The Open Government and Transparency portal has a specific module for Catalan city councils that makes it easy to automatically activate different economic management indicators with the aim of making it easier for citizens to consult information linked to the economic management of an entity in a graphic, understandable and accessible format.

The activation of the module by the city councils is very simple as they only need to indicate “YES” in the menu that is offered. In addition, it is possible to activate the module both on the “home” of the transparency portal and on the access screen of the “Economic Management” family. Once activated, the new module makes it easier to view a series of indicators on the portal.

The working methodology has been to work with the available data to show comparable data between the different town councils and to provide information about each town council in the most reliable way possible, facilitating the visualization of data from the last 5 years, as well as being able to know its impact per inhabitant/year, or see the evolution with respect to the regional, provincial and overall level of Catalonia (provided that complete data is available).

The model makes it easy to visualize the last 5 years, find out its impact per inhabitant/year, or see the evolution with respect to the regional, provincial and overall scope of Catalonia.

The data, - in open and reusable format, - has been obtained from different supramunicipal sources that are public on the different open data portals of the entities that have the Transparency and open data portal of the AOC. Specifically, they have been activated on the different council portals

Furthermore, and in order to show the impact at the inhabitant level and territorialize them, they have been combined with the population census data available in MUNICAT, building new aggregated data sets that make it easier for us to generate the graphs and published data associated with information at the inhabitant level and by territory. These datasets with aggregated data and territorialized averages are also public on the corresponding open data portals.

Available economic indicators

The set of economic indicators available in the module as well as their data source are described below:

BUDGET: How much does my city council spend?

  • Data on forecasts and initial credits for the City Council's budget with its local autonomous bodies (municipal companies are not included), with their evolution, according to the latest available data.

DEBT: How much does my city council owe?

  • City Council debt with financial institutions and its evolution, according to the latest available data.

INVESTMENTS: How much does my city council invest?

  • Amount of Chapter 6 (real investments) as well as Chapter 7 (capital transfers), of the total settlement of the City Council's budget with its local autonomous bodies (municipal companies are not included), with its evolution, according to the latest available data.

TAX BURDEN: What tax burden does my city council have?

  • Sum of income from chapters 1 and 2 (taxes), fees (articles 30, 31, 32, 33), special contributions (article 35) and urban planning fees (concept 396) of the City Council with its local autonomous bodies (municipal companies are not included), divided by the population (with its evolution, according to the latest available data).

CURRENT INCOME: How much money does my city council have?

  • These are the revenues that the municipality has to finance its usual activity, own revenues contributed by citizens (taxes, fees and public prices), property revenues, plus external revenues contributed mainly by the central or regional administration. The total amount of current revenues must cover at least current expenses and depreciation.
  • It includes chapters 1,2,4,5 of the budget settlement in its entirety. Also chapter 3 where special contributions and urban planning fees and income from urban development actions are excluded.
  • The data include the recognized rights as income from the settlement of the entity's consolidated budget with its local autonomous bodies (excluding public companies), with their evolution according to the latest available data.

CURRENT EXPENSES AND DEPRECIATIONS: How much money does my city council need to operate?

  • These are the resources that the city council dedicates to its usual operations.
  • It includes personnel expenses, current contracts, interest on loans and their repayment, contributions for other current expenses to third parties such as individuals, public or private entities (via grants and subsidies), autonomous organizations, municipal companies, and other miscellaneous expenses.
  • It includes chapters 1,2,3,4 and 9 of the budget settlement in their entirety. Therefore, current expenses plus credit amortizations of the City Council budget with its local autonomous bodies (municipal companies are not included).
  • In order to define the current expenses for the year, the total amount of current expenses should be reduced by the recognized obligations financed with cash balances from the previous year. Due to the lack of this information, this adjustment has not been made.

SAVINGS CAPACITY FOR THE YEAR: Is my city council solvent?

  • It is understood as the difference between current income and current expenditure after paying the loans (amortizations) from the City Council's budget with its local autonomous bodies (municipal companies are not included).
  • A positive savings for the year indicates investment capacity, ability to borrow and ultimately: solvency.
  • To calculate the net savings for the year established in art. 53 of the consolidated text of the Local Taxes Regulatory Law RD 2/2004, it is necessary to know the theoretical annual repayment period. The lack of this information for our calculation involves using the amounts of chapter 3 (interest) and 9 (amortizations), and defining the concept of “savings capacity for the year” as the difference between all current income and current expenses once the loan amortizations have been paid.

The data source for working on all these indicators is mainly the Secretariat of Local Governments and Relations with Aran. Specifically, the following supramunicipal and public data sets (which are published on the different transparency portals of each entity) have been used:

  • Budgets by program
  • Budgets for expenses and income
  • Detailed budget settlement by programs
  • Settlement of the budget for expenses and income

Regarding the "Indebtedness" data set, the source has been the Ministry of Finance (MINHAP, which publishes the outstanding debt of local governments on an ongoing basis at:

https://www.hacienda.gob.es/es-ES/CDI/Paginas/SistemasFinanciacionDeuda/InformacionEELLs/DeudaViva.aspx

This information, which is downloaded and converted to open data format prior to publication on transparency portals, is the basis of the data source for the item: indebtedness.

From these data sets we have made the relevant calculations for the different indicators discussed (following the different methodological descriptions above), and in order to show the impact at the inhabitant level and territorialize them, they have been combined with the population register data available in MUNICAT.

However, we have built new open (aggregated) data sets, which make it easier for us to generate the graphs and published data associated with information at the level of inhabitant and by territory. These datasets with aggregated data and territorialized averages are also public on the corresponding open data portals. Specifically:

1.- Calculation of the economic summary of data for an entity (resource that collects the set of economic data of the entity with calculation of its impact linked to population):

http://dadesobertes.seu-e.cat/csv/resum-indicadors-economics-ens.csv

2.- Calculation of the summary of aggregated economic indicators by territories, (resource that includes the calculation of the summary of aggregated economic indicators by territories, based on information from the budget and debt data sets. Based on these data sets, the population data for each entity has been incorporated and the territorial vision has been worked on to offer the regional, provincial and Catalan comparison):

http://dadesobertes.seu-e.cat/csv/resum-indicadors-economics-agregats-per-territoris.csv

In these data sets, work has been done to incorporate for each entity its population data (according to the latest data published in Municat), as well as with the territorialization of the data to be able to offer regional, provincial and Catalan comparisons.

All these supramunicipal and public datasets can be found on the different open data portals of each entity. You also have the possibility to download the global dataset at the following link: http://dadesobertes.seu-e.cat/

Description of the views:

indicatorimage-768x485.png

HIGHLIGHTED: A box shows the data in absolute value and per inhabitant, and the difference with respect to the previous year.

GRAPHIC INFORMATION: a graph shows the overall evolution of the indicator over the last 5 years, as well as a comparison in terms of territorialized inhabitants (county, province, Catalonia). It should be noted that in the event that data grouped for the whole of a territory is not available, the territorialized comparison collects information up to the last year available. At the same time, entities (in internal management mode) can also choose not to show averages for any of the indicators.

Finally, it should be noted that the editor of each entity's transparency portal has a "Observations on indicators" space where each entity can make assessments, comments, publish documents or links to clarify or provide more information to this section, with the premise of making it as close as possible to citizens.