The Public Administration of Spain is the governmental apparatus that manages the Spanish public interests.
The Constitution of 1978 declares in article 103.1 that the Public Administration serves objectively the general interests and acts in accordance with the principles of efficiency, hierarchy, decentralization, deconcentration and coordination, with full submission to the Law.
The Law 40/2015, of October 2, about the Juridical Regime of the Public Sector, establish that are Public Administration the General State Administration, the Administrations of the Autonomous Communities, the Entities that integrate the Local Administration, as well as the public organisms and the entities of public law.
The structure of the Public Administration of Spain is composed of many Administrations, which can be divided into three groups: Territorial administrations (this are the administrations that needs territory to exist like the General State Administration), the Instrumental or Institutional Administrations (the key to exist is the personnel) and the Corporative Administrations (group of people of the same guild that sometimes they do activities of a public nature).
The Public administrations, in their task of satisfying the general interest, hold a series of exorbitant powers with respect to legal persons of a private nature. As a counterweight to such exorbitant powers, Administrations are subject to a set of limits and guarantees of the rule of law (submission to the law, judicial review, property guarantees, etc.).
Regulation Basic regulation The main axis of the basic regulation of the Public Administration is the Law 39/2015, of October 1, about the Common Administrative Process of the Public Administrations and Law 40/2015, of October 2, about the Juridical Regime of the Public Sector.Ley 40/2015, de 1 de octubre, de Régimen Jurídico del Sector Público.Ley 39/2015, de 1 de octubre, del Procedimiento Administrativo Común de las Administraciones Públicas.
However, other laws that affect all the Public Administrations are Law 33/2003, about the Patrimony of the Public Administrations, Law 38/2003, about Public Subsidies, the Royal Legislative Decree 5/2015, about the Basic Statute of the Public Employee and Royal Legislative Decree 3/2011, about Public Sector Contracts.
Development regulation Apart from the bases, there are other laws that develop and implement the previous ones like Law 6/1997, about Organization and Functioning of the General State Administration and Law 50/1997, of November 27, about the Government.
In the autonomous field, the Administrations of the Autonomous Communities are subject to their respective autonomous laws, in development of the basic state regulation mentioned above. Local administrations (such as a town hall) do not have legislative power but regulatory authority.
Organization The Spanish Public Administrations has a decentralized character as the Constitution says. There are not a hierarchy criterion between administrations but a competencial criterion. This means that every administration has its competencies and another administration can not influence them because it is not competent. There are around 10,000 public administrations in Spain.En España, casi 10.000 Administraciones públicas
Territorial administrations Administrations, depending on the territory in which they are competent, are classified into three levels. The first level is the General State Administration which competencies spread throughout the country. The second level is made up of the different Autonomous Administrations. Its competences cover the territory of the corresponding Autonomous Community. Finally, the third level are the Local Administrations develop their powers over the corresponding municipal or provincial term, depending on whether it is a Municipality or a Province.
It must be understood that the three levels differ because they are legally different, insofar as each one has its own legal personality. It is what is known as public entity, in front of the internal structure of the same, the so-called organs, considered as each of the functional units of the public entity.
Instrumental or Institutional administrations Together with the three territorial administrative levels, there is an extremely heterogeneous group of Administrations with a purely instrumental or institutional character (Institutional Administration), dependent on a parent administration. The plurality of territorial administrations allows them to be created with their own administrative legal personality, different from the parent administration, for the exercise of certain competences. Unlike the parent or creative administration, which has a political character, the instrumental or institutional administration has a strong bureaucratic character.
Patrimony The patrimony of the Administration has its essential regulation in the article 132 of the Constitution, as well as in the Law 33/2003, of November 3, of the Patrimony of the Public Administrations.Ley 33/2003, de 3 de noviembre, del Patrimonio de las Administraciones Públicas. The assets and rights of said Administrations may be classified, according to article 4 of Law 33/2003, in public domain goods and private domain goods.
The money, securities, credits and other financial resources of its finances are not considered patrimony of the Administration nor, in the case of public business entities and similar entities dependent on the autonomous communities or local corporations, the resources constituting their treasury.
Public domain goods Public domain assets are those that are publicly owned but are used for general use or public service. Public property is also considered to be the dependencies and offices of State bodies, as well as the maritime-terrestrial zone, the beaches, the territorial sea and the natural resources of the economic zone and the continental shelf.
Private domain goods Patrimonial assets or private domain are all those assets owned by the state that do not fall within the category of public domain assets. In this way, leasing rights, securities representing shares and shares in the capital of commercial companies or of bonds issued by them, as well as futures and options contracts whose underlying assets consist of shares or participations in commercial entities, incorporeal property rights, and rights of any nature arising from the ownership of the assets and economic rights.
Special Properties Communal goods The communal goods are assigned to a general use and use by the neighbors of a certain municipality. The Town Hall and neighbors are co-owners of the property, having the right to use and enjoy direct and simultaneous neighborhood, whenever possible. If this is not the case, local ordinances and custom will determine the regime of use and use of communal property.
Neighborhood forests in common hand The neighborhood forests in common hand are a special category of property, whose ownership and use corresponds to those who are at any moment neighbors of a certain place (without the intervention of the Town Hall). The management will also be carried out by these through neighborhood assemblies.
National Heritage The National Heritage is constituted by goods and rights reserved for the use and enjoyment of the members of the Royal House. They have a marked public domain, and an intense protection that makes them more inalienable than the common public domain goods.
There is no assumption that the assets and rights of the National Heritage can be removed from their public domain character to be converted into patrimonial assets (private law