Presentation  Presentation  

Summary

Link: Networks e Synergies

Social Development Networks

Chapter 1

Housing quality

Chapter 2

The centre and the suburbs: different systems of mobility

Chapter 3

The family and solidarity

Chapter 4

Quality of education network

Chapter 5

Living the employment network

Economic Networks

Chapter 6

Links within the economic system

Chapter 7

The trade network

Chapter 8

Veneto agriculture network

Chapter 9

Mountain synergies

Chapter 10

Production networks

Chapter 11

The distribution network

Chapter 12

Tourism: synergy between sectors and networks between individuals

Institutional services and
networks

Chapter 13

The network for workplace health prevention

Chapter 14

The Veneto model for the integration of social and healthcare services

Chapter 15

Public Administration: services for citizens and businesses

Chapter 16

Telematic networks in Veneto

Chapter 17

The environmental and territorial checking networks

Chapter 18

Cross-border institutional networks

Chapter 19

Inter-institutional local models




19.2 - A Veneto model of local governance: participatory local policing

(Note 1) Several years ago, Regione Veneto initiated a path towards the establishment of an inter-institutional "network" for urban and territorial policing that guarantees the greatest operational coordination possible among the various actors engaged in urban safety policy. The top-down organisation of the national police forces (Polizia di Stato, Arma dei Carabinieri and Guardia di Finanza) has always enabled them to liaise and coordinate clearly and immediately, as has the precise definition of their roles and competences on a regional, provincial and local level.
Over the years, however, their liaising with Polizie Locali (Local Police) has been quite muddy, essentially because 588 actors are involved-581 Municipalities plus 7 Provinces-each of which answer to their respective local authority. Consequently, a clear need has arisen to find and experiment new ways of interacting with Local Police forces, ones that will, on the one hand, facilitate interaction with regional government and, on the other, will allow tangible, stable coordination with National Police.
Thus a parallel process was begun, on the one hand to promote a district framework for Veneto's Local Police and on the other to redefine the relationship and collaboration with the State, i.e. with all the national police forces in the region, so that the two systems recognise one another. A foundation for reciprocal integration has been laid, which assigns Regione Veneto with the role of institutional coordination in order to link policies geared towards maintaining orderly civil life and fighting crime.

Top  Why Local Police Districts should be created

Over the last decade, in part due to the modification of Title V of the Constitution, Italy's regions have had to direct attention to their Local Police, and this has led to a gradual change in the competences and characteristics with which local police officers, vigili, are identified. Due to this new constitutional arrangement and the related enabling laws, regional government was granted the exclusive power to legislate on Local Police, even though the service is carried out by Local Authorities individually or in association, as it was before.
The process of coordination and standardisation through law was handled by individual regions in different manners, but as a whole they concerned four main areas: joint financing geared towards purchasing professional equipment and planning urban safety, at times through drafting specific laws for "urban safety and law enforcement"; definition and restructuring of the nature of uniforms, provision of equipment and identification of rank; definition and initiation of training for Local Police; and rationalisation and promotion of association management of Local Policing.
The last of these has recently been examined by the various Italian regional governments and is still under consideration; so far few regions have been able to define a real model of rationalisation and support, but Veneto has certainly put forward a well-defined proposal.
Rationalising the current association management of Local Police services begins with the premise that the over the years Local Police have been organised in a variety of different ways because they are managed by Local Authorities autonomously; this situation has given rise to episodic coordination with the other police forces and has allowed for the emergence of "grey" areas, where either there is no police-presence because a service has not been implemented, or it is run using management regulations that do not fully implement the greater competences that have been given to Local Authorities and Local Police.
The need for rationalisation is also caused by major financial problems: the management of the Local Police is perhaps the item that weighs most on a municipality's budget, since it requires ever-increasing human resources who need to be adequately equipped, trained and compensated as they have a very different work schedule to the other municipal employees. A municipal department with these characteristics becomes unsustainable economically in the long-run for small and medium Municipalities.
Another factor that should not to be overlooked is the large number of Municipalities (581) that need to maintain constant contact with local police officers employed by Local Authorities, which made the system slow and complicated from the very outset.
The two principal reasons that induced Veneto's regional government to go down the road of "forming Local Police districts" lie, on the one hand, in an administrative-organisational need to create an institutional network to define the roles and common ground of all the actors involved in public safety through coordination between the region and the various police forces, Local and National, so that their collaboration can be based on certain rules and well-defined representatives in the field; on the other is the economic-financial need to rationalise regional investments and favour the rationalisation and optimisation of results for the Local Authorities.
Before they gave rise to general assessments that were turned into administrative practice, all of these considerations were supported by the findings of two studies on the organisation of the command structure of the Local Police and the development of management through forms of association.
The last study, which was carried out by the Osservatorio Regionale sulla Sicurezza, Veneto's Regional Safety Observatory, refers to 2004; it provided a brief illustration of a situation that would become the starting point for a policy that the regional government intended follow during its last legislature in order to define and develop an institutional network based on the Veneto model of governance for participatory urban safety.
In 2003, associations of Municipalities involved in Local Policing increased by 26.4% on 2000, going from 64 to 87. In 2003, 322 Municipalities were involved in some kind of association management of Local Police activities, 89 more than in 2000 (Figure 19.2.1).
The number of member Municipalities increased because there was a higher possibility that they would receive regional financing; however, as the situation was not properly regulated, the Municipalities belonging to Conventions, i.e. the fund recipients, often ended their association when a project came to an end. A Convention was the form of association management chosen in 62 cases, followed by a Union in 20, Consortia in 3, an Association in 1 and a Mountain Community in 1.

