Abstract
The paper builds on the case of the design and implementation of the National Information System for School Buildings in Italy. The project is one of digitalisation of the public sector and involves several layers of territorial governments (the State Department for Education, regional and local governments) and ICT experts, and is becoming a tool for policy making in the field. Nonetheless, the programme was initially designed with a top-down approach immediately stuck. Its effective implementation only took place some years later by downsizing policy design and allowing regions to implement those digital solutions which, in the meanwhile, had been designed and implemented from the bottom-up. The paper draws from the case study theoretical considerations about the importance of where policy learning happens and the strategies that policy makers may adopt in case of policy failure in order to re-establish the conditions for effectiveness.
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Notes
A third locally developed system was developed by the Region of Friuli Venezia-Giulia, but it was a mere adaptation of a pre-existing database management system used for a completely different purpose and has recently been dropped by the same regional government.
In 2012 and later in 2016, two new earthquakes in the Emilia-Romagna Region and in the Marche and Umbria Regions fixed the issue of the agenda as an important issue in the national and regional political spheres: ‘The political focus on these issues has increased sensibly… There have been lots of question times at the regional Assembly raised or pushed by stakeholders’ inputs’ (Interview 3).
The role of political oversight for administrative learning has been discussed by Craft (2017).
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Appendix
Appendix
List of interviewees
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1.
Engineering spa, Head of National Register Project (2001–2006), 14 July 2017.
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2.
Regione Toscana, Director of School’s Infrastructures Unit, 12 December 2016.
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3.
Regione Emilia Romagna, Responsible of the Region’s Schools Buildings Register, 30 January 2017.
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4.
Regione Piemonte, Responsible of the Region’s Schools Buildings Register, 27 July 2017.
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5.
Soluxioni Srl, Founders, 19 January 2017.
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6.
ItaliaSicura (Task Force on School Infrastructure)—Presidency of the Council, Coordinator of the Office, 18 January 2018.
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Di Giulio, M., Vecchi, G. Multilevel policy implementation and the where of learning: the case of the information system for school buildings in Italy. Policy Sci 52, 119–135 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11077-018-9326-4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11077-018-9326-4