Walter Castelnovo

DEFINING STABLE AGGREGATIONS OF MUNICIPALITIES TO

REDUCE ADMINISTRATIVE FRAGMENTATION

Bensghir.T.K. (ed,), eTransformation in Public Administration: From eGovernment to eGovernance

The Proceedings of International Conference on eGovernment Sharing Experiences,
Antalya, Turkey, 8-11 December 2009

DEFINING STABLE AGGREGATIONS OF MUNICIPALITIES TO

REDUCE ADMINISTRATIVE FRAGMENTATION
Walter Castelnovo
Department of Science of the Culture, Politics and Information. University of Insubria
Como/Italy
walter.castelnovo@uninsubria.it

Abstract
Intermunicipal cooperation is a solution that small municipalities can resort to in order to overcome the
lack of resources they often suffer. In Italy this problem is mainly due to the highly fragmented system
of local government that, due to the constitutional arrangement in force, can not be reduced simply by
a forced merger of municipalities. During the past years the Regional Government of Lombardy (Italy)
implemented some funding programmes to promote cooperation among small municipalities. As a
result, a considerable number of aggregations of municipalities that implemented various forms of
intermunicipal cooperation have been created. However, none of the implemented programmes seems
able to guarantee the stability of the funded aggregations. This is mainly due to the fact that they did
not pay sufficient attention to the process that led a municipality to adhere to an aggregation. Many of
these aggregations are of an opportunistic type, namely they have been created almost exclusively
with the aim of accessing the funding, rather than as a possible way to reduce administrative
fragmentation, so as to increase the efficiency, the effectiveness and the quality of the system of Local
Government. Considering the experiences of Lombardy in the past years, in the paper a process for
the creation of aggregations of municipalities implementing intermunicipal cooperation will be
described. The process has been designed explicitly with the aim of creating aggregations of
municipalities that will be stable in time and such that their members agree to enter a process that
through the strengthening of the cooperation could lead to a form of virtual integration among them.
This result can be obtained by selecting the most appropriate partners for the cooperation from a pool
of pre-qualified potential partners that agree to make relation-specific investments, mainly of the
organizational type, and to continuously enforce their commitment towards the cooperation.
Keywords - Local Government, network, intermunicipal cooperation, strategic partnership.

THE SYSTEM OF LOCAL GOVERNMENT IN LOMBARDY (ITALY)

Lombardy, with about 9.4 million inhabitants (15,8% of the whole Italian population) is the most
densely populated and economically relevant region in Italy: Lombardy contributes to the Italian Gross
Internal Product with a percentage which, during the years, has been constantly higher than 20%. The
system of local government of Lombardy is particularly fragmented. In Lombardy there are 11
provinces and 1546 municipalities, most of which have less than 5000 inhabitants (see Table 1)
Table 1 The system of Local Government in Italy and in Lombardy
N inhabitants
0-5000
5000-10000
10000-20000
20000-65000
More that 65000
TOTAL

N of municipalities in Italy
5836
1153
639
387
86
8101

N of municipalities in Lombardy
1153
229
104
49
11
1546

The high administrative fragmentation and the prevalence of Small Local Government Organizations
(SLGOs - municipalities with less than 5000 inhabitants) within the system of Local Government could
affect efficiency, effectiveness and quality in the delivery of services to citizens and enterprises. This is
mostly due to the scarcity of the resources (and most notably skills and competences) available within
SLGOs.
In order to help SLGOs to deliver high quality services to citizens and enterprises, and to help
reducing the administrative fragmentation of the system of Local Government, during the past decade

both the National Government and the Regional Government of Lombardy defined policies for
supporting the creation of Unions of Communes with the aim of:

increasing the efficiency, the effectiveness and the quality of the services delivered to citizens
and enterprises through the sharing of resources among small municipalities

reducing the number of small municipalities through special funding devoted to those Unions
of Communes that implemented processes geared towards the fusion of the member
municipalities

