications and anti-mafia prohibitions against infiltrated companies, these the latter made even more complicated by the introduction of a cross-examination with the recipients of the measures. To all this now we must add the Pnrr checks contained in the recent circular signed by Bruno Frattasi, prefect and head of cabinet of Minister Luciana Lamorgese.