Bankitalia: 'More efficient spending procedures with the NRP. Timescales for carrying out works improve'

The NRP has given a decisive boost to the recovery of public investments, with the amount of calls for tenders for works averaging 3.6% of GDP over the last five years, more than double the previous decade, of which about one-fifth was financed or co-financed with Plan resources. And from the Recovery Plan there has also come an important acceleration in improving the efficiency of spending procedures and public procurement management, despite the still existing limits in the administrative capacity and staffing of some entities: by the end of 2025, 85% of the NRP resources had been allocated and 54% had been spent, almost 10 percentage points more than for the cohesion funds of the 2014-2020 cycle considering the same stage of implementation. Not to mention that the time required to complete public works has also been reduced, especially in the phases that fall under the direct control of the administrations, such as contracting.

This is the snapshot taken by the annual report of the Bank of Italia which, in two separate focuses, examines the implementation of the NRP in its final stages and the impact on public procurement. The examination starts from the state of progress of the Recovery Plan, whose projects are to be concluded by next 30 June: Italia has so far collected the transfer of about 166 billion lire, of which just over 60 billion for subsidies. The instalments for which payment has been obtained correspond to the completion of 261 targets and 155 objectives: almost all the results linked to reforms and over 60% of those relating to investments have been achieved.

If the outcome of the evaluation is favourable, Italy will also collect the tenth and final instalment of the financing, amounting to EUR 28.4 billion. The payment is conditional on the achievement of a large number of targets (34) and objectives (125) in the first half of 2026, after 32 targets and 50 objectives were achieved in 2025. With regard to the reforms included in the last mile, improvements in civil justice and payment times for the public administration will have to be verified. While, on the investment front, the areas are diverse: they range from the digitisation and implementation of fast Internet networks to the strengthening of the electricity grid, up to employment centres and proximity healthcare facilities.

The analysis of the Bank of Italy, which also recalls the various revisions to which the Plan was subjected, in part due to changed contextual conditions, then dwells on the impact of the NRP in the realisation of public procurement. And here, Via Nazionale's report first of all highlights the corrective measures introduced by the Recovery to favour a more rapid realisation of public investments, from the strengthening of monitoring systems by national and European bodies to the strengthening of technical assistance to contracting authorities. This was accompanied by the allocation of ad hoc funds and the possibility of hiring dedicated staff, to name but a few measures.

This change of pace is reflected in the results that the report puts together using data from the National Anti-Corruption Authority (Anac), the Building Funds, and the Italia Domani portal: the Plan's calls for tenders, reads the Bank of Italia's analysis, 'had a probability of award close to 90%, almost 20 percentage points higher than similar contracts but not related to the NRP; award times were about 10 days shorter (-19%)'. These figures are mainly attributable to the conditionality of resources with respect to the achievement of objectives. And the effect was also amplified by the use of qualified contracting stations to carry out the tenders. With a further downstream benefit: municipalities that managed a relatively larger amount of calls for tenders for NRP projects, all other things being equal, also improved the awarding of contracts not financed by the Plan.