“If the budget is approved, you can draw on the rankings of other municipalities”
The UNC – National Consumer Union – Modica Section represented by the lawyer. Antonino Di Giacomo has sent an open letter of formal notice to all the Municipalities of the Province of Ragusa and in particular to the Municipality of Modica for the hiring of Traffic Police following the Use and Scrolling of the Rankings of Suitable Persons of other Local Authorities.
“The lack of traffic police is a current and widespread problem in the municipalities of the Sicily region, in particular in the province of Ragusa and specifically in the municipality of Modica” declares the UNC which highlights the importance of the role of the local police for public safety, focusing on the lack of staff in Modica. “The Municipality of Modica finds itself having to drastically carry out these tasks with an extremely reduced staff. In fact, out of a population of over 55,000.00 inhabitants, according to current legislation, approximately 105 local police officers should be operating on the staff, illegitimately and outside of any legal logic currently in place, 19 officers are only formally “on paper” on the staff, represented as follows : a Commander, a Deputy Commander, 2 agents assigned full time to the municipality of Pozzallo, 5 agents assigned to the administrative sector who for health reasons cannot be used in external services, 5 traffic auxiliaries who can only carry out traffic control functions stop and ascertain the sanctions, with the impossibility of being able to detect accidents, other employees n. 1 assigned to the judicial police, n. 1 to the building police unit, n. 1 to the annona and finally N. 1 unit to the administrative police. It can only be noted that a further 5 units will soon be placed into retirement” A situation which is obviously disastrous and which has as a consequence, those at UNC explain, that “only two agents can carry out external service, and therefore the operators as a precaution have communicated to the relevant bodies that from December 2023 they will be unable to carry out the detection of road accidents” From here they explain the need for this “letter of formal notice”aimed at urging the adoption of regulatory tools to allow the overcoming of this obstacle from the perspective of current legislation by increasing the number of Urban Police officers, in relation to the provisions of the art. 97 of the Constitution, according to which access to public employment must take place through competition in public administrations, except in the cases established by law.”
In recent years, however, since municipalities are unable to hold competitions, there has been a significant reversal of direction in the application of the principle of public competition, to the point of making it sustainable for the scrolling of rankings to be assumed as a general rule for public administrations. Scrolling through the competition rankings allows us to identify further “winners” among those who, despite having passed all the competition tests, were not found to be winners by the body that announced the competition. This practice has gradually established itself as an alternative to holding new competitions, which would be very costly for administrations.
So for example, the use of the rankings of other local authorities would represent a practicable and advantageous solution for the Municipality of Modica but there is a further problem. In order for the Municipality to be able to use these rankings, it must first equip itself with a Regulation on the use of the merit rankings of other local authorities, but this fulfillment is preparatory and necessary pending the modification of the budget of the 2023/2025 three-year plan, already approved by resolution of the Extraordinary Commissioner No. 103 of 04/05/2023 and which could be legally modified with the provision of new economic resources for the new hiring of urban police officers.
“That is– declares the lawyer. Antonino Di Giacomo – it would be feasible for justified needs similar to the economic needs foreseen in the budget for the three-year period 2023/2025 for the recruitment of the three Managers with the aforementioned resolution No. 103/2023 and regardless of the necessary approval of the accounts”
In light of these considerations, the UNC invites the Prefecture to intervene within its jurisdiction and urges and warns the Mayor, the City Council, the City Council and the responsible managers “to activate the necessary measures to urgently prepare the procedural and administrative requirements, as well as to approve the reports, which represent the essential prerequisite for recruiting municipal police officers by using the rankings of other municipalities.“
In conclusion the local section of the UNC “declares its willingness to support this right in favor of subjects eligible for the use and scrolling of rankings for the purposes of accessing the use of rankings of Local Authorities or other Administrations. To the extent of their competence, the relevant Institutional Bodies are invited to provide a prompt response in relation to the legally relevant interest of the members as citizens of this Municipality of Modica”