As a result of these policies, in Lombardy 62 Unions of Communes, involving about 200 municipalities,
have been activated. However, despite the amount of the funding, the objective of the reduction of the
number of the municipalities has not been achieved: the number of the municipalities of Lombardy is
the same as in 1991. From this point of view, it seems that, at least in Lombardy, the Union of
Communes has been mainly considered as an institutionalized form of intermunicipal cooperation
rather than as a step towards the fusion of municipalities.
Intermunicipal cooperation ([1]) is another possible solution to the problems raised by administrative
fragmentation. Actually, since 2001, the Regional Government of Lombardy has defined different
funding programmes specifically devoted to aggregations of municipalities for the implementation of
different forms of intermunicipal cooperation for service delivery. The regional funding for
intermunicipal cooperation differs from that devoted to the Union of Communes because it does not
necessarily require the institutionalization of the cooperation. This characteristic, together with the
absence of any reference to the fusion of municipalities, not even as a long term goal, determined a
wider adhesion of municipalities to those programmes. Actually, even considering only the SISCoTEL
programme (a funding programme supporting aggregations of municipalities for the implementation of
inter-organizational information systems for Local Government), it resulted that during the period in
which the programme was active (from 2001 to 2005) 121 projects that involved 1146 of the 1546
municipalities of Lombardy have been funded. ([2])
However, by allowing a wide flexibility in the definition of the cooperation with respect to both the legal
form, the number of the partners involved, the number and the nature of the services object of the
cooperation, the supporting programmes for intermunicipal cooperation (including the SISCoTEL
programme) could not prevent the municipalities from behaving opportunistically. Actually, it seems
that many municipalities considered intermunicipal cooperation as a way to get more funding rather
than a strategic choice toward the sharing of resources as a day to day operating mode. Thus,
considering, for instance, the SISCoTEL programme, in 2008 only 765 of the 839 municipalities that
had been funded during the period 2001-2004 were still members of one of the 76 Shared Service
Centres activated under the programme (the activation of a Shared Service Centre was the
fundamental requirement for accessing the funding).
By comparing the outcomes of the funding programme devoted to the Unions of Communes and those
of the funding programmes for intermunicipal cooperation the following general conclusions can be
drawn:

the highly institutionalized form of governance typical of the Unions of Communes generally
leads the member municipalities to reduce their opportunistic attitude toward the cooperation,
thus determining a higher stability in time of the aggregations. However, the same possibility
that the establishment of an Union of Communes could represent a step toward the fusion of
the member municipalities strongly reduces the number of municipalities that decide to adhere
to a Union of Communes.

more flexible forms of intermunicipal cooperation seem to be more appealing to the

municipalities of Lombardy. However, a too wide flexibility can magnify opportunistic
behaviours, thus making the aggregations particularly instable. This could severely constraint
the possibility of reducing the problems determined by administrative fragmentation through
the sharing of resources within an intermunicipal cooperation.

Although there seems to be a positive relation between the institutionalization of the cooperation and
the stability in time of the aggregations implementing it, this relation does not necessarily mean that
the choice of a particular institutional form can, by itself, determine the stability of the aggregation.
Rather, the institutionalization of the cooperation contributes to the stability of the aggregation by
constraining the decision process that leads a municipality to adhere to it. Actually, when deciding
whether to adhere or not to an aggregation, a municipality can evaluate how strict are the constraints

its institutional form will impose on the cooperation. If a municipality decides to adhere to a highly
institutionalized form of cooperation, such as a Union of Communes, it means that it agrees to satisfy
the constraints typical of this form of cooperation. This includes the evaluation of the high level of
commitment towards the cooperation required. From this point of view, the stability in time of an
aggregation depends more on the quality of the process that lead to its formation than on the choice of
a particular institutional form to implement, this latter element representing, at most, one of the
element that characterizes the formation process.

