Istituto Regionale Lombardo di Formazione per l'Amministrazione Pubblica

Abstract

Istituto Regionale Lombardo di Formazione per l'Amministrazione Pubblica (I.Re.F.) undertook its own activity in 1983 following the debate that was opened in those years on the reform of public administration in Italy.

In the past twenty years, I.Re.F., the first regional school of public administration in Italy, has run the professional development of Lombardy's civil servants (Regional Government, Provinces, Municipalities) with its training activities, trying to answer the needs of modern civil society.

I.Re.F. is divided into various teaching areas according to the different matters. Each didactical macro-area is run by a manager helped by external consultants and with the scientific supervision of university experts. The administrative sector offers general services. The mission of the institute includes the following activities: -to promote training; -improve the quality of public services; -enrich the professionality of regional and local administrations, taking care to supply update professional, technological and legal contents; -create managerial development in the public administration open to modern company culture, developing systems of distance learning.

A course programme is built in different stages: -analysis of needs and problem setting; -macro-project realisation; -analysis of customers' feedback; -micro-project realisation, tuning, teaching activity, final evaluation.

Particularly interesting is the effort I.Re.F. is bearing in local police training where it offers: -basic courses for agents with compulsory attendance to be confirmed in their jobs; -specialised courses to update agents in service; -advanced courses for police officers.

A historical sector of I.Re.F.'s activities is represented by the health care area. Lombardy is the first among Italian regions to deal with the problem of standing training and updating of mangers who will have to carry out the strategic plans of the health care sector.

Considering the particular necessity to assure the training and updating of top and middle managers of the Regional Health Service in an organic and systematic way, the General Health Department of the Lombard Region decided to set up a special body able to meet training requirements and guarantee full consistency with its objectives as regards schemes and results. I.Re.F. organised these schemes through the School of Health Care Management (Scuola di Direzione in Sanità - SDS).

I.Re.F is one of the first training schools in Italy and Europe to have ISO 90001 quality certification for the design and delivery of education services for the public sector.

And last but not least there is the recent concession to the Region of Lombardy by the European Institute for Public Administration of Maastricht, on behalf of the European Union, of an Antenna which will be hosted by I.Re.F. and called Centre Européen de Formation dans les Affaires Sociales et de Santè Publique (CEFASS).