Regional Public Accounts

The Regional Public Accounts (RPA) database is the outcome of a project to measure financial flows at the regional level. The RPA database provides information on revenues and expenditures (on current and capital account) of the wider public sector in the individual regions.

The working group for the Regional Public Account project, which is responsible for constructing the individual accounts, is made up of a Central Team under the Public Investment Evaluation Unit (UVAL) and 21 Regional Teams.
The Regional Public Accounts are financial in nature: the reconstruction of consolidated financial flows is therefore usually carried out on the basis of the final accounts of the entities considered, reporting expenditures actually carried out incurred. Each entity is represented as a final expenditure unit through consolidation, which involves the elimination of flows between the various levels of government.

The database, constructed on the basis of data available as from 1996, is complete, comprehensive, reliable, flexible and territorially detailed.

In the past few years, UVAL has been deeply involved in a range of activities aimed at the complete methodological revision of the RPA database, at shortening the time needed for information to become available and at ensuring the full accessibility of the database. In particular, the following are of special importance:

• the complete revision of the time series for revenue and expenditure in the Regional Public Accounts. The effort (initiated in the second half of 2004 and completed at the end of 2005) significantly updated the methodology used for the RPAs, which has improved their ability to represent economic developments in the different regional territories;
• the construction of the public capital expenditure indicator, a statistical tool providing regionalised estimates of general government capital expenditure with a six-month lag. The Public Investment Evaluation and Verification Units UVAL and UVER coordinated the preparation and initial implementation of the project under an interdepartmental working group involving the National Statistical Institute (ISTAT), representatives of the DPS and the technical units of the State Accountant General. The UVAL and UVER ensure the updating and constant monitoring of the indicator;
• the improvement of data accessibility. The dissemination and consultation of information contained in the RPA database has improved significantly in the last few years. From a situation where data was available only on request, RPA time series are now available on the web in table format, which can be accessed using a variety of search criteria;
• the introduction and allocation of a performance reserve fund for the Regional Teams of the Regional Pubic Accounts in order to accelerate the production of the information underlying the RPAs. UVAL has been part of the two separate RPA performance reserve technical evaluation groups established for the allocation of the resources, which was implemented in two phases ending on 31 December 2003 and on 31 December 2005 respectively;
• the establishment of more extensive international contacts, which has resulted in the translation of the materials on the website into English;
• the initiation of a series of analyses of RPA data. Issue no. 6 of Materiali UVAL (Measuring the results of public intervention: data for evaluating the territorial impact of policy) offers a territorial examination of public expenditure by region, level of government, sector and economic category. A number of more extensive sectoral studies (public expenditure for tourism, transport, the environment, general administration) are also under way.