STANDARDIZED SYSTEMS OF LOCAL GOVERNMENT AND INTEGRATED

SYSTEMS OF LOCAL GOVERNMENT

On the basis of the evaluation of the outcomes of the policies for supporting intermunicipal cooperation
implemented in the preceding years, in 2008 the Regional Government of Lombardy funded a two
years research project with the aim of defining a cooperation model that could guarantee the setting
up of aggregations of municipalities that would be stable in time. Above this requirement, two other
requirements would have to be satisfied by the model: the municipalities should be free to decide
whether to adhere or not to an aggregation and the cooperation should not necessarily be of the
institutionalized type.
The result of the project was the definition of the concepts of Standardized System of Local
Government (SSLG) and Integrated System of Local Government (ISLG), as well as the detailed
description of the steps of the process for the formation of aggregations of municipalities that would
activate a SSLG/ISLG.
Roughly speaking, a SSLG is an aggregation of municipalities whose members are strictly
interoperable, not only at the technical level but also at the operational, organizational and strategic
level as well ([3], [4]). This is due to the fact that the member municipalities could need to share
resources of many different kinds, including human resources, and, consequently, different aspects of
interoperability have to be considered ([5)]. Due to the standardization of its members, a SSLG can be
considered as a system of pre-qualified partners that are characterized by a high level of readiness for
the cooperation and the sharing of resources of many different kinds. This makes it possible, when
needed, to define a sharing of resources among the partners of the SSLG (even on a temporary basis)
in a plug & play modality, that is without requiring any further adjustment to the partners in order to use
efficiently and effectively the shared resources.
A SSLG defines the conditions that make it possible to implement a sharing of resources according to
a just in time philosophy; however, the member of an SSLG (not necessarily all of them) can decide
to stabilize the cooperation by transforming it in a day to day operating modality. This lead the SSLG
(or part of it) to evolve into an ISLG, that is a group of municipalities that are strictly interoperable, up
to cooperability ([6], [7]), and agree to share the management of all their activities (or at least a
substantial part of them) with the partners, including the delivery of services to citizens and
enterprises.
ISLGs members are not, strictly speaking, integrated in the system, as that would imply an
overcoming of their individuality; actually, the implementation of an ISLG simply amounts to the
adoption of a particular cooperation environment ([8]) and to the systematic sharing of resources in
order to perform activities that its members would find difficult to perform individually. From this point of
view, the integration among the partners within an ISLG is only virtual. This has some particularly
important consequences:

each member of the ISLG keeps its autonomy, though it agrees to coordinate its activity with
that of its partners and to systematically share resources (of various sorts) with them;

as the integration is exclusively determined by the adoption of a shared cooperation

environment, the activation of an ISLG does not necessarily require the definition of new
levels of government and/or governance (as it happens in the case of institutionalized forms of
integration, such the Unions of Communes and the Mountain Communities ([1]))

Although the integration among the partners is only virtual, an ISLG should be defined on a territorial
basis. Actually, an integrated system is designed to provide solutions to specific local problems, both
as regards the socio-economical context (such as the need to deliver specific services to citizens and
enterprises) and as regards the local system of Public Administration, (for instance, the preponderance

of small municipalities in a given area, the presence or absence of middle-size and large municipalities
exerting a leadership role, the availability of informal networks of cooperation, and so on).
An ISLG determines a weak integration among its partners when the management of the cooperation
is based on the definition of some shared coordination schemes (both at the decisional and
operational level) and on the implementation of a soft managerial system to which only two functions
are assigned:

the management of the cooperation environment and of all the activities necessary for its
maintenance and, possibly, evolution

the coordination of the resources shared within the ISLG and that, nevertheless, still belong to
the single members of the system which manage them according to policies shared with the
partners

