MORE COLLABORATION BETWEEN PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION AND THE THIRD SECTOR

The results of the Euricse research on co-programming and co-planning

"More cooperation between the public sector and the third sector is required if we are to close the current gaps in social and personal services. The private social sector has unmatched firepower because it represents voluntarism, passion, as we saw during the pandemic. It means also "non market", in the sense that the value of the private social sector goes far beyond the economic value produced by hundreds of thousands of organisations providing social services, culture and education. The gift economy disrupts all paradigms. The PA faces challenges beyond just providing the community with goods and services, such as creating collective value. Private social organisations should be viewed as complements to the public and the market rather than as competitors, unless efficiency is the factor for competition. The third sector stands for the third method in the contemporary economy. I want to express my gratitude to economist Carlo Borzaga, the honorary president of Euricse and a strong supporter of this project”.

These were the words of the President of the CNEL, Renato Brunetta, at the presentation of Euricse's research, "The New Collaborative Welfare in Italy: Co-Programming and Co-Planning as Tools for Local Welfare Innovation".

Euricse's research is the first survey nationwide on Article 55 of the Third Sector Code, which introduced legal tools to promote a new, more cooperative and equal concept of relations between the State and Third Sector entities. The purpose of this work is to examine whether and how the relationships between the public and the third sector are changing as well as the potential contributions that each of the various actors can make to the creation of local welfare.