Reform Description

After actively participating in co-designing OGP Catalunya’s 2021-2023 compromises with OGP Local, Oficina Antifrau de Catalunya (OAC), as the competent independent organism appointed by Parlament de Catalunya to coordinate the implementation of antifraud legislation in the autonomous region of Catalonia, has set as goal to implicate citizenry in attaining its mission as a non-governmental organism in the approval of a Catalan whistleblower protection law.

Its objective is to establish the proper ethical mindset not only amongst public servants that have received training thru Escola d’Administració Pública de Catalanya (EAPC) towards curtailing corrupt practices in public administrations at all levels of governance but also involving resident citizens of Catalonia, as well as enterprises and organisations based in the four Catalan provinces, in a strategical awareness campaign to encourage whistleblowing from the base up.

Priorities towards attaining this objective shall be to:

        intensify awareness and training of public administration personnel towards integrity and professional Ethics in exercising their competences related to public contracting and delivery of public services.

        establish an innovative awareness program for base-citizens residing and/or exercising business or professional activities in Catalonia, in contact with either public administrations or lobby groups with vested interests in public contracts of any nature.

        create a conscience on fundamental rights and duties of residents in Catalonia, regardless their nationality, in relation to public information opacity that may lead to influence peddling and corrupt practices.

        encourage the right to inform on non-transparent situations and/or operations as base-citizens with the duty and right to alert the competent organism, OAC, as whistleblowers.

        design the ethical modus operandi for whistle blower protection based on EU’s Whistleblower Protection Directive (Directive 2019/1937) while awaiting the approval of Catalonia’s regional law that intends to correct the weaknesses in the implementation of same by the Government of Spain.

        implicate the citizenry thru the citizens’ participation proposal promoted by Associació SVS (Sitges Voluntaris Socials) – Acció en Blau in its intergenerational & intercultural democratic innovation project, IMPULSED (Innovation Motivated by People United to Lead Social Equity in Diversity), to facilitate direct contact with the citizenry thru a trusted social, solidary & sustainability NGO with a track record towards defence of equal rights & opportunities and commitment against fraud in Catalonia and Europe since 2014. 

Problem(s) Addressed by Reform

In order to execute this mission with vision, it is necessary to establish the present-day context of relations of citizenry with practically all levels of public administrations not only within the European Union but in the rest of the world. There is a rather strong mistrust in governments and transparency is questioned in many government actions.

In Catalonia, such mistrust has, likewise, affected organisms responsible for implementing laws and norms as independent bodies, for which reason credibility is at its lowest ebb.

In order to rebuild confidence and return credibility to desirable levels, OAC pretends to carry out this challenge with citizenry support, thru entities linked to ethical actions at professional and community level. It is in this context that the challenge is established to ensure maximum openness in implementation of competencies, firstly at the competent organism, OAC, and subsequently with the exercise of its functions in all public administrations, businesses and entities within the jurisdiction of its competence, Catalonia.

In this context, this Open Gov Challenge hopes to motivate citizenry to trust anew not only OAC as the competent organism on fraud but the entire governance set-up in Catalonia for open transparent government.

At a specific moment in Catalonia where the present Govern de Catalunya has been forced to denounce a Directorate General (DGAIA) under Conselleria de Drets Socials, Inclusió I Migracions and Parlament de Catalunya, precisely, opened an investigation last May 28th., coinciding with the celebration of the III Cimera contra les causes estruturals de la Corrupció, it become evident that credibility of most official branches and organisms with competences is under fire, needing a unique innovative approach that will return citizenry confidence thru base-citizen mediation.

With the third summit just concluded, with whistle blower protection as one of the approved conclusions by the joint assembly in which OAC, O3C and SVS – Acció participated with voting rights, it is but proper and with a high probable rate of effectivity to carry out this standalone challenge in the next months, to keep alive the idea of establishing a culture of integrity and professional Ethics, not only in governmental organisms but likewise in private enterprises and entities dealing with any level of public administrations in Catalonia, Spain or the European Union.

We emphasize the EU, inasmuch as recently, a Catalonia-based recipient of EU Next Generation funds was searched by police authorities on the request of OLAF (European Anti-Fraud Office). Our proposed strategy would establish a solid whistleblowing circuit, encouraging base-persons with information to denounce and present proof, with the traditional bureaucracy and risks of such legal proceedings reduced to minimum.

