• Following the expiration of the non-renewable five-year term, he will cease his duties and cede the witness to Concepción Campos Acuña this week.

• During his presidency, the institution has been significantly strengthened, with an increase of 48.4% in the budget, the expansion of the staff by 50%, and the approval of the new Statute, which enshrines the Council as an Independent Administrative Authority.

• In addition, the functioning of the Council has been modernized, with full digitization, the implementation of electronic management of all procedures, the renewal of the institutional image and the development of a new institutional website.

• In parallel, the evaluation function of compliance with transparency obligations has been strengthened and the protection of the right of access to public information has been strengthened, resolving a greater number of complaints each year and developing a consistent interpretative doctrine on the scope of the right.

• In addition, training activities have been expanded, institutional communication has been strengthened and collaboration with civil society organizations has been intensified, as well as cooperation with the other bodies that guarantee transparency, both at the national and international levels.

The appointment of José Luis Rodríguez Álvarez as Board Member took place in October 2020. During their mandate they have been carried out Major changes in the institution’s staffing, structure and operation aimed at improving its ability to perform its mandated functionsin particular, ensuring compliance with the legal obligations of transparency and safeguarding the right of everyone to access public information.

between the years 2021 and 2023 the Council budget increased by 48.4%, to reach 3.38 million euros. Although the path of growth could not be continued in 2024 and 2025 due to the extension of the General State Budgets, the improvement of the economic endowment increased the number of staff by 50 per cent, from 20 to 30 posts.

The strengthening of the Council at the institutional level received a strong boost with the approval in 2024 of a new Statute, which expressly recognised its nature as an Independent Administrative Authority and endowed it with an organic and functioning structure more in accordance with its functions. The same line was taken by the legal reform carried out in 2023, which eliminated the previous instance before the central courts of litigation and allowed the Council’s decisions to be appealed directly to the National High Court, which managed to equate it with the other independent authorities and reduce the time needed to reach a final judgment. On a more formal level, but undoubtedly relevant to make its autonomy and independence visible, the Council has managed to have its own header in the Official State Gazette to insert its publications.

Along with this, in these five years they have been carried out imajor structural reforms aimed at modernising the functioning of the Council and to improve its efficiency in the performance of the functions entrusted to it. In this regard, we must highlight the Full digitization and the implementation of the integral electronic management of all procedures, which has made it possible to simplify procedures, reduce administrative burdens and offer, both to the citizens and to the subjects obliged, the possibility of interacting telematically with the Council, in a simple and intuitive way. This process of modernization and updating has been completed with the renewal of the corporate identity of the agency and with the development of a new institutional website that presents a clearer and simpler design and structure, improving accessibility and ease of use.

In the exercise of role of safeguarding the right of access to public information, during this period More than 11,200 claims have been resolved, 7 out of 10 persons admitted to the proceedings, in a direction favourable to the claimants. They have been updating, strengthening and building an extensive interpretative doctrine that has been clarifying the scope of the right of access in such important matters as contingent personnel, productivities, contracts, subsidies and grants, travel, institutional advertising, regulatory fingerprints, pharmaceutical spending or algorithmic transparency. And, despite the constant growth in the number of complaints received (in 2025 it was 40.2% compared to the previous year), a great effort has been made to increase each year the number of resolutions adopted and gradually reduce the average processing time, until the end of 2025 slightly above the three months provided by the law.

Along the same lines, it has also been boosting year after year the Monitoring compliance with active advertising obligations, reaching in 2025 the record number of 393 evaluated public and private entities and ensuring that all entities of the state institutional public sector have been evaluated by the Council at least once.

on the other hand, cooperation with the other bodies guaranteeing transparency has been strengthenedat the national level by promoting the creation of the Conference of Bodies Guaranteeing Transparency and Access to Public Information (COTAI), a horizontal cooperation body made up of the Council and the autonomous transparency bodies; and, at the international level, by contributing to the creation of the European Network for Transparency and Access to Information (ENTRI), constituted in 2025 as a stable framework for collaboration between the guarantor bodies of the various European countries, of which the Council is a member executive committee.

Finally, it should be noted that, in the area of promoting the culture of transparency, training activities have been extended, through courses and seminars of its own, or by participating in those organized by various public and private bodies and entities. In addition, collaboration with civil society organizations has been intensified and communication with citizens and the media has been strengthened, both directly and through the website and social networks.

On the occasion of the end of his mandate, José Luis Rodríguez Álvarez has made the following statement:

“It has been five years of intense and exciting work, led by a young body that is consolidating itself as an essential part of our system of guarantees of public transparency in our democratic state. I have not achieved all the objectives that I had set myself (in large part because the budgetary extensions have slowed down the allocation of material and personal resources), but I have achieved most of them, and I am leaving with the satisfaction of having contributed to the institutional strengthening of the Council as an independent administrative authority and to improving its capacity to carry out the functions entrusted to it.

During these years we have acted with total independence to guarantee the right of all people to access public information, promoting and defending transparency in the public sector with scarce means and in a difficult context, in which resistance is still evident, because the culture of transparency in our administrations is not yet fully established. Building on what has been built up in the previous stages, we have enhanced the function of assessing compliance with transparency obligations and significantly strengthened that of safeguarding the right of access to information, responding to an increasing number of complaints and developing an interpretative doctrine aimed at achieving maximum effectiveness in balance with the other rights and interests with which it sometimes conflicts. That in most cases it is being endorsed by the Supreme Court is the best possible recognition.

I deeply thank the management team and all the Council staff for the support they have received and the excellent work they have done throughout this time: in total, around thirty public servants committed to transparency who are the real architects of the achievements achieved. I would also like to express my gratitude to the colleagues from the other guarantor bodies for the excellent cooperation we have had, as well as to all the people who, individually, or on behalf of the public or private institutions to which they belong, have helped us in the task of promoting public transparency.

I trust that in the near future there will be significant progress, with the completion of the reform of the LTAIBG to correct its shortcomings, and with the full recognition of the right of access to public information as a fundamental right. As far as the Council is concerned, I consider it essential that it be given coercive powers to ensure compliance with its resolutions, and that it be provided with the appropriate material and personal means to carry out its functions without so much difficulty.

I wish Concepción Campos Acuña much success.”