Are you a user of Representa or not yet? Do you know about it but don't dare to start the project in your city council? If you want to get a clear idea of what Representa is and what it does and how it is structured, we present you with this decalogue to understand this electronic proxy registration service.

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1.- Collaborative registration

By virtue of article 6 of Law 39/2015, the General Administration of the State, the autonomous communities and local entities must have an electronic register of powers of attorney in order to articulate the capacity of a representative to act on behalf of an interested party. In this sense, from Catalonia, for reasons of efficiency, it has been decided to create an electronic register of powers of attorney of a collaborative nature.

The Representa is a common electronic register of powers of attorney that the AOC makes available to the Administration of the Generalitat of Catalonia, the local Entities of Catalonia and the public bodies and entities under public law linked to or dependent on the above.

This register is shared by all of them; that is, it is not an individual or independent register, which entails co-responsibility in the processing of the personal data contained therein.

The fact that it is a shared and collaborative registry means that all user organizations can register, at the request of citizens and/or companies, general representations, to the organization and to the procedure, in the case of the latter two, not only to their own organization, but also to any other organization using the service and consult the same database. Thus, a citizen can create different representations to the organization or to the procedures, applicable to different administrations, without having to go to or access the e-office of these other organizations, centralizing the management from a single Citizen Service Office or from the same e-office.

2.- Law 39/2015 and Royal Decree 203/2021

The Representa has been created and has incorporated functionalities to guarantee compliance with the provisions of articles 5 and 6 of Law 39/2015 and Royal Decree 203/2021. In this sense, the Electronic Registry of Authorizations of the Catalan Public Administrations allows:

  • Register representations between natural and/or legal persons with the data established by the regulations and according to the indicated typologies (general, to an organization and procedures)
  • Check if there is a representation between two people to prove representation in administrative practice
  • Download evidence of representation in case of consultation of representations between two people
  • Download simple notes of notarial powers of attorney from the General Council of Notaries
  • Download documentation attached to a representation when it certifies the same
  • Extend existing representations
  • Included in its roadmap are functionalities foreseen in the regulations such as the integration and consultation of other power of attorney registers such as the Commercial Register or the Property Register.

3.- Representations adapted to administrative practice: the capacities

The service allows the creation of three types of representations:

  • General: allowing a representative to act on behalf of their representative in any organization and for any procedure
  • Agency: allowing a representative to act on behalf of their representative in a specific agency and for any procedure
  • Procedures: allowing a representative to act on behalf of a principal in a specific procedure defined in the power of attorney

In addition to the existence of these three typologies, the possibility of modulating these typologies by adding the capabilities of this representation in administrative practice has been added. In this way, it is possible to add the attribute of capacity to a representation:

  • Consult: access the content of the information on administrative procedures
  • To process: to carry out procedures on behalf of another person
  • Receive notifications: access the content of notifications intended for the proxy within administrative procedures

In this way, it is possible to grant representations with full capabilities (All capabilities) or with partial capabilities, limiting the representation to the representative.

4.- Operation adapted to citizens

The Representa service presents two environments, in addition to the possibility of integration via webservice:

  • Public employee portal: through EACAT for:
    • Manage representations on behalf of citizens (registrations, cancellations and acceptances).
    • Consult representations in an administrative procedure.
    • Downloading evidence of representation consultation
    • Downloading documentation associated with a representation
    • Enough representations
  • Citizens' portal: through a personalized URL for each organization, for the registration and management of representations by citizens and companies. In relation to subjects obliged to interact electronically with the administration, they must use this channel.

In this sense, the operation of Representa is adapted to citizens, allowing them to manage their representations both in a face-to-face environment, through the Citizen Service Offices, or in a virtual environment, through the Representa portals of the organizations' electronic headquarters.

5.- Roadmap guided by service users: the legal-organizational group

The service has a roadmap guided by the users of the service, through the Legal-Organizational Group (hereinafter GJO) of Representa. The GJO is made up of around thirty public workers belonging to different local bodies, the Generalitat de Catalunya, the Localret Consortium and the AOC Consortium who meet periodically to discuss the new features of the service and discuss and decide on future functionalities.

