Law no. 936 of 30 December 1986 assigned the following functions to the CNEL.
a) consultative activity, by issuing opinions on economic, social, and labour matters at the request of each Chamber, the Government, the Regions and the Autonomous Provinces;
b) legislative initiative within the areas of competence;
c) participation in the drafting of economic and social legislation, through opinions, surveys and studies at the request of the Houses of Parliament, the Government, the Regions or the Autonomous Provinces as well as on its own initiative;
d) information and cognitive activities as follows:
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examines the forecast and planning report that the Minister of Economy and Finance is required to submit to Parliament;
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evaluates the regulatory and wage structures expressed by collective bargaining in order to facilitate the elaboration of unambiguous results on individual phenomena;
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makes its own assessments of economic trends and gives its own directives to the institutes responsible for drawing up the basic report;
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examines EU policies and their implementation;
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formulates its own observations and proposals on matters entrusted to it.
The National Archive of National Collective Labour Agreements is established at the CNEL as an official source on national collective bargaining, as provided for in Article 17 of Law No. 936 of 30 December 1986.
Expansion of the CNEL's Attributions and Functions
Law No. 15 of 4 March 2009 expanded the CNEL's attributions by providing for:
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an annual report to Parliament and the Government on the levels and quality of services provided by central and local public administrations to businesses and citizens;
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collecting and updating the National Archive of National Collective Labour Agreements in the public sector;
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promotion and organisation of an annual conference on the activities carried out by public administrations, with the participation of representatives of economic and social categories, consumer and user associations, qualified scholars and media bodies, to discuss and compare the performance of public administration services and emerging problems.
Further functions were attributed to the CNEL by Law no. 234, Article 28 of 24 December 2012, which provides for the participation of the social partners
and production categories in decisions on the formation of the Italian position on European Union initiatives; Law no. 40, Article 40, paragraph 3 of 6 March 1998;
and Legislative Decree no. 286, Article 42, paragraph 3 of 25 July 1998, which establishes a National Coordination Body for Immigrant Integration Policies at the CNEL.