Public Competitions Regulation 2023 and digitization of PA

On July 14, 2023, the new Public Competitions Regulations, one of the key pieces of the Public Competitions Reform 2023, will come into force in Italy. The new regulation contains several novelties aimed at streamlining and accelerating recruitment processes in public administrations. Among these novelties also has room for a series of measures aimed at promoting the digitization of PA access processes. Indeed, countless possibilities are opened up for the activation of digital transformation processes aimed at facilitating both applications and candidate selection and evaluation processes activated by the PA. Below are all the details.

‍

The goals of the new Public Competition Regulations 2023

The Reform of Public Competitions 2023 (made official with the publication of Presidential Decree No. 82 in the Official Gazette General Series No. 150 of June 29, 2023) stipulates that the new Public Competitions Regulations willcome into effect on July 14, 2023, 15 days after publication in the Official Gazette.

Its main purpose is to bring greater efficiency to PA hiring processes, and in so doing to increase the attractiveness of PA jobs to potential candidates. This push for efficiency and digitization is due not only to the decline in the number of applicants recorded over the past few years, but also to the need to respond to the directives of the NRP.

In order to verify the achievement of these goals, monitoring will be carried out each year through the InPA portal. Among the most important indicators that will be the subject of analysis by the Department of Civil Service of the Presidency of the Council of Ministers will be the reduction in the timing of selection processes and the digitization of competition procedures. In this way over the years further changes can be made if necessary to achieve the set goals.

‍

All the new features included in the new Regulations

‍

Public competitions activated from July 14 onward must be geared toward maximum participation and fairness. This means that measures will be taken to promoteimpartiality, efficiency and speed in all procedures. In detail this will entail:

• The use of the InPA portal as the sole platform for submitting applications and publishing the testing schedule;
• access to public competitions also for people with refugee status or who hold a long-term EU residence permit;
• Theelimination of the age limit for public employment;
• The speeding up of the fast selection time, which should be a maximum of six months;
• Ensuring gender equality in calls for proposals;
• The adoption of measures to facilitate candidates with learning disabilities (SLDs), pregnant and lactating candidates;
• The inclusion of reservations in the calls for applications for the children of doctors, nurses and social workers who died from Covid;
• The extension of the validity of final competition rankings from 18 months to 24 months.

‍

A boost to digitization thanks to the InPA Portal

One of the most important novelties concerns the fact that as of July 14 it will be possible to access public competitions exclusively through the InPA recruitment portal, which is to be considered the only tool for accessing competitions of Central Public Administrations such as ministries, tax agencies, local authorities, ASLs, universities and research bodies.

Regions and local authorities will have apersonal reserved area for:

• Publish fixed-term and open-ended competition notices, notices for the mobility of public employees, and selection notices for the award of freelance positions;
• Receive and monitor applications;
• Generate reports and statistics;
• Search for and preserve candidates' CVs;
• Publish the final rankings;
• Seeking professionals for collaborative assignments under self-employment contracts;
• Publish the selective notice to identify the members of the Independent Evaluation Bodies;
• Send communications to users.

Following the LinkedIn model, users will be able to enter their biographical data, educational qualifications and professional experience. In addition to applying for open calls for applications, they will also be able to pay competition fees with PagoPA and check the outcome of public competition tests. 

‍

Digital transformation opportunities don't stop there

‍

Thanks to the entry into force of the Regulations, not only will the speed and efficiency of PA recruitment processes be facilitated, but also a major boost will be given to the launch of procedures aimed at digital transformation in the area of personnel selection for the public sector. In fact, the activation of a single portal to be used as a point of reference for both public bodies and candidates and the activation within it of a series of features aimed at facilitating applications lays the groundwork for the initiation of further processes to improve the entire recruitment process. There are many possibilities, for example, related to the activities of candidate analysis and selection, Talent Management, Upskilling and Reskilling with a view to renewed access to employment, and so on.

In particular, the use of innovative tools not only for the collection of applications, but also for their analysis, would be an important support in responding to the goal of speeding up processes and to that of transparency and democratization of access to public employment. It is therefore easy to imagine that once the foundations for the proper functioning of the platform at the application stage have been laid thanks to the recently announced innovations, the next area of optimization could be precisely that ofcandidate analysis. 

‍