Italian Public Administration Reform: what are the limits of financial performance measures?

The Italian public sector reforms in recent years have demonstrated an over-reliance on accounting-based financial measurements which has essentially created a sort of ‘hierarchization’ of performance. This chapter aims to demonstrate whether and how this predominance leads to negative consequences in the evaluation (and management) of public sector organizations: First, because in definitive governments, performance should be assessed coupling financial parameters with non-financial measures and qualitative judgements (Jones and Pendlebury in Public Sector Accounting, 6th ed., Pearson Prentice Hall, London, 2010); second, for the lack of a systemic approach, financial performance should not be the ultimate objective of public management but instead an instrument to evaluate the financial comparability of various priorities to purse (public value, social, environmental, etc.) (Esposito and Ricci in Public Money Manage 35(3):227–231, 2015).