NRRP and digital PA: the National Strategic Hub

THE NATIONAL STRATEGIC HUB IS CREATED, A LINE OF ACTION PROMOTED BY THE NRRP TO DIGITISE THE ITALIAN PRODUCTION SYSTEM. IT WILL HOST THE DATA AND SERVICES OF CENTRAL, LOCAL ADMINISTRATIONS AND LOCAL HEALTH AUTHORITIES     

One of the two lines of action of the National Recovery and Resilience Plan to digitise the country’s production system is the creation of a National Strategic Hub. In particular, the digital transformation of the public administration is one of the main objectives pursued by the NRRP.

The Presidency of the Council of Ministers, through the Department for Digital Transformation, promotes the development of a high-reliability infrastructure throughout the country to rationalise and consolidate the Data Processing Centres (DPCs) and their IT systems. The structure is called the National Strategic Hub (NSH) and is intended for all public administrations.

The creation of a National Strategic Hub is coordinated by the Department for Digital Transformation. The infrastructure will be managed by an economic operator selected through a public-private partnership on the initiative of a proposing party. The Hub will be spread across the country at specially selected sites to ensure adequate levels of business continuity and fault tolerance.

The objective of the National Strategic Hub is to host the critical and strategic data and services of all the central administrations (about 200), the Local Health Author ities (ASL) and the major local administrations (regions, metropolitan cities, municipalities with more than 250,000 inhabitants).

The administrations interested in the Hub’s services, also on the basis of the results of the Census conducted by AgID in 2020, were divided into three groups.

The first group consists of 95 class B central public administrations (according to the AgID classification) and 80 Local Health Authorities (indicated by the NRRP). It also includes administrations that need to be migrated urgently because they operate on infrastructures that are considered insecure and critical. For this group, the migration path is a priority and the dimensioning of the need for IT infrastructure has been considered.

The second group concerns 13 central public administrations of category A, again according to the AgID classification. These are PAs that have adequately secure infrastructures, which are therefore able to deliver strategic services independently. They can use the services provided by the NSH according to their needs.

The third group consists of 93 category B central public administrations with an insignificant demand for IT infrastructure and the major local administrations.

On the first group, considered a priority for migration, a dimensioning of the IT infrastructure requirements has been considered.

The administrations of the other groups may choose to use the Hub. Under the NRRP, the 200 central administrations and the Local Health Authorities will be able to receive a contribution to complete the migration. The Hub will have to migrate the administrations’ data and services without making any changes and be compliant with the European provisions on data localisation and processing.