The same municipality, measured with the same indicator in the same year, can appear to lag behind, sit at the average or be ahead: it depends on the authorities it is compared with. When a project is proposed or a choice is justified, comparison with other municipalities is often the first argument: “we are below average”, “authorities like ours do more”. Benchmarking is a useful tool, provided it is well built, because the choice of comparator is not neutral.

Every comparison suggests a choice

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National averages describe Italy, but no local authority is "the average Italy". Putting a municipality of three thousand inhabitants and a metropolitan city in the same comparison produces a figure that neither can use: the small municipality always appears to lag behind, the large one always appears ahead.

• Comparison starts to be useful among similar authorities. But how should “similar” be defined? Naturally, it depends on the criteria chosen, and every parameter counts:
• All Italian municipalities. This is the national average: it describes Italy, not an authority.
• Authorities of similar size. Six population bands: it compares places of the same order of magnitude.
• Authorities similar in size and context. Groups that consider together size, statute (ordinary or special: some Italian regions and provinces have special autonomy statutes), demographic and socio-economic structure, municipal finances, accessibility and territory (mountain and coastal areas, urbanisation, inner areas, Italy’s designation for areas far from essential services).

An example shows how much the choice of criteria can weigh. On financial autonomy (the share of revenue the municipality raises itself), Merano, a municipality of about 41,000 inhabitants, ranks above 21% of Italy’s 7,882 municipalities. Compared with municipalities of similar size, it ranks above 14% of them; compared with those that are also similar in context, above 85%. Three different positions, all correct.

Assisi and Montegabbione, two Umbrian municipalities of very different size, move less. Moving from size to context, Assisi’s position shifts by three points (from 39% to 36%) and Montegabbione’s by twelve (from 84% to 72%). For Merano the shift is seventy-one points, from 14% to 85%. Its context is very different from that of municipalities of the same size, starting with its funding rules, because it lies in a province with a special statute.

Why socio-economic and statutory context matters

Social and economic context, together with statutory context (special-statute authorities), produces an average shift of 15.8 percentage points, almost sixteen municipalities in every hundred. That is more than four times the shift produced by size alone, which stops at 3.7 points, just over three municipalities in every hundred. The analysis covers the 7,870 small and medium-sized municipalities, excluding the twelve largest cities, and measures how far each one’s position changes relative to the national comparison. Merano is therefore an extreme case, but the shift affects many municipalities.

With context, the gap exceeds 20 percentage points for more than one municipality in four (26.7%); with size alone, this happens to almost none. For reference, groups of the same size formed at random would shift the position by 2.3 points: the difference comes from context, not chance. For anyone proposing a project, this means the chosen comparison group can turn the argument around.

How we define context
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Context is a group of comparable municipalities. Besides size and statute, municipalities are grouped using a statistical method based on 19 demographic, economic, financial, accessibility and territorial characteristics. This produces 54 groups, with a median size of about 150 municipalities.

The characteristics refer to 2024. Financial autonomy refers to 2023, the year of the comparison groups. It is also the last year in which receipts are assigned to revenue headings (titoli di entrata, the main categories of the Italian municipal budget) for almost all municipalities. Other Scenari articles use 2025, so values are not comparable from year to year. The characteristics also include tax burden and three per capita spending items, which are partly linked to financial autonomy: the gap relative to the national comparison should also be read in light of this choice.
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Choices and structural conditions

A single gap does not explain whether it stems from a decision by the authority or from a condition the authority does not control, a structural condition. Statute is the clearest example, because it changes the funding rules. In special-statute autonomies a significant share of current revenue comes from regional or provincial transfers, so low financial autonomy is not the municipality’s choice.

This becomes visible when the groups are built with the same method but without distinguishing by statute. Special-statute municipalities then rank above only 22% of the municipalities in their group on average, against 56% for ordinary-statute municipalities. This is why the final groups keep them separate. Comparing a special-statute municipality with the national average would mean reading a different funding architecture as a shortfall. Comparison with similar authorities serves precisely to separate the two components.

The right criterion depends on the indicator: the case of treasury advances
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For treasury advances (anticipazioni di tesoreria, short-term cash advances from the bank acting as the municipality’s treasurer), the criterion that matters is not size but territory. About one municipality in nine ends the year having had to turn to its treasurer bank to cover cash shortfalls. The share stays between 9% and 13% across all population bands, from villages of fewer than a thousand inhabitants to municipalities of more than thirty thousand.

Geography matters: in Sicily, Lazio and Calabria, 29% of municipalities use treasury advances, against the 7% that would be expected looking at municipalities similar in size and context. In each of the 15 comparable groups, the share for the three regions is higher than for the other regions.

The pattern is also persistent. Among municipalities that turned to their treasurer bank in 2023, about seven in ten did so again in 2024; among the others, 4%. Recourse does not appear linked to lower resources: the financial autonomy and per capita current spending of municipalities that use advances on a continuing basis are similar to those of the others.

For those in charge of planning, the data point to two things. On cash, comparison with one’s own population band says little, because the share is similar everywhere: the useful comparator is territory. And recourse recorded in one year is a signal to monitor in the following years, because it tends to recur.
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Before reading a gap, ask what you are comparing against
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Consider a senior manager, a RUP (responsabile unico del progetto, the official accountable for a public contract) or a digital transition officer who has to make decisions, put forward proposals or suggest projects. For them, a comparison between municipalities is a solid argument only if the criteria are explicit. Four precautions help build it:

• Choose the group before the number: the national average describes Italy; the useful comparison is with authorities similar in size and, where it matters, in context.
• Match each indicator with its own comparison: for some, size and context matter; for others, territory; for others still, funding rules.
• Distinguish choice from structural condition: before reading a gap, ask whether it depends on a decision by the authority or on a constraint it does not control.
• Look at similar authorities, not just at the ranking: they are the ones from which to learn how others have dealt with the same condition.

The results describe but do not explain: why treasury advances are more frequent in some regions remains to be understood. Merano’s 14% and 85% are both correct. Stating which comparison is used, and why, makes a comparison defensible to auditors, the council and citizens.