Balance of the impact of the economic, political, social and institutional crises on public administrations in Spain 2011-2013: Diagnosis and proposals

Abstract

Two years ago I published a Working Paper in this same collection of Studies/Working Papers of the GIGAPP: "The Administration that is expected after the crisis" (WP-2011-02). The intention of that document was to predict the impact of the acute and prolonged economic crisis on public administrations in Spain. Two years have passed since I presented those reflections, and this paper's mission is to highlight and reflect on what has already happened. It is a partial analysis made in the heat of the events and, therefore, lacks the consistency of the academic study elaborated with a broader perspective that only allows the rest granted by time. The first conclusion is that, unfortunately, the hypotheses included in the previous paper are being fulfilled in general terms, although with some nuances that should be highlighted as a partial balance. In the face of the deep economic crisis, the political, social and institutional crises have come to accompany us for a long time. As an axis of the proposals, five critical issues are selected for institutional renewal and modernization of public administrations: a) to renew the selection processes of public employees to preserve the principles of equality, capacity and merit, and the rest of the large proposals I comment them synthetically as apostilles; b) a statute of the professional public profession; c) transparency; d) a refocusing of information technologies; e) to improve the governance systems of public-private partnerships. At the end of the document there is a list with all the items, some of great importance and others more instrumental, which should be addressed by an administrative reform if it aspires to be thorough.