Trends to specialisation and structural disaggregation are transforming the landscape of the public sector, characterized by a number of bodies – the public agencies – that operate in a relatively autonomous way from the core government (ministries or departments). The paper investigates the factors (age, budget size, staff size, task and policy field) influencing the autonomy of public agencies in Italy. It emerges a faceted picture, in which some factors may account, to some extent, for variations in one or a subset of the dimensions of autonomy, but generally not for all the dimensions of autonomy. Findings are compared with results of recent research work on autonomy of public agencies in other countries. An analysis of the administrative reform of 1999 in Italy complements our investigation: this reform did not determine a significant shift in the pattern of autonomisation of agencies, not least because of its incomplete implementation.
