Why did the reform process stop? Given the state of our administrative system twenty years ago, unmercifully but faithfully depicted in the Giannini Report, only a radical, sweeping reform stood a chance of success. But such a reform cannot be carried out in the span of a single legislature; at most, the reform laws can be passed (as happened in the 13th legislature between 1996 and 2001), but their implementation certainly cannot be completed. And implementation is the decisive phase, for a number of reasons. One is that the laws in themselves do not change the lives of men and women, or even the working of the public administrations. Another is that no reform is perfect; only during implementation can the flaws be detected and the necessary adjustments made, can the ordinary and extraordinary maintenance be conducted to correct the features, perhaps mere details, of the design that prevent the entire reform from working properly and effectively. This is why the planning and adoption of administrative reforms needs to be bipartisan: to prevent successive changes of parliamentary majority from creating roadblocks during the decisive phase of implementation.