Today’s BOE publishes the Royal Decree 615/2024, of 2 July, approving the new Statute of the Council of Transparency and Good Governance (CTBG). The Statute develops the provisions of Law 19/2013, of 9 December, on transparency, access to public information and good governance (LTAIBG), regulating the structure and operation of the Council as an Independent Administrative Authority that protects the right of access to public information and ensures compliance with the obligations of transparency in the General Administration of the State and in the State public sector, as well as in those Communities and Autonomous Cities that have entrusted it with these functions.

The new Statute, which replaces the one approved in October 2014, contributes to strengthening the institution, providing it with an organic structure and a functioning legal regime more in keeping with its nature as an Independent Administrative Authority. To this end, it introduces important news, among which the following should be highlighted:

• It expressly recognizes its nature as an Independent Administrative Authority.
• It updates its legal regime, incorporating the legislative changes that have taken place since its creation.
• It gives it a new organic structure.
• It regulates in detail the purposes, functions and guarantees of autonomy and independence.
• It clarifies and clarifies the functions and operating rules of all its organs.
• It expands and improves the regulation of the economic, patrimonial and personnel regime, as well as the accounting and control regime.

Of paramount importance for the strengthening of the Council is the new organizational structure, which incorporates three new bodies. First, a General Secretariat is created as a common services management body, an essential task in a body of this nature. On the other hand, it has three general sub-directorates, thus strengthening its capacity to carry out the tasks of safeguarding the right of access to public information and evaluating compliance with transparency obligations. Finally, a Cabinet is created as a support body for the Presidency (which is granted the rank of Undersecretariat) in its multiple managerial and decision-making functions.

Along with this, the new Statute updates the legal regime of the Council, adapting it to the legislative changes since 2014, among which highlights its transformation into Independent Administrative Authority by Law 40/2015, of October 1, on the Legal Regime of the Public Sector. Also, a more detailed regulation of the purposes, functions and guarantees of autonomy and independence is introduced. Collaboration with other bodies that guarantee transparency is regulated, as well as international collaboration with bodies of a similar nature.

On the other hand, the functions that correspond to the different governing bodies are clarified and systematized, specifying the allocation of some that had already been developed and expressly reflecting others attributed later by sectoral laws. Along the same lines, some changes are introduced in the operating rules of the Transparency and Good Governance Commission, establishing a new periodicity of its sessions, as well as the possibility of holding sessions and adopting agreements in person or at a distance.

Finally, important modifications are included in its economic, patrimonial and personnel system to update it to legislative changes and to bring it into line with that of the other independent administrative authorities. Likewise, the regulation of the accounting and control system is extended and improved.

A necessary Statute

The adoption of a new Council statute was one of the main objectives of the current Presidency. In the Strategic Plan 2022-2025 it was identified that, together with the scarcity of human and material resources, the other great weakness of the Council, with impact in all its functional areas, was the inadequacy of the organic structure of the institution to meet the real needs of operation and effectively fulfill the tasks entrusted.

Being configured in the image of a general directorate, it was less effective in carrying out the functions of an independent administrative authority, a difficulty that was aggravated with the passage of time and the constant increase in the citizen demand for Council actions. Consequently, in the Plan it was set as first transversal strategic objective “to adapt the resources and the structure of the Council to its competences and functions”.

The reform of the Statute was also necessary to update its legal regime to the legal changes that had been operating since its creation and to regulate more precisely its functions and the internal distribution thereof among its organs in the light of the experience acquired during these years.

That is why the Council has promoted this reform, which addresses essential elements for its strengthening as an institution and for strengthening its capacity to carry out the functions entrusted to it. With it, the legal regime of the Council is updated in all aspects that do not require a rule with the rank of law, waiting for that the planned reform of the LTAIBG will be completed, in which the other essential elements must be incorporated to guarantee the full effectiveness of its actions as guarantor of public transparency.

The Council welcomes the adoption of its new regulatory framework, which, together with the increases in budget and staffing in recent years, represents a great advance in the consolidation of the institution when it is about to reach the first ten years of its life.