Alessandro
Ancarani
Institute of
Hydraulics, Hydrology and Water Management - University of Catania
Viale A.Doria, 6- 95125 – Catania (Italy)
In the last
decade serving as many users as possible has been considered no more a
sufficient requisite of public services, as additional requisites for better
quality of services and for economical and technical efficiency in management
have been recognised to be necessary.
Due to the increasing customer
pressure for efficiency and effectiveness in public services, involved
utilities (either public or private) need to apply suitable performance
measurement systems in order to evaluate the rationality and results of the
technical and economical choices. Such needs are someway related to more strict
financial constraints and to change in legal framework oriented to emphasise
efficiency in management of public services.
The water services, public services
provided under natural monopoly conditions, have not escaped the general trend
which was mentioned above. The difficulties in reengineering such services are
increased (above all in the South part of Italy) by structural and managerial
deficiencies. Furthermore, the low quality of the products and services
enhances the need for an accurate analysis devoted to identify inefficiencies
and to determine actions to be taken. However, the requirement for efficient
management in public services, and in particular in the water services, has
been explicitly stated in recent Italian laws aiming to organise the municipal
water supply on efficient and effective management basis, also through an
horizontal integration, aiming to supply service on a more adequate scale, and
a vertical integration aiming to exploit the scope economies determined by
common activities necessary for providing municipal water supply, sewage
collection, and waste water treatment services.
In Italy the traditional local or
municipal organisations still remains the dominant institutions in providing
water services, although the requirements for enhancing their efficiency will
determine in few time several changes.
In the
present paper cost efficiency in water services provided in Sicily by local
municipal departments have been evaluated by applying the Malmquist index. Particularly,
data for the period 1994-1996 have been collected and the efficiency in
minimising costs has been assessed under the hypothesis of null technical
upgrade. Such an hypothesis could be considered realistic, above all for medium
and small municipalities.
Several
difficulties have been encountered in collecting data due to the insufficient
information provided by the responsible of the services. The results show that
the most municipalities increased their efficiency during the analysed period
from a cost point of view.
The
municipalities providing both sewerage and waste water treatment services are
more cost efficient, pointing out also a very low degree of scale inefficiency.