An ISLG determines a strong integration (although it still remains a virtual integration) of the partners
when it is based on an interorganisational management system that completely manages all the
resources involved in the activities shared within the system. Such resources can be either directly
transferred to the ISLG or they can still belong to the single members of the system, with their
management transferred to the ISLG. In both cases, the ISLG determines a strict integration of the
partners at the operational level so that from the point of view of an external observer the result would
be indistinguishable from that which would be obtained with the fusion of the member municipalities.
For this characteristics, an ISLG whose members realize a strong integration, up to the virtual fusion
(Strongly Integrated System of Local Government SISLG, henceforth), could represent a possible
solution to the problem of administrative fragmentation. What makes this solution particularly attractive
is the fact that it allows to achieve the same results that would be achieved through the merger of
municipalities, while guaranteeing the preservation of the autonomy of local communities. This is due
to the fact that the members of an ISLG are integrated at the managerial and operational level, while
maintaining their autonomy at the level of the definition of the policies. From this point of view, an ISLG
should not be considered simply as a cooperative system; rather it is a coopetitive system ([9]), since it
allows the cooperation among the partners at the managerial and operative level and the competition
at the political level.

BUILDING STABLE AGGREGATIONS OF MUNICIPALITIES

The coopetitive model the concept of (S)ISGL in based on should help avoiding some of the difficulties
that prevent municipalities to adhere to standardization/integration processes aiming at the reduction
of administrative fragmentation. However, the properties of a cooperation model, however good it
would be, do not suffice by themselves to guarantee that the partners will avoid (or at least sensibly
reduce) opportunistic behaviours, that is one of the main causes of aggregation instability. Actually the
stability in time of aggregations of municipalities implementing an intermunicipal cooperation can be
achieved only by maintaining a high level of involvement of the partners towards the cooperation. One
way to accomplish this result is through a careful management of the process that leads to the
implementation of the cooperation, starting from an accurate selection of the potential partners. For
this reason, the SSLG/(S)ISGL project devoted a particular attention to the description of the process
that can lead to the formation of an aggregation of municipalities and to its possible evolution into a
SSLG or in a (S)ISLG. The process for the selection of the partners comprises the following steps:

3.1

call for interest

profiling of the potential partners

assessment of the networkability level of the potential partners

definition of the strategic goals of the cooperation

formation of the aggregation

The call for interest

The fist step of the process amounts to a subject launching a call for interest concerning the
establishment of a partnership among municipalities, generally within the boundaries of a given
territory. Such a subject, that stimulates the formation of aggregations of municipalities, plays a

catalyst role ([10]), partially analogous to the role of the net broker as described in [ 11]. The catalyst
role should normally be played by a public sector subject; however, in some cases the catalyst could
also be a private sector subject, for instance a company interested in a public-private partnership
whose public partner is an aggregation of municipalities rather than a single municipality.
All the municipalities interested in some form of cooperation could answer the call. Since it could be
based on very smooth requirements, the number of municipalities that answer the call can be quite
large. The set of these municipalities represents the pool of the potential partners for the cooperation,
analogous to the concept of Virtual Web Platform as defined in some theories of Virtual Organizations
(for instance in [11]). The process leading to the setting up of a stable aggregation, one that will
possibly evolve in a SSLG/(S)ISLG, can be considered as a refinement process that selects the
appropriate partners from the set of all the potential partners that answered the call for interest.
During the refinement process some potential partners will be discarded; hence it is necessary to
guarantee that the selection is fair and based exclusively on criteria related to the well functioning of
the aggregation that will be set up. When the catalyst is a public subject (for instance an authority of
an higher institutional level) that both launches the call for interest and operates the selection of the
partners, the fairness of the selection is, generally, assured by the laws that rule the behaviour of
public subjects. When the catalyst is a private subject, there should be a public subject that plays a
guaranteeing role. This subject must be one that has authority over the municipalities; in a
constitutional arrangement like the Italian one, this role can be played by the Regional Government.
This guaranteeing role can be considered as an enabling role since it facilitates the formation of an
aggregation of municipalities by assuring the potential partners that in all the phases of the process
the fairness and the equity requirements are satisfied. The subject that plays this role, as well as other
facilitating functions such as the establishment of the appropriate legislative context and, possibly, the
provision to SLGOs of infrastructures and services that can support intermunicipal cooperation, can be
considered as the enabler of the standardization/integration process ([10]).

