The bodies that guarantee transparency show in the CIT 2025 a strong increase in the cases that process and demand more means

29/09/2025

representatives of the guarantor bodies speaking at the plenary session of the ILC

During the X International Congress on Transparency (CIT), held in Castellón de la Plana, the transparency control and supervision bodies that participated in the plenary session “Main actions of the guarantor bodies”, coordinated by the Council of Transparency and Good Governance, showed a notable increase in the number of complaints about access to public information that they manage and called again for more means and resources to be able to effectively protect the exercise of this fundamental right in a full democracy.

In addition to the Council, which is the guarantor of transparency at the state level, representatives of seven councils and autonomous commissioners spoke at the session. They presented the most relevant aspects of the activity they have carried out in the last year.

The session was moderated by the President of the Council for Transparency and Good Governance, José Luis Rodríguez Álvarezwhich recalled that in May the Conference of Guarantor Bodies for Transparency and the Right of Access to Public Information (COTAI) was constituted, an entity of collaboration and horizontal cooperation between the various control bodies in this field, both the State and the autonomous ones. The purpose of COTAI is to contribute to strengthening transparency and guaranteeing the right of access to public information at the various levels of the State through joint actions, such as the exchange of good practices, the promotion of actions to promote the culture of transparency and the adoption of shared criteria on the evaluation of compliance with transparency.

The State Transparency Council also participated in the plenary session. Marta Timón Herrero, Deputy Director General for State Level Claims and José Manuel Jover Lorente, Deputy Director General of Regional and Local Affairs. In their speeches they highlighted, among other issues, the importance of the recent Supreme Court ruling on the BOSCO case, which supports the doctrine adopted in 2021 by the Council in favor of the transparency of the algorithms used by the Administration. They also recalled the high percentage of complaints filed by citizens before the Council in search of protection of their right of access to public information because they have not received a timely response from the administration. In this regard, they stressed that in 2024 administrative silence motivated 42% of the claims at state level and 73.5% of those at regional and local level submitted to the Council.

They also intervened in the session Clara Isabel Velasco Rico, vice-president of the Committee for the Guarantee of the Right of Access to Public Information of Catalonia (GAIP); Jesús Jiménez López, director of the Transparency and Data Protection Council of Andalusia; Natalia Sánchez López, Commissioner for Transparency of the Region of Murcia; Sofía García Solís, member of the Valencian Transparency Council; Fernando Muñoz Jiménez, President of the Regional Council for Transparency and Good Governance of Castilla-La Mancha; Noelia García Leal, Commissioner for Transparency and Access to Public Information of the Canary Islands; and Jesús María González García, President of the Transparency and Data Protection Council of the Community of Madrid.

The speakers explained the main initiatives that their agencies have launched or are planning to improve the protection of the right of access to information. The table highlighted an exponential increase in the number of complaints handled by the councils and transparency commissioners; an increase that has not been accompanied by an increase in the resources available to them, which makes their work difficult. They also considered that, in addition to greater material and human resources, in order to advance in the consolidation of this crucial right, a greater culture of transparency within the administration is essential.

During the session, the guarantor bodies also shared recent resolutions and outstanding jurisprudence on the right of access, as well as progress in their work of evaluating the compliance of the transparency by the obligated subjects.

Representatives of the guarantor bodies who participated in the plenary session of the ILC coordinated by the Council

Active role of the Council in the ILC

In the 10th edition of the CIT, held between 24 and 27 September at the Jaume I University in Castellón de la Plana, the Council again had a very active participation in the main event that brings together transparency professionals in our country. The President of the Council, José Luis Rodríguez Álvarez, He spoke at its inaugural session, in which he stressed that, after a period of some stagnation, transparency is once again at the centre of the public agenda. On the expected reform of the Transparency Law, an essential element to advance in this matter, he said that “it should not take long to make the preliminary draft public.”

The President of the Council also spoke at the session entitled “Comparative Perspective on Transparency”, moderated by Yolanda Fernández Vive, professor at the University of Alcalá, together with Mº de los Ángeles Guzmán García, of the Institute of Transparency, Access to Information and Protection of Personal Data of the State of Nuevo León (Mexico), and Roberto Munita Morgan, of the Council for Transparency of Chile.

Rodríguez Álvarez stressed that Spain is still in an intermediate phase of building the public system of transparency and advocated that the public authorities undertake the necessary measures to move forward. In this regard, it considered positive some of the measures announced in the Action Plan for Democracy and in Plan Eanti-corruption status submitted by the Government, as they are aimed at strengthening transparency and the right of access to information. “What is needed is for them to materialize quickly,” he concluded.