The dark room of politics that you don't want to see

Professor Jiménez Asensio, one of the academics who best knows the ins and outs of the Spanish Administration, has called it the dark room of politics.. It refers to the prevailing bureaucratic system, systematically denounced since the time of Galdós, which is characterized by the existence of its own dynamics in the public service outside its original mandate.. And it is dark, precisely, in that it is alien to transparency and accountability, taking advantage of the fact that the system enjoys impunity due to the absence of internal control.. And when it has it formally, it is nothing more than a corporatist pantomime through the tortuous use of internal mechanisms of protection and privilege..

Or, what is the same, the poor functioning of the current Administration reveals the existence of a State within the State with its own characteristics..

The absurd previous appointment is the best example of an Administration that does not think about those administered, but about its own interest. And the chaos in Social Security, with a minister who is full of himself but incapable of solving the problems, is nothing more than its most visible manifestation.. Without the need to look at the Tax Agency itself, where the principle of guilt of the taxpayer prevails, who, to make matters worse, is the one who does the work for public employees..

This patrimonial conception of the public service, it is evident, would not be possible without the help of the politicians themselves, who have irresponsibly delayed time and again one of those nuclear reforms that this country needs, and which is none other than a new conception of public administration that is less bureaucratic, more efficient and, of course, less endogamous. Probably, because any reform aimed at professionalizing the public service would expel from the scope of the Administration the profuse clientelistic networks that the parties that govern in any of the administrations weave, and that alternate periodically..

The contempt

The abusive use of figures such as temporary workers to occupy freely designated positions is nothing more than another example of the contempt for creating an effective Administration..

It is, of course, not the property of the central Administration.. Both the autonomous communities and the city councils – it is evident that any generalization is somewhat unfair – have reproduced old behaviours, which makes them impermeable to the demands and needs of citizens..

The truth is that no major reform has been made and today administrative inertia prevails, which explains that, instead of having a full debate on the quality of the Administration's functioning, the public conversation is limited to counting how many officials there is or how much they charge, but without a rigorous analysis of their productivity or whether the job is really necessary. Not even the opposition system has been adapted to the new realities, which ultimately brings out the old intellectual laziness that has done so much damage to the history of this country..

The paradox is that the Administration has reached an absurd situation in which very well-paid employees coexist (in relation to their productivity) and very poorly paid employees who in the long run tend to abandon the public space because it is incapable of recognizing talent, which ends up expelling the best. Galdós rightly said that “an ungrateful State, indifferent to merit, is a savage State”.

There is not even a statute for the public manager, something that is inherent to any organization in which the functions are perfectly delimited.. The incentive policy, in fact, as various reports carried out by the Hay Derecho foundation have highlighted, is a complete disaster.. It is not surprising, in fact, that those who leave the Administration are, precisely, the most qualified, while the least productive (but with the same system of guarantees that protects their jobs) never do so..

The discussion is so poor that the reform of the Administration does not appear today as one of the priority issues, which is especially significant if one takes into account that it is the middle and low incomes who are most dependent on the proper functioning of the Administration in their different areas: justice, health or education. In fact, the widening of inequality can be combated through income or subsidy policy, but also through proper functioning of the Administration and what has happened with the poor management of the minimum income reflects well the usefulness of these public policies..

Lack of planning

This lack of interest in the functioning of the Administration, in a country focused on the latest statement of some foolish politician, is what explains, for example, that incomprehensible levels of aging of the workforce have been reached, taking into account that it was perfectly predictable in view of the fact that it was in the early 80s when the Administration began to grow in coherence with the expansion of the welfare State and the emergence of new social needs.. Two thirds of public employees are over 50 years old, which highlights the absence of planning and long-term criteria.

The surprising thing is that this internal dynamic of the Administration in defense of its own interests acts in parallel with the deprofessionalization of the Public Administration itself due to the arrival of political officials with zero experience.. Jobs that today should be occupied by public employees are occupied by professional politicians without any background and without any knowledge on the subject.. It is not surprising, in fact, that Spain is one of the OECD countries where each change of Government causes more internal movements within the Administration itself, even at the most basic levels.. It is not Canovista turnismo, but it is very similar to it. There are many forms of corruption, and that is one of them, although it is not seen.

This explains why in certain management positions there is a high level of rotation in the same job, which prevents the development of long-term policies.. The Higher Sports Council, now on everyone's lips, has had four presidents during the last five years, which highlights the disdain for continuity. The Public Service Department itself jumps from one Ministry to another as if it were a chess pawn that doesn't know where to place itself..

The really serious thing is that no one with the decision-making capacity cares. Probably because making politics to improve the quality of the services that administrations must provide to citizens is not visible.. Galdós summed it up more than a century ago with lucidity: “What has happened here? What has happened? That to the father of the family, to the honest man, to the civil servant of merit, aged in the Administration, to the loyal servant of the State who could “Teaching the minister how to save the Treasury is postponed; while the daring, the inept, those who have no conscience or any qualifications expand the area as a reward for their uselessness.”.