Public Administration

RINA provides certification services for all the most well-known management tools (based on the most common international standards: ISO 9001, ISO 14001, OHSAS 18001, SA8000, the EMAS Council regulation) and provides government organisations with its extensive knowledge in the application of these systems to the sector; in this regard, it should be underlined that, for example, RINA was the first organisation to draw up a specific scheme for the ISO 14001 environmental certification of a municipality and issued the first environmental certificates to municipal councils in the autumn of 1999. It was also the first in Italy to experimentally apply the EMAS Council Regulation to a municipality

RINA also provides additional certification and inspection services, often innovative and of particular importance when applied to government organisations:

• Service certification: declaration that the quality levels of the service defined in specific documents in which commitments are made to users, such as service charters, have been achieved and are maintained.
• Certification of Information Security Management Systems: government organisations handle a large amount of data concerning citizens and enterprises; this certification, referring to ISO 27001, declares that government organisations sufficiently control the technological, operating, procedural, human and environmental aspects of data protection.
• Social Report Auditing: the Social Report is a voluntary tool deriving from a process of systematic communication with stakeholders; it integrates the information in the annual reports by combining social issues with the financial results; it assesses results in terms of consistency with the values and mission of government organisations and with the interests and expectations of stakeholders; it is the outcome of a systematic reporting process; it is of public interest and presents information derived from secure and verifiable sources; it must be integrated into the planning, programming and control system of the organisation. RINA S.p.A. provides an independent Social Report auditing service based on FORMEZ guidelines (Ministry of Public Works)
• Real estate quality certification: many government organisations own real estate; this certification, based on specific guidelines drawn up by RINA-CONFEDILIZIA, can be applied at different levels, such as evidence of the authorisation and technical status of the building, assessment of the efficiency of the maintenance management system, contribution to the enhancement valorisation of the building and of its related management and technical activities.
• Inspection of air-conditioning systems: always as regards the real estate owned by the government organisations and, in particular, the plants installed in it, art. 9 of European Directive 2001/91/EC concerning the energy efficiency of buildings, implemented in Italy with Legislative Decree 192/2005, states that air-conditioning systems must be periodically inspected by qualified experts in order to assess their efficiency and construction characteristics; in particular, construction, management and maintenance methods must be verified on a periodic basis.
• Electrical system audits: whilst on the subject of real estate, since the Decree of the President of the Republic 462/01 came into force, the employer or the legal representative, as well as performing regular system maintenance is legally obliged to have periodic audits conducted by a body qualified by the Ministry of Production Activities, such as RINA, or by Asl/Arpa.
• Periodic and extraordinary audits on lifts: completing the range of services connected with the real estate of government organisations, RINA, pursuant to Decree of the President of the Republic 162/99, is authorised to conduct two-yearly audits and extraordinary audits on passenger and goods lifts installed in Italy.

RINA's constant commitment to develop innovative services for government organisations recently led it to participate in the project implemented by the Province of Siena concerning the "Certification of the Balance of greenhouse gas emissions and absorption in the Province of Siena".
This project sets out to meet the parameters of the Kyoto Protocol concerning greenhouse gas emissions by using the certified balance tool. This will allow the Province of Siena to verify the effective future reduction of emissions and to plan an environmentally sustainable development.
RINA's task is to independently verify that the project is managed correctly and transparently, and to certify a measurable and unequivocal level of reduction.

Independent third-party management and certification systems are not yet as widely used by government organisations as they are in the private industrial and service sectors; if a government organisation intends to develop a certification project and considers that its human resources have insufficient specific knowledge and culture, it may make use of the training services provided by Sogea, a company belonging to the RINA group.