The general government transactions information system (Sistema informativo delle operazioni degli enti pubblici, SIOPE) records information on payments made and received by general government departments. SIOPE was created jointly by the State General Accounting Department, the Bank of Italy (the Bank), ISTAT and the banking community, pursuant to Article 28 of Law 289/2002. The system is governed by Article 14(6-11) of Law 196/2009. SIOPE is managed by the Bank under the Agreement of 31 March 2003, which was amended in 2019 to include the activities associated with the development and operation of the SIOPE+ platform.
The system began operation in 2006 and was gradually extended to all the general government bodies specified in a list published annually by ISTAT in accordance with Article 1 (3) of Law 196/2009. SIOPE currently contains information on more than ten thousand public entities.
Pursuant to the Decree of the Ministry of Economy and Finance of 12 September 2022, as of 1 January 2023, SIOPE is no longer fed by the reports sent to the Bank by general government treasuries, but directly by information retrieved from the SIOPE+ platform.
The system serves the following purposes:
- providing better information on public entities' cashflow, in terms of both the quantity and timeliness of the data available;
- removing discrepancies across general government accounting systems by using a single code for each type of entity, without affecting the entities' balance sheet structure;
- fostering coordination between central and local public finances.
In 2010, SIOPE replaced the previous quarterly cashflow reporting system, which was less efficient in terms of timeliness and thoroughness of data. It is now the State General Accounting Department main source of information for preparing the quarterly reports on the general government's consolidated treasury accounts to be submitted to Parliament under Article 14(4) of Law 196/2009. The timeliness with which the information is made available and its comprehensive coverage of nearly all general government bodies make SIOPE an essential tool for ISTAT to draw up the annual and quarterly profit and loss accounts of general government bodies and its Notification of general government deficit and debt, as well as for the Court of Auditors to report to Parliament on overall developments in regional and local finances.
The information collected through SIOPE is available at www.siope.it . Initially, only the government entities involved in the survey could access the data, but since June 2014, all the information on the website has been publicly available.
The website currently provides data on:
- sub-national governments and local public institutions (regions, provinces, municipalities, consortiums of municipalities, universities, local health units, chambers of commerce, etc.);
- some central government departments (research institutes, veterinary health research centres);
- a subset of payments made by central government departments (Ministries).
