With this agreement, signed today by the president of the CTBG, Concepción Campos and the Secretary General of the FEMP, Luis Martínez-Siclunathe two entities undertake to carry out dissemination actions aimed at promoting awareness of transparency, active publicity, the right of access to public information and good governance both among public employees serving local entities and among local representative public officials.
These activities include the organization of formative actions (courses, seminars, classes, workshops, conferences) and Outreach and awareness-raising events, such as presentations, round tables and discussion forums.
They will also address the joint development of manuals, practical guides, recommendations, codes of conduct and other publications and instruments aimed at improving and improving complianceby the entities that make up the local administration, of the obligations established by Law 19/2013 of Transparency, access to public information and good governance (LTAIBG).
Likewise, the agreement provides for the collaboration of the two entities for Identify the barriers, deficiencies or difficulties encountered by citizens in exercising their rights in terms of transparency and access to public information to its municipalities and other local entities, and to try to overcome them.
After the signing of the agreement, the president of the CTBG, an independent administrative authority responsible for ensuring public transparency at the state level, stressed that “the role of the Council is to help comply with the law of transparency, especially at the local level, where administrative silence is an all too frequent recourse to requests for access to information, a response that is not compatible with a true culture of transparency.” He has also emphasized the “great increase in the number of complaints filed in this area”, emphasizing that “it is necessary to strengthen active advertising, that is, the information published on transparency portals, which reaches the whole of society and not only the people who request it, something especially important at the level of government and administration closest to the citizens”.
For his part, the Secretary General of the FEMP has stressed the need for “open, reliable and transparent governments”, in which citizens are co-responsible in making decisions that affect them in their daily lives. “When we talk about open administration, we talk about transparency, participation and accountability. But also from something deeper: the new way in which institutions relate to citizenship”, said Martínez-Sicluna, after pointing out that opening the administration is not only a legal obligation, but a way of understanding the public service and assuming that information belongs to the citizen and that participation improves decisions. “The FEMP will continue to push this path with determination because it is more than just administrative quality that is going for us: democratic quality is going for us and because, in short, opening up the administration is the best way to respect the citizens”.
The collaboration between the Council and the FEMP is not a novelty. The Federation created in 2015 the Network of Local Entities for Transparency and Citizen Participation to promote innovation and permanent improvement of the relationship between local governments and citizens through the exchange of experiences, lifelong learning and the development of projects. The Council is an observer partner and actively collaborates in its working groups.
