United Nations Public Service Awards Case Studies

Formez proposes “the Social Budget of the Province of Parma” for Category 1 “Improving tansparency, accountability and responsiveness in the Public Service”.
The Social Budget of the Province of Parma is not only a good praxis, only numbers, only self-promotion and rhetorical, but it is also the representation of an analysis, the search of critical situations, the communication of actions and issues according to the truth.
With the instrument of the Social Budget it has been diffused inside the administration and communicated outside the actions, the activities, the plans started and realized by the Province, equipping them with book keeping data and extra accountants through the criterias of the division in territorial areas, the participation areas, the “widened balance account”.
The territorial division has involved the subdivision of the provincial territory in four territorial districts, quantifying the destined expense to every district, in relation to the functions exercised from the Province.
It has been calculated also the resources directly transferred from the Budget of the Province of Parma and those transferred inside extras-areas budget .
For the intervention areas it has been made a detailed account of the expense leading back it to the six sets in action individualized inside the mandate program of the Provincia’s President and of its Committee.
The six intervention areas are: the territorial re-balance and the infrastructures; the quality of the life; the emergencies; the internationalization and the economic development; the cooperation and the international solidarity; the institutional innovation, organisation and activities.
The “widened balance account”: regarding this concept of accountability the Province of Parma plays the pioneer role; infact it has been the first Public Administration in Italy and Europe to make use of it. A modality always has been confirmed because it’s still very original in expressing a complex and unknown role of the Province, namely to attract and to coordinate richness. Richness directly produced and richness attracted thanks to the work of coordination of regional, national and European plans in the whole provincial country.

What is the initiative about? (the solution)
The province of Parma is a province of Emilia Romagna’s district, with one territorial surface of 3.449,32 kmq, a number of inhabitants equal to 407.704 (data founded the 01.01.2004) and it includes 47 municipatilities. For the local agency Province, to communicate the issues reached and how much is invested to catch up them is not an easy way. Very rarely the Province of Parma turns its action to the citizens’ consumer; its actions are always mediated. So it needs to let people know how much the citizens and the enterprises have contributed to the public administration’s activities, and how much the Province of Parma returned to them in terms of the quality of life, culture, safeness. The Social Budget has represented an answer to this needs. Therefore it drafts of an intentional document coming out from the politicians references of the Province of Parma first of all. They have believed in the effectiveness of this shape of accountability and they helped the Administration to get involved the all structure to give the data necessary to compile it. For the Province of Parma 2005 represents the fifth year of pubblication of the Social Budget and it coincides with the end of the legislature and therefore with the presentation of Social Budget’s for the final politician mandate. Also the Administration received from FERPI (the Italian Federation of Public Relation) an important acknowledgment expressed by the Oscar of the Social Budget for the category named “Local Agencies”. The Province of Parma has shown during the last few years a growing interest and engagement for the environment, the health and the quality of the life; infact it has been the first Province in Europe to achieve the EMAS’s certificate. It’s for this reason that the last two edition of the Social Budget, during 2004 and then 2005, have adopted a new thematic section called “Ecobudget”. Moreover inside the two last pubblications there is the Gender Auditing, namely a document showing how the strategic political budgetary and choices but also the management of the human resources can influence the male and feminine kind. In the last edition, it has delineated the resources connected with the area of the economic development in the optical kind; it has represented a challenge that has received the consents of the team-work, the politicians, the management, the citizens and last but no least the stakeholders. The main characteristics of the Province of Parma’s Social Budget are: the division of territories, the widened balance account and the areas in which the Administration works.

Who proposed the solution, who implemented it and who were the stakeholders?
Year 2001: The first edition of the Social Budget of the Province in Parma is compiled, using the collaboration of a society of experienced consultation in public accountability. Year 2002: It has been introduced the accountability during this year related to the stakeholders and for macro- plans, understood as the whole of the priority actions in comparison to all those contained in the Previsional and Programmatic Report. It deals with transversal projects to the programs of the different services that constitute point of fundamental reference for the activities of the local public administrations. The institutional communication to citizens has been realized through an informative brochure of synthesis, distributed on the whole provincial territory. Year 2003: It has coincided with the Social Budget of final politician mandate (period 1999-2003). The objective has been to turn back the results achieved within the whole legislature using the usual points of strength of the social budget. It has been obtained a document of essential valency to allow the citizens, the enterprises, the associations, the unions and the various expressions of the territory to appraise the job developed from the Province of Parma and verify all the removals in comparison to the objectives of program. The 2003 Social Budget has obtained the important recognition of the FERPI. (the Italian Federation of Public Relation) with the Oscar of budget, for the category of the “Local Public Agencies”. The award’s motivations re: for its tied up characteristics linked to a punctual exposure and formally unexceptionable of the activities’programs and the financials data, for the good visual impact and for the valid comunication activity. Year 2004: They have been added to the document two new thematic areas concerning the politics of kind and the environmental politics, with particular reference to the data of the environmental accounting. The Budget of Kind turned its attention inside the Province’s organization because, it has valued the attention of the Administration to the problems of its workers. The Eco-Budget takes care for the impacts of the environmental politics on the territory and to the evaluation of the economics- financials aspects and to the investments resulting from the environmental accounting. Year 2005: The last edition illustrates 3 budgets collected in only one budget: the Institutional Budget, the Budget of Kind, the Budget of Sustainability (Social and Environmental). Also confirming the methods of accountability by now consolidated for areas, the division of territories and the Widened Balance Account, the edition 2005 has represented the activities and the achieved results bringing back them to the 3 budgets and proposing 3 different methods of reading of the politics of the Public Administration. A novelty, related with the area of the Budget of Kind, has concerned the declination of the resources distributed in the sector of the economic development from a point of view of “kind”.

