How to steer and control delegated bodies is an issue extensively discussed by scholars in the field of public administration and public management. This article analyzes the steering and control processes diffused, at the central level, in the Italian public administration, using quantitative data from a survey conducted in 2007. The results show that the Italian agencies established before 1999 and after 1999 are different along some dimensions of analysis. However, data only partly support the significance of the impact of the 1999 administrative reform on agency shape in Italy, an impact that seems to have been more on paper than on the ground: on one hand, there is evidence of an increased contractualization of the agency-ministry relationship; on the other hand, the persistence of many agency features is evident.
