The president of the Council of Transparency and Good Government, José Luis Rodríguez Álvarez, appeared this afternoon in the Committee on Territorial Policy and Public Function of the Congress to present the Memories of Activities of the Council for the financial years 2019 and 2020 and to report on the issues raised by various parliamentary groups in their respective initiatives.

Rodríguez has outlined the most relevant aspects of the Council’s reports and, in particular, has focused the first part of his speech on reporting on two areas: Assessment of the degree of implementation of the Transparency Act and the resolution of complaints Presented in defence of the right of access to public information.

Regarding the evaluation activities of the year 2019, he explained, on the one hand, the great value and usefulness of MESTA, the methodology of the Transparency Council for the evaluation; and, on the other, the positive evolution in the compliance index (which has gone from 62% in 2018 to 77.3% in 2019). In relation to the processing and resolution of complaints regarding access to information, the President of the Council has highlighted the sustained increase in the number of complaints received. Thus, in 2015 there were 517 and in 2018 they had already risen to 1338. In 2019, 1780 were registered and in 2020, a slightly lower number, 1704.

Next, Rodríguez has highlighted two issues included in the Memory of the Year 2020 and that “They reflect many other dysfunctionalities in the management of requests for access to public information”. First, the large number of complaints filed because requests for access to information were dismissed due to administrative silence—at the state level 47% and at the autonomous level 70%. And, secondly, the excessive preponderance of formal reasons versus materials in the denial of requests for access to information, a situation that is used as “easy recourse to avoid the greater complexity of assessing the application of the limits of Articles 14 and 15, which require reasoned weighting and sufficient and clear justification”.

Another issue addressed by the President of the Council is the Compliance with the resolutions of the Agency. The Council has strengthened this area and this has produced a reduction of 10 points in the percentage of non-compliance although, Rodríguez has nuanced, “Much remains to be improved in this area” and continues: “This is one of the key issues to be addressed in the process of reform of the Transparency Act “.

In addition, President José Luis Rodríguez has dealt with other issues directly related to the current situation of the Council of Transparency and Good Governance and has requested “complete the institution's creation”. In this regard, he recalled that the agency was born in a context of economic crisis and austerity and that in the seven years of operation the budget, which is in line with other Independent Administrative Authorities, Not only has it not improved, but it has worsened noticeably. And with regard to human resources, the Transparency Council has a staff of 24 people, almost identical to the one it received as an initial endowment and that “it is notoriously insufficient for the Council to efficiently manage the current workload which, moreover, as I have already indicated, has increased significantly so far this year”. This lack of material and personal means has been denounced in several reports of relevant national and international organizations.

Finally, the Commission has shown how the precariousness of resources affects the difficulty of effectively carrying out the functions entrusted to it. "In order for the Spanish State to have a body guaranteeing transparency and access to public information aligned with its European counterparts and meeting the standards required by the European Union and the Council of Europe, it is urgent to complete the creation of the Council of Europe.", concluded José Luis Rodríguez Álvarez.