Franceschini: "We must hire young people." And announces new competition at MiBACT

Cultural Heritage Minister Dario Franceschini acknowledges that MiBACT has serious staffing problems, hopes to hire many young people in the civil service, and announces a new competition for supervisory assistants. He said this yesterday afternoon in the House during Question Time, responding to MP Antonio Tasso of the Mixed Group who had asked him what initiatives he intends to put in place to ensure the usability of cultural sites in the Foggia area (Manfredonia Castle, Siponto Archaeological Park and the National Archaeological Museum of Daunia), which are still closed.

Franceschini meanwhile took stock of the situation on the Daunia sites: the Castle of Manfredonia has been affected by complex works for a long time, which must be completed in the construction phase at the end of September and in the refurbishment phase by December (from September there will, if anything, be a partial reopening to the public of the finished portion of the walkways between the towers). In this case, therefore, it is not a staffing problem: instead, this problem is present for the Archaeological Park of Siponto, which has a serious shortage of staff due to retirements (“quota 100,” Franceschini said, “has led to a general problem at this and other sites”) and therefore cannot reopen. The same goes for the National Archaeological Museum of Daunia.

The situation of the Foggia sites thus allowed Franceschini a lunge on the issue of personnel, which he described as “a serious problem.” “We have, to give you a dimension,” the minister said, “the intersection of natural turnover and quota 100, which has led us to have a supervisory staff of 32 percent less than expected throughout Italy. We have already planned and started a selection of 1,052 staff, which was slowed down and suspended due to the Covid emergency but will resume, and in addition, a call for applications for the recruitment of other staff for the same functions is soon to be published. And at the same time we have also expanded with a legal provision the possibility of reusing Ales, which is the ministry’s in-house company, to enable the openings of cultural places.”

“I take this opportunity,” the minister then concluded, “to say that I think the time has come (between advanced average age, needs for digitization of the public administration, needs for greater drive and motivation that there is naturally in those who are a few years younger) to make a graft of young energies in the public administration with professionalism that can accompany all the processes, because the projects of simplification and digitization are very important.”

Franceschini: "We must hire young people." And announces new competition at MiBACT

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