Spain
Generalitat of Catalonia
01-05-2020
May 2020 - December 2021
31-12-2021
15th.
Citizen Participation Space for Monitoring the Strategy for the fight against corruption and for the strengthening of public integrity. The Citizen Participation Monitoring Platform (EPCS) of the Anti-Corruption Strategy of the Generalitat de Catalunya (Government of Catalonia) is an independent, civil society commission responsible for monitoring the implementation of 25 actions envisaged in the Strategy, to ensure that the process is carried out within a framework of transparency and accountability. The role of the Monitoring Space is to evaluate the implementation of the Anti-Corruption Strategy.
The main objective was to improve the quality of public decisions through participatory democracy mechanisms. Specifically, the objective is to improve the evaluation of a specific public policy, in a particularly sensitive area: the anti-corruption strategy of the Generalitat de Catalunya.
The creation of the Space is having a positive impact on the improvement of the implementation of the Strategy:
In order to improve the quality of the public evaluation, the Monitoring Space, once elected and constituted, has developed an autonomous task. Its members have had the logistical support of the Secretariat for Transparency and Open Government of the Government of Catalonia and at the same time have been free to organise themselves.
The ten members of the Space have met regularly every 3 months to discuss the reports presented by the Strategy's Executive Group.
Following the meetings, they have produced the documents, which have been presented to the Strategy's management and implementation bodies and have been published on the Generalitat's website.
Subsequently, meetings have been held between the Space and the different units that implement the Strategy's actions to clarify details of the documents presented.
The Monitoring Space is made up of 10 members, 3 of whom have been chosen by three civil organisations with experience in Catalonia in the fight against corruption. The other 7 have been chosen among the participants in the participatory process of drafting the Strategy who voluntarily signed up to form part of the Space.
The role of the members of the Participation Space has been to analyse the reports produced by the Steering Group and the Executive Group and to prepare response documents.
The considerations of the Space have been shared with all the units of the Government that have responsibility for the implementation of the Strategy. On different occasions, the Space's considerations have generated specific meetings with those responsible for implementing some of the Strategy's actions
In 2018, the Observatori Ciutadà contra la Corrupció, a civil society organisation created as a result of the Social Pact against Corruption (2015) and itself made up of civil organisations, called on the Government of the Generalitat (the Catalan government) to know the outcome of the agreements of the 2015 Pact. As a result of the dialogue between the Observatory and the Government, it was decided to convene a participatory process to develop the Strategy, which took place between September and October 2019. The success of the participatory process was key to the subsequent design of the Citizen Participation Space for Monitoring.
One of the most satisfying points of the participatory process was the deliberation in the workshops that took place between different profiles of participants, from public servants used to the logic of innovation in administrative management to anti-corruption activists coming from social movements.
Once the anti-corruption strategy had been approved by the government (January 2020), an anti-corruption summit was held in the Catalan Parliament (July 2020) with the support of all parliamentary groups. This summit explicitly supported the anti-corruption strategy approved by the government of the Generalitat.
The Space was constituted on 15 July 2020 and is made up of a group of ten people chosen under gender parity criteria: seven citizens chosen by lottery from among the participants in the participatory process of the Strategy, and three representatives of organised civil society (from the Citizen Observatory Against Corruption, the Association of Political Scientists and Sociologists of Catalonia and the Ostrom Institute Catalonia). Maria Carme Noguer is the president and Feliu Madaula the secretary.
After the publication of each of the progress reports foreseen in the Strategy's accountability framework - quarterly, half-yearly and annual - the members of this Citizen Audit Space meet to analyse them and draw up a feedback document. Their observations are published on the Strategy's website, disseminated in the Generalitat's open government newsletter and also on social networks.
The Space's observations are especially considered by the Steering Group, the Executive Group, the Strategy's implementation programme team and the different units of the Government of Catalonia responsible for implementing the Strategy's actions.
Since its constitution, the Civil Society Participation Space has met periodically to discuss the reports and has produced different documents:
Sources (in spanish) :
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