Reforming and modernizing the public administration, a historic drag on Italian growth and competitiveness, is once again a priority question for Italian Government. Despite significant innovations, the new measures display more elements of continuity than discontinuity with the reforms of the 1990s (under Ministers Cassese and Bassanini), which were among the most important in this field since the unification of Italy. The essay draws a balance of the administrative reforms of the 1990s, their quantitative and qualitative results, successes and failures. It analyzes the causes of the failures and delays in the implementation of the reform, and particularly in the introduction into Italys public administration of modern systems of performance evaluation, productivity incentives, merit-based management of human resources and accountability of administrators for results. These issues are now addressed by the Brunetta reform, whose strengths and weaknesses are examined. The proper setting of objectives, cutting down the role of politics in the public administration, upgrading the quality of expenditure and consistent implementation will be crucial to its success.