3.2

The potential partners profiling

The partners profiling is a standardized description of each potential partner that is made available to
all the members of the pool of the potential partners. The content of the partners profile, as well as the
format of the information contained in it, can be defined in the call for interest launched by the catalyst.
The profiling information concern:

human resources

organizational resources

managerial resources

technological resources

financial resources

The profiling of the human resources, with particular concern to the kind and the level of the
competencies available within each partner, is a critical element because, especially when the
partners are SLGOs, the well functioning of the cooperation mainly depends on the quality of the
human resources involved ([12]).
The organizational resources represent the organizational culture each partner contributes to the
cooperation, both in terms of its previous experiences in interorganizational cooperation and in terms
of its good internal organization and functioning. The profiling information concerning organizational
resources include:

the description and the evaluation of previous cooperation experiences

the description of all the contracts for service provision in force

the description, for each service delivered to citizens and enterprises, of how it is managed
and delivered

the perceived elements of strength and weakness in the organization

The availability of adequate managerial resources within the members of the pool of the potential
partners is crucial for the well functioning of the cooperation ([13,14]). However, SLGOs often lack
managerial resources (as defined, for instance, in [15]). Actually, this is one of the reasons that forces
SLGOs to enter into an intermunicipal cooperation. From this point of view, the critical step for the
profiling of the managerial resources concerns the identification of the managerial roles within a
SLGO.
Given the regulation in force in Italy, in the case of SLGOs the managerial resources can be defined
as in the table below:
Table 2 Managerial roles within SLGOs
Managerial roles (based on the
classification in [15])
Board of directors
CEO
Top Management team
Upper level manager
Middle level manager
Lower level manager

Corresponding roles in SLGOs without specific

managerial roles
Executive body
Major
n.a.
People responsible for the delivery of the services
related to a given homogeneous area
People responsible for the delivery of single services

For each employee exerting a managerial role, the profile should describe the type of his competence,
considering whether it is:

a competence of a generic type (for instance the educational background)

a competence acquired through previous experiences within public administration bodies

a competence acquired through previous experiences within other Local Government bodies

a competence acquired within the same municipality

The partners profile should also provide a detailed description of the technological resources each
partner has at his disposal. Actually, these resources represent both one of the objects of the
standardization process and a fundamental enabling element for intermunicipal cooperation. The
profile should include information concerning:

the number and the quality of the computer workstations in use

a complete and detailed description of the application portfolio

the security policies and the policies for the backup of information

The information concerning financial resources are included within the profile since they can give to
the potential partners an indication concerning how well a municipality is being administered.
Moreover, by considering a municipalitys financial status the catalyst, as well as all the potential
partners, could appreciate whether the possible inclusion of that municipality within the aggregation
would constraint its functioning. For the partners profiling it is not necessary to consider detailed
information concerning each partners financial resources; actually, for the profiling some structural
budget indicators are sufficient, for instance the set of the structural indicators used by the Italian
National Institute of Statistics to monitor the status of the Local Government finances ([16]).

3.3

The partners networkability assessment

Once the pool of the potential partners has been formed and its members have been profiled, the next
step is the assessment of the networkability of the potential partner. Networkability is the capability of
an organisation to establish, maintain and develop relationships with other organisations in order to
pursue new common business opportunities or improve the results of an existing business through cooperation ([4]). On the one hand, the assessment of the potential partners networkability level allows
to identify those potential partner that are more likely to form a stable and efficient aggregation. On the
other hand, by considering the results of the assessment it is possible to evaluate how much the
standardization/integration process will be difficult to implement as well as the type and the amount of
the resources that will be necessary to support the process.