Describe how and when the initiative was implemented by answering these questions
a. What were the strategies used to implement the initiative? In no more than 500 words, provide a summary of the main objectives and strategies of the initiative, how they were established and by whom.
The “input” to the action is directly reached by the Province of Parma’ politicians, involving the whole administrative structure. To head of the project and in the role of coordinator of the Social Budget, the administration has the Accountant Chief of the Province in Parma. Initially they have used some consultation of an experienced company in public accountability, subsequently the job has entirely been done by personnel inside the Administration. Only the graphic part has been taken care by a firm specialist in the field of communication.

b. What were the key development and implementation steps and the chronology? No more than 500 words
The priority has been the accountability of the activities, the programs and the anticipated projects in the mandate program of the President of the Province of Parma and translated in the documents of programming and annual planning. Among these: the projects of international cooperation, the projects of inside innovation in collaboration with other territorial local agencies, the digital communication and the technological innovation, the “Auditing Gender Budget of Kind”, the actions of exploitation and defense of the productions sour - alimentary, the budget of environmental sustainability.

c. What were the main obstacles encountered? How were they overcome? No more than 500 words
Taking care of the strategies of the local politicians, the budget’team work proposed to translate the Province’s objectives in issues to communicate through the involvement and the coordination acting as an interface among the political organ, the administrative structure and the external subjects (the citizenship). The whole project has been taken care of by a devotion working group, that has verified the state of advancement of the project through periodic reunions, acquiring the data and the information from the single services and making them meet in the areas of affiliation. The data and the information reported to the single projects have been equipped of economic data and brought back, according to the criterion of the "territorial division", to the various geographical districts individualized on the provincial territory. This methodology proposed under all the conditions has allowed us the construction of a historical trend.

d. What resources were used for the initiative and what were its key benefits? In no more than 500 words, specify what were the financial, technical and human resources’ costs associated with this initiative. Describe how resources were mobilized
The unbalances and the emerged critical points thanks to the social accountability, have allowed a re-examination of the politics of the investments for territorial districts. In other cases mostly disadvantaged social and economic categories have taken advantage from a corrective policy.

Is the initiative sustainable and transferable?
The internal communication of the public administration has happened through a letter of the President of the Province that asked an involvement of the whole administrative structure in the editing of the Social Budget document. All the sectors and services of the Administration have positively responded for the parts of their competence testifying their contribution in the project, both for the services on line and for those in staff. Subsequently the document has been distributed to all the inside organs. The communication and external distribution has been realized through an official conference of presentation of the Social Budget, preceded by a local information and promotion strategy on the whole provincial territory. The spread of informations has been developed by meetings in particular strategic pleces like: University, Town Councils, Chamber of Commerce, Banking Institutes, Trades Councils and through the publication of some editorials in the local newspapers. The Social Budget document and every useful information have also been published on the web site of the Province in Parma. The Administration has participated in seminars, fair saloons and meeting about the theme with distribution of deepening materials. The stekholderses of the territory have been informed thanks to thematic meetings about the presentation of the final document. Fundamental has also been the initiatives of promotion and spreading of good practices realized with other institutions and public administrations (such as Formez, Yards, SDA Bocconi). The document has been compiled then in three versions: - an official publication in formed papery destined to an institutional public, this version has equipped by digital support (containing the document on CD Rom); - a synthesis of the document of easy reading and destined to a wide public; - an informative brochure containing the main actions activated by the Administration to benefit all the citizens of the provincial territory. The distribution has also been realized in capillary way through the business activities even those itinerant ,connected with the sale of the local daily newspaper.

What are the impact of your initiative and the lessons learned?
Being by now arrived to the fifth edition, the beginning difficulties have been widely exceeded ,on the contrary the Province of Parma has perfected a criterion and a methodology that has received unanimous acknowledgment. Above all from the point of view of the book keeping data, having codified every single engagement of expense budgetary ,using an date book keeping base adapted to this requirement, it has concurred to extrapolate the financial data for territorial districts and thematic areas. The common difficulties - that other public administrations could meet in the involvement of the internal structure - have been retrenched by the Province of Parma thanks to a strong political “input” that has speed up all the processes for the creation of the Social Budget document. A difficulty in terms of timing and bureaucratic authorizations has been recognized when the Province of Parma has been badly in need of receiving data from private subjects.


Institution Name:		Province of Parma
Institution Type:		Public Organization
Contact Person:		Michela Canova
Title:		Administrative Official
Telephone/ Fax:		+39 0521.931561
Institution's / Project's Website:		+39 0521.931859
E-mail:		m.canova@provincia.parma.it
Address:		Viale Martiri della Libertà n 15
Postal Code:		43100
City:		Parma
State/Province:		Parma
Country:		Italy

The Problem

Solution and Key Benefits

Actors and Stakeholders

(a) Strategies

(b) Implementation

(c) Overcoming Obstacles

(d) Use of Resources

Sustainability and Transferability

Lessons Learned

Contact Information