SVS – Acció en Blau has its social & labour inclusion SMS design, for its own use among citizen volunteers, awareness campaigns and communications workshops as early as 2016 for citizens to participate, detecting in such sessions how participants were more willing to express themselves in these reduced circles, facilitating valuable information on opaque situations and easily identifiable corrupt practices in social, migrant and environmental issues at municipal and county level at Sitges and Garraf. These formats were shared with other local communities and have been useful for exposing corrupt practices in social inclusion contracting, migrant paperwork registrations and waste management & other environmental contract collusions.

These tools would be put at the disposal of OAC that has centred its training programs on public servants, thus far. 

Relevance to OGP Values

All in all, the aforementioned action plan is linked to Catalonia’s participation in OGP Local as OGP Catalunya, thus with open government values of transparency, public accountability and civic participation, as expressed in the 2021-2023 compromises appearing on OGP Local’s webpage at this link: https://www.opengovpartnership.org/members/cataluna-spain/

It is worth mentioning that one of the four spokespersons for OGP Catalunya’s steering committee is, precisely, Fernando Fuster-Fabra Fernández, Board Member of O3C responsible for communications and, likewise, Secretary-Coordinator of SVS – Acció en Blau, volunteer association that created Observatori d’Igulatat de Tracte I Oportunitats de Catalunya (ObservatoriCAT) in 2014 and cofounder of O3C in 2020.  

This Open Gov Challenge is to be supervised by OAC's Institutional Relations Chief, Lourdes Paramón Bregolat, in coordination with all civic society entities and public administrations that may participate. 

Intended Results

With our proposal “CITIZENS PARTICIPATING AGAINST CORRUPTION” for this Open Gov Challenge, we expect to establish a valid guide for other local governments on changing citizen mindset and motivating citizen participation, civic engagement towards transparent open governance & public accountability.

Hopefully, this challenge proposal will be Phase I of an innovative strategy that could include a wider coverage scope of other local governments with whom OGP Catalunya is already exploring potential cooperation schemes, all based on civic engagement and citizen participation.

Milestones

As per the established timeline, OAC proposes to carry forward a strategically co-designed program in a horizontal intersectional manner that shall cover both the public and private sectors, with specific technical and professional levels taken into consideration, that will include:

        Awareness campaign & strategic communications language for
- Public administrations at Generalitat de Catalunya, all 4 Diputacions de Catalunya & all municipal governments

        Citizenry thru town civic centres and neighbourhood associations

        Formal technical training for public servants directly in OAC courses and/or thru Escola de Administració Pública de Catalunya (EAPC)
- Addressed to department/section heads
- Addressed to technical staff

        Workshops on whistle blower & GDPR legislation, whistle blower rights, whistleblowing complaint channels and ethical/integrity culture

        Establish KPIs to identify effectiveness of qualitative measures implemented with gender perspective and measured in a horizontal generational and cultural mode of each community’s composition

        Draft a final report of this action plan to be presented, with recommendations for co-designing future OGP Catalunya commitments

        Set the base for future OGP-led democratic innovation in vital priorities such as integrity and professional Ethics in Government at all levels and civil society activities in enterprises, NGOs, foundations and community development as a whole

Is Civil Society Involved?

Yes. 

As described in the foregoing replies, civil society is the target audience of this action plan. As discussed with the competent organism leading the initiative, OAC, SVS/O3C coordinator for the challenge, Fernando Fuster-Fabra, has proposed to carry out the citizenry participation in an intergenerational / intercultural manner, so as to increase the presence of youth in relevant governmental reforms and policies, such is the case of transparency in governance and eradication of corrupt practices.

The proposal is pending Ajuntament de Sitges’ accepting to be a municipakl testing ground for “CITIZENS PARTICIPATING AGAINST CORRUPTION”, inasmuch as it supports SVS – Accio en Blau’s project IMPULSED, jointly with Conselleria d’Igualtat I Feminisme and Direcció General de Govern Obert, departments of the actual Govern de la Generalitat de Catalunya.

Furthermore, since the volunteer association is carrying out an awareness campaign on social prescription and civic engagement in cooperation with local Primary Care Centres in the County of Garraf, SVS – Acció en Blau, would work to avail of these information points and activities to give broader coverage to the citizens’ participation against corruption scheme that we take up horizontally as a challenge led by OAC.