Top  The route laid out for defining Local Police Districts: the Zoning Plan

Until 2006, incentives to aggregate Local Authorities for the association management of Local Police functions and services were provided through two main Regional Laws: LR no. 40/88 and LR no. 9/2002; in parallel, a more detailed study of Local Authority associations dealing with Local Policing was undertaken.
In 2007, a proposal was made to divide the region into ATOs that would favour the association management of Local Police services; this proposal was based on acquired knowledge and a study of bespoke variables. The consolidated experience of other institutional networks dedicated to protection of the territory, such as the Carabinieri and Civil Protection Department, was also kept in mind. Meetings were then held with the interested parties, recommendations and observations made by Local Authorities, and in-depth assessments of the variables regarding the dynamics of association management conducted; these led to the approval of the "Zoning plan of the Veneto region for the association management of Local Police services", which divided the region in a total of 70 districts (Figure 19.2.2).

Top  Results since the approval of the Zoning Plan

Though it may seem premature, a few short years after this revolution in the relationship between regional government and Local Police forces, the data available has revealed one decidedly positive fact: there has been an increase in the Municipalities involved in association management, if we also include the municipalities that are in the process of formalising their association due to regional funds that have recently been appropriated. As can be seen, it has made Consortia the preferred form of association; this appears to be due to the fact that Consortia are, in many cases, the most flexible form of managing Local Police services since they create a structure that is 'dedicated' to the needs and features of these services (Table 19.2.1) and (Table 19.2.2).
Concerning the population involved in this new way of managing the service, in 2010 62% of the population of Veneto receives association managed services from their Municipality, which suggests that the "Veneto model" for management of the Local Police is consolidated. On the other hand, there are 184 Municipalities that carry out the service on their own, covering 38% of the total population, that is 1,835,312 inhabitants. However, although three of the seven provincial capital Municipalities (Treviso, Padova, Vicenza) have decided to manage the service of Local Police individually, they have still as acted as protagonists in the coordination and linking sanctioned by the zoning of the Local Police to the same degree as the other districts, thus showing that association is even more widespread. It should be said that the seven Provinces of Veneto, along with their respective Provincial Police commanders, also participate in the logic of zoning, thus acting as hubs and strengthening ties across the region (Figure 19.2.3).

Top  The connection with the Ministry of Interior, the interoperability of the police and the Local Police information network

A link with National Police forces has been gradually integrated in the Zoning Plan. Once the pilot project areas had been defined, an innovative operational protocol was perfected that would enable the Region and the Ministry of the Interior to cooperate, without penalising the specific needs of direct communication with the local authorities. A three-year Second Protocol of Understanding was signed in March 2009; the protocol accepted the organisational logic defined by the Zoning Plan and proposed different kinds of pilot schemes within the models for managing public safety (Note 2). Important collateral initiatives linking Local Police, as well as Local Police and regional government, have been introduced by on-going projects using innovative safety technology: a single regional TETRA safety network; a permanent monitoring system run by Local Police headquarters (Note 3); and the Information System of Veneto Local Police.

Top  The single regional TETRA safety network

Many reasons were behind the decision of Regione Veneto to create a homogeneous digital channel for its Local Police forces within a single plan which enlarges the current Regional Emergencies Network.
Current Local Police radio in the Veneto region is provided by a technically and operationally heterogeneous radio system; at times it is dated and obsolete, has limited operational performance and communication security, is poorly suited to the modern data transmission, and has been created by individual Local Authorities over the years without a common plan. Furthermore the radio links use different frequencies, bandwidths, radio signals and protocols that impede interoperability among the forces of the various Administrations.
To assure interoperability within the region and at the same time to increase communication security and increase the added value services supported by radio channels, Local Police radio links need to be based on a single, professional radio system.
The new Local Police radio channel extends Veneto's Regional Radio Emergencies Network, which is based on all the regional services that need professional radio links sharing a single regional backbone, repeater sites and a Centre for Communications Services.

Figure 19.2.1
Municipalities which perform Local Policing through forms of association. Veneto - Years 2003 and 2004
Figure 19.2.2
Districts for association management of Local Policing. Veneto - Year 2010
Table 19.2.1
Current state of districts by province. Veneto - Year 2010
Table 19.2.2
Association management of Local Policing and the respective member Municipalities by form - Veneto
Figure 19.2.3
Percentage of population under association management and individual management of  Local Policing. Veneto - Year 2010


Verify the accessibility : Valid HTML 4.01! 

Data processed by the Statistics Office of Regione Veneto are collective property; reproduction of this material is authorised for non-commercial purposes only, provided the source "Regione Veneto - Regional Statistics System Management" is acknowledged.
English translation by the University of Padova Language Centre.