In the SSLG/(S)ISLG project the networkability assessment has been based on a reference model
describing interoperability attributes in four different domains ([5], [8]), as shown in Table 3:
Table 3 The interoperability attributes
Domain
Strategic

Organizational

Operational

Technological

Interoperability Attributes
Sharing of the mission and objectives
Involvement of the partners
Sharing of the enterprise model (EM)
Sharing of language and ontology
Standardization of the processes
Common management styles
Sharing of the resources
Dissemination
Homogeneity of working tools used by the partners
Sharing of the training activities
Availability of tools for inter-organizational communication
Availability of tools for the monitoring of the cooperation
Sharing of infrastructures for connectivity
Homogeneity of the partners IT application portfolio
Sharing of data among the partners
Sharing of the security policies

The networkability level that characterizes an organization can be determined by considering the value
a selected group of key stakeholders within that organization associate to the interoperability
attributes. The assessment process comprises the following steps:

identification of the key stakeholders within the organization and selection of the people to be
involved in the assessment

evaluation of the interoperability attributes by each stakeholder

comparison and discussion among the stakeholders of the results of the evaluation

convergence of the stakeholders on a shared evaluation of the interoperability attributes (by

applying standard techniques, such as the Delphi technique)

During the assessment, a twofold evaluation is required to the stakeholders. On the one hand, they
are asked to evaluate the attributes with respect to the level they believe would be necessary in order
to adequately support a stable and efficient cooperation. On the other hand, they are asked to indicate
what level they believe to be realistically achievable, given the current status of the organization they
belong to.
The overall level of networkability of an organization is determined by the shared evaluation
concerning the value of the interoperability attributes the stakeholders judge as the one desirable to
achieve. This evaluation gives an indirect indication of how much the organization can be expected to
invest in change management in order to contribute to the establishment of a stable, efficient and
effective cooperation. Moreover, for each attribute, the possible discrepancy between the desirable
and reasonable values gives an indication concerning the difficulties the organization would probably
encounter in running its change management process, as well as the most critical elements the
change process should consider.
Since in the networkability assessment people playing different roles within the organization are
involved, some additional results can be obtained through the survey. First, by considering how they
evaluate the interoperability attributes, it is possible to identify those roles (and people, of course) that
express a more positive attitude towards the cooperation and the organizational changes it requires.
The enforcement of such roles within the organization increases the chances of success of the
standardization/integration process in which that organization could possibly be involved. Through the
survey it is also possible to identify, symmetrically, those roles (and people) that express a more
reluctant attitude towards organizational change and intermunicipal cooperation. These are the roles
that deserve more attention since they can slow down the change process, especially when they act
as organizational gatekeepers ([17]) .

Second, since the survey allows the identification within the organization of the sectors in which
people have a more positive attitude towards organizational change and cooperation, it is possible to
start the standardization/integration process from there. This could determine the reasonable
expectation that the process will achieve some positive results on the short term, thus strengthening
the commitment of the partners toward the standardization/integration process.

3.4

The definition of the strategic goals of the cooperation

The definition of the goals of the cooperation determines a further selection among the potential
partners, since not all of them could be interested in the defined form of cooperation. The first element
that can reduce the number of the potential partners concerns the decision whether to implement a
cooperation with the aim of

share a standardization process leading to a system of partners that are strictly interoperable,
up to cooperabiity, without considering the opportunity of evolving the SSLG into a (S)ISLG

implementing a SSLG as a preliminary step of a process that the partners already agree will
lead at the end to a (S)ISLG (this means that the partners agree on a two phases process:
first standardization, then integration)

directly implementing a (S)ISLG, thus agreeing to run the standardization and integration
processes in parallel.

The choice of one of these possibilities is the result of an agreement among the potential partners that,
among other things, includes the specification of the interoperability level required for the planned form
of cooperation. This specification can be obtained by setting the appropriate values of the
interoperability attributes defined by the Reference Model. By considering how much the values
required for the cooperation differ from those characterizing its current networkability level, each
potential partner can evaluate the impact the planned form of cooperation would have on its own
organization. Such evaluation could lead a potential partner to decide whether to adhere from the
beginning to the standardization/integration process, to adhere to it only successively or not adhering
to it at all.
The impact evaluation can be performed by the catalyst as well. Although some of the potential
partners evaluate themselves as ready for the cooperation, it could happen that their membership in
the aggregation do not add any value for the cooperation. In this case it could be more productive for
the cooperation to delay the adhesion of those potential partners until the cooperation has been
settled down and adequately enforced. Such an evaluation, that let alone the potential partners
desires only considers the possible advantages to the whole system, can be performed only by an
external role, like the catalyst, with the enabler guaranteeing the fairness of the evaluation.

