Municipalities may use association management for specific functions. The most commonly used forms of association are Unions of Municipalities, Mountain Communities, Consortia and Conventions.
At the end of 2009 in Veneto there were 29 Unions of Municipalities (10% of the national total), which corresponded to 100 member Municipalities, 65% of which had less than 5,000 inhabitants.
Mountain Communities were fewer in number (19), but involved more Municipalities (171), of which most (154) had been delegated functions. Furthermore the Mountain Communities involved more than one-third of the surface area of Veneto, as opposed to little more than 10% by the Unions of Municipalities. Indeed, both for the geomorphological characteristics of their territory and the nature of the bodies, the territorial area of competence of the single associations is on average higher for the Mountain Communities: 352 km2 versus 67 km2 of average surface area of the Unions of Municipalities. In the same manner, on average there were 38,986 inhabitants and 9 Municipalities per Mountain Community versus 16,654 inhabitants and 3 Municipalities per Union.
Data available for Consortia and Conventions is limited regarding the complete set of functions delegated in 2009.
If only Local Policing is looked at (information complete for 2009), the preferred choice of Municipalities was a Convention: 199 local authorities are members of Conventions to manage Urban Safety, which corresponds to 26% of the population of Veneto. Conventions are followed by Unions of Municipalities and Consortia, which represent about 7% of the regional population. The smallest share of population, 0.4%, is that of the Mountain Communities, which have been delegated the service by only 15 Municipalities. Finally, there are 54 local authorities (nearly 22% of the total population of Veneto) that belong to associations under construction. Overall, more than two out of three Municipalities manage (or intend to manage) Local Policing in an association.
(Chapter 19 in figures)