Improper: Rationalising town halls

National government finally seems to have woken up to a fact that has been staring it in the face for an age. In fact, it hasn't just woken up to the fact. It's known about it for an age as well. Just that it hasn't chosen to do anything about it. The fact is duplication. At local government levels. And especially in Mallorca where there is the intervening level of government between the town halls and the regional government, i.e. the Council of Mallorca.

Madrid has woken up to the fact and has decided to take some action, but what action is it to take and is it the right one? It has decided that towns with fewer than 20,000 inhabitants - and there are only a handful of towns in Mallorca other than the capital Palma that have more - are going to lose some of their responsibilities and that these will be transferred to the island council.

Given the number of small municipalities in Mallorca (and everywhere else in Spain), delivery of public services is highly cost inefficient. It is more expensive, in terms of relative cost per head of population, to provide services in smaller municipalities than it is in larger ones, and when one talks of larger municipalities in Mallorca, there are, apart from Palma, only five (Calvià, Inca, Manacor, Llucmajor and Marratxí) with populations greater than 20,000.

The reference to 20,000 inhabitants is significant for two reasons. Under the Spanish law that determines the operations of local government (Ley de Bases de Régimen Local) this is a point at which local authorities assume greater responsibilities and are also entitled to elect more councillors (a further point is 50,000 inhabitants). Madrid not only intends to take away responsibilities from smaller municipalities, it also intends to reduce the number of councillors - by almost a third.

There are, under this law, services that all municipalities are obliged to provide. They include, for example, street lighting and cleaning, refuse collection and drinking water. Even these basic services are being eyed up for rationalisation by the government and for transfer to a greater authority, namely the Council of Mallorca.

The law regulating local government operations is to undergo a major reform. It needs to be reformed because it does in itself give rise to duplication of effort and to the provision of services by some town halls that isn't really within their competence to provide. There is a distinction between those services which a town hall currently must provide, such as refuse collection, and a town hall's competences. These do, for instance, include participation in education but not in the actual delivery of education, except in so-called complementary activities related to education. Yet, it has not been unknown for town halls to, for example, assume delivery of nursery education services.

Some of these competences are referred to as "impropias", by which it is meant that town halls exceed their competence and spend money on them in an improper way. It is estimated that a quarter of town halls spend in general goes on such improper competences. When one considers the saving that could be derived from elimination of this improper spend in addition to that which would come from rationalisation of basic services under a single authority, then you can understand why the government is so keen to effect this local government reform.

Critics of this move argue that the government is turning the clock back to the centralised system of government that existed in Franco's times, but this is an extreme assessment. Decentralisation would remain, just that it would be more coherent and unified within the island's council, and the Council of Mallorca, the point of which I have questioned repeatedly, would end up with some real point to it. It would become what you would expect a council to be: the body that arranges, maintains and manages services.

What would happen to the town halls though? Stripped of much of their purpose, might it signal the end for them? There have been calls for Mallorca's town halls to be done away with - the head of the hoteliers' federation suggested this not so long ago - but they would still clearly have a role, even with fewer councillors.

Mention of the hoteliers' federation is relevant. The Balearic Government, and not the national government, has buckled to pressure from the town halls to ensure that they still have the final say over planning when the new tourism law is enacted, something that may bring them into conflict with the hoteliers. But might the national government go over the head of the regional government and take this competence away as well? One fancies that there is going to be considerable unease and disgruntlement at many a town hall in Mallorca in any event, but if responsibility for planning was to be challenged, then the town halls would be up in arms.

The reform makes much sense, but it is worth asking how it is that the town halls came to be exceeding their authority in ways that they appear to have been. One can only assume that there has been insufficient control which has allowed the town halls to grow like topsy, a point made when in early 2010, a report showed that personnel costs alone at Mallorca's town halls had doubled since the turn of the century.


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.