THE COMPOSITION OF THE AGGREGATION

As observed above, the critical step in the establishment of stable aggregations of municipalities is the
accurate selection of the partners. The programmes supporting intermunicipal cooperation that were
implemented by the Regional Government of Lombardy during the period 1998-2008 did not provide
any mechanism for the selection of the partners. Actually, the funding mechanism was such that the
larger the aggregation was, the higher was the funding. This did not preclude the formation of highly
heterogeneous aggregations, with many partners adhering just for tacking the funding opportunity.
Aggregations formed in this way are unlikely to remain stable in time and, more importantly, their
members are unlikely to commit themselves to the implementation of a standardization/integration
process.
The standardization/integration process is a long lasting process that requires the stability in time of
the aggregations involved in it and a deep and continuous commitment of the partners towards the
cooperation. This condition can be satisfied more easily when the aggregations are not too wide (in
terms of the number of their members) and well balanced.
The steps of the selection process described above help reducing the number of the candidate
partners and, more importantly, force the potential partners to accurately consider the opportunity of
adhering to the aggregation. This makes them more aware about what entering a
standardization/integration process could mean, thus reducing the risk of opportunistic behaviours.
However, neither of the steps of the selection process can assure that the set of the partners

remaining at the end of the process could form a balanced aggregation, one that could operate and be
managed effectively and efficiently.
Defining a balanced aggregation is a difficult task, since there are many elements that should be
considered in the definition. Actually, it does not seem appropriate to define a balanced aggregation
simply in terms of some measure of its dimension like, for instance, the number of its members or the
overall number of the inhabitants covered by its members. Of course, as observed above,
aggregations with too many partners should be avoided since they could be difficult to manage ([18]).
However, also aggregations that are too small must be avoided, since they could lack the resources
necessary to manage the standardization/integration process. How then it could be feasible to
determine a priori a number of members as the optimal number of partners an aggregation should
have?
The same difficulty concerns the criterion based on the overall number of inhabitants covered by the
aggregation. The number of inhabitants covered (considered as the number of potential users) is often
assumed to measure the adequacy of the solutions implemented for the delivery of services to citizens
and enterprises. On this basis it seems that the demographic dimension could be assumed as a
requirement to satisfy in the formation of an aggregation of municipalities. Thus, for instance, the
Regional Government of Lombardy set the requirement of an overall amount of inhabitants of at least
10.000 for aggregations of municipalities that implement a shared service of local police, whereas the
requirement is of at least 8.000 inhabitants in the case of the implementation of a shared one stop
shop for enterprises.
In general terms, it is reasonable to assume that the adequacy of different services can depend on
different amounts of potential users and that this can have consequences also on the composition of
an aggregation of municipalities implementing a cooperation for the delivery of different services.
However, this consideration can not be applied to the formation of aggregations that would share a
standardization/integration process. Actually, the activities necessary for implementing a SSLG, as
well as the services a (S)ISLG can deliver on behalf of its member, can be quite different. This makes
unreasonable to set on the composition of the aggregations a dimensional constraint based on the
overall number of inhabitants covered.
Instead of defining any dimensional condition of the above type, in the SSLG/(S)ISLG project a
formation mechanism has been devised that is based on the concurrent application of a set of different
criteria concerning, for instance:
a) the level of cooperation readiness of the potential partners, as determined during the survey of
their networkability level
b) the exclusion of partners that could exert a dominant position within the aggregation
c) the amount and the quality of the resources each potential partner declared as available for
the cooperation
d) the balance between the overall amount of resources that have been declared as available for
the cooperation and the activities the SSLG/(S)ISLG should perform on behalf of its members.
The condition (a) is quite obvious and does not deserve particular attention. Actually, the inclusion
within the aggregation of only those potential partners that express a more positive attitude towards
the cooperation is one way to increase the chance of success for the standardization/integration
process.
The condition (b) can be used to avoid the formation of aggregations in which the partners differ
considerably in their relative dimensions. The presence within an aggregation of one or more partners
whose dimensions are considerably larger than that of all the other partners could represent an
instability factor. Actually, the larger partner is the one that is more likely to avail the resources and the
competences needed for the cooperation. This could determine a situation of information asymmetry
among the partners, that could force the establishment within the aggregation of power relations not
sufficiently balanced; of course, this represents a risk for the stability of the aggregation. Moreover, if,
as it appears unavoidable, the governance mechanism of the aggregation depends (also) on the
relative dimension of the partners, the partner of larger dimensions would have a control power on the
aggregation that exceeds that of all the other partners; this, again, represents a risk for the stability of
the aggregation. Finally, if each partner is asked to contribute to the funding of the aggregation
proportionally to its dimension, the larger partner could consider its membership in the aggregation too
expensive; this represents a further factor of risk for the stability of the aggregation.