They are the product of the work of this group:

· Representa implementation guide: https://suport-representa.aoc.cat/hc/ca/articles/4417801367057-Guia-d-implantaci%C3%B3-del-Representa

· Legal warning model to encourage registration in Representa: https://suport-representa.aoc.cat/hc/ca/articles/4417809771409-Quines-implicacions-t%C3%A9-la-inscripci%C3%B3-al-Representa-Model-d-advertiment-al-hora-de-fomentar-ne-la-inscripci%C3%B3

· Procedure to cancel a representation: https://suport-representa.aoc.cat/hc/ca/articles/5471862101661-Quin-%C3%A9s-el-procediment-per-anul-lar-una-representaci%C3%B3-

6.- Support for the organizational challenge: the Representa guide

The service consists of a support guide ( https://suport-representa.aoc.cat/hc/ca/articles/4417801367057-Guia-d-implantaci%C3%B3-del-Representa ) intended to facilitate the implementation and commissioning, within your organization, of the electronic registry of powers of attorney in compliance with the provisions of Law 39/2015, of October 1, on common administrative procedure for public administrations and Royal Decree 203/2021, of March 30, which approves the regulation of action and operation of the public sector by electronic means.

This Guide makes a series of recommendations for each of the following actions:

  • What is an electronic power of attorney register?
  • The discharge from the service.
  • Parameterize Representa.
  • Aspects related to files, procedures and forms.
  • Integrations.
  • Staff training.
  • Regulation.
  • Service operation.
  • Diffusion.

It is prepared based on practical experiences of various Catalan public administrations, within the framework of the Legal-Organizational Group of Representa and contains questions of a technical, organizational and procedural nature.

7.- Training for its use (video training + webinar)

The service consists of several training resources to help organizations in the implementation and use of the service. In this sense, on the campus.aoc.cat portal we can find:

  • Webinar: 4-hour synchronous session on the functionalities and use of the service of the different roles available.
  • Training video: Interactive and asynchronous training resource on the functionalities of the service.
  • Presentation of the service: Explanatory document of the Representa

On the other hand, the organizations also have two support portals, with a collection of FAQs about Representa:

  • public employee portal: to resolve common doubts and queries about the service
  • Citizens and businesses portal: to refer end users of the service about its operation

8.- Integrated/integrable

The service is integrated with:

  • Copy: for the generation of authentic copies
  • Registration of the General Council of Notaries: for downloading simple copies of notarial powers of attorney from the csv.

And at the same time it allows the integration of it with other administrative processing services or file managers, allowing:

  • Creating representations
  • Modifying representations
  • View representations
  • Downloading evidence of representations
  • Download of documentation associated with a representation that demonstrates its validity

9.- Interoperable

According to article 6.2 of Law 39/2015, the general and particular electronic registers of powers of attorney belonging to each and every administration must be fully

interoperable with each other, so that their interconnection, computer compatibility, as well as the electronic transmission of the requests, writings and communications that are incorporated into them, are guaranteed.

The Representa was born with this intention from the beginning, which is why:

  • The representations contain the minimum necessary data established by Law
  • The types of representations conform to the options contemplated in the Law and administrative practice.
  • It has a representation consultation webservice
  • It has a web service for downloading documentation attached to the representations.
  • It is working to adapt to the NTI of the REA (still in draft status and only for powers to act before any administration) in terms of metadata and formats to comply with its initial provisions.

10.- Indicators

The service's roadmap includes offering a dashboard so that organizations can see the representations that have originated on their portal, those that have been validated, etc.

For now, however, to find out which representations have been requested from a specific organization, either from the public employee portal or from the citizen portal, you can consult two public information sources (given that no personal data is given, but only aggregated data):

  • Web indicators AOC : From this link you can view the activity of all AOC services, therefore, you can filter by a specific organization > Representa service > years of interest and view the representations that have been created, and you can even filter by months and states of the representations.
  • Monthly report of indicators AOC : This report summarizes the activity of the AOC services, from another point of view and we find the information of Representa, on page 27. You can filter by years and months that interest me and by the specific organization and view the data of the representations by:
    • Origin: citizen portal or employee portal
    • Type of representation: General, Organization or Procedures
    • Status: Valid, Canceled, Pending validation, Pending acceptance, Expired, Denied, Revoked, Waived or Under review.