Human Resource Management in the Public Administration

Competency frameworks, designed to improve the capabilities and skills of public managers, have been applied in the US since 1979 and have more recently appeared in several other developed countries, including Japan, the UK, Germany, Sweden, and Italy. Since then there has been a need for rethinking skills and competencies for public managers in order to improve their performance at all levels (Gunz, 1983). One of the main viii PREFACE reasons that led to the adoption of a model based on skills was the intro- duction of New Public Management Principles and Values (Horton, 2006) and its related managerial innovations, such as performance man- agement, the focus on human resource strategies, and the need to keep public expenditure down without having a negative impact on efficiency, effectiveness, and performance. Driven by these needs, Italy has made sev- eral attempts to reform work in the Public Sector over the last few years. In 2009 with Legislative Decree N. 150 (27/10/2009), the concept of performance in Public Administration was introduced into the Italian leg- islative system. Subsequently, other amendments (Legislative Decree N. 150/2009, law N. 124/2015) took measures aimed at valorizing mer- itocracy in the Public Sector and rationalizing management evaluation sys- tems. These amendments pursue the general objective of improving performance in the Public Sector and ensuring efficiency and transparency in the civil service.