The condition (c) is based on the information each partner is asked to make available within its profile.
This information can be used by the formation mechanism in order to select those partners whose
composition within the aggregation would make available resources that are heterogeneous and
complementary. Actually, as observed in [18] the heterogeneity and complementarity of the resources
represents a fundamental value-creating factor in interorganisational cooperation.
The condition (d) requires an obvious balance between the resources available for the cooperation
and the activities that have to be performed. This criterion can also be used to determine the optimal
dimension for a given aggregation. Given the activities that the members intend to transfer to the
cooperation, what the condition (d) requires is that the aggregation should include a number of
partners such that the composition of the resources they make available for the cooperation is enough
to perform those activities. In this sense, the balance could be obtained in two different ways.
On the one hand, it could happen that within the aggregation there are more resources available than
required. In this case the balance can be obtained by increasing the activities transferred to the
cooperation, so that to make the cooperation efficient and strengthen the dependency of the partners
from the cooperation. Alternatively, the balance could also be obtained through the inclusion within the
aggregation of other partners, as a further way to increase the amount of the transferred activities.
The same extension strategy could be applied when the resources available are less than required. In
this case, if the members of the aggregation can not make available for the cooperation further
resources, the only way to get the balance is by extending the number of the members of the
aggregation so that to acquire from them the needed resources. In this case the availability of a
consistent set of potential partners from which make the selection represents the crucial condition.
Actually, as observed in [19], the availability of potential partners is a fundamental environment factors
for the creation of networks of cooperating organizations. The partners selection mechanism described
in section 3 above, further simplifies the task of balancing the aggregation through its extension since
the potential partners that could possibly be included within the aggregation are all pre-qualified.

CONCLUSION

Administrative fragmentation represents a problem that could affect the efficiency and effectiveness of
the system of Local Government. In a constitutional arrangement that, like the Italian one, safeguards
the autonomy of the local communities, the reduction of the administrative fragmentation through the
forced merger of municipalities is not a viable solution. In such a context, administrative fragmentation
can be rather reduced through policies incentivizing the cooperation among municipalities that adhere
to aggregations that remain stable in time and that aim, even on the long term, at some form of
integration among their members. The crucial step for this solution to be effective is represented by
the process that lead to the setting up of the aggregations through the accurate selection of the
partners and the adequate definition of the form and content of the cooperation. In the paper a process
for the formation of an aggregation of municipalities has been described that is based on a research
funded by the Regional Government of Lombardy (Italy). The described process allows the selection
of the more appropriate partners for the cooperation from a pool of pre-qualified potential partners.
The constraints the potential partner have to satisfy in order to become member of an aggregation
help reducing the rising of opportunistic behaviour, that represents one of the main causes of
aggregations instability and, hence, limits the possibility of resorting to intermunicipal cooperation as a
way to cope with administrative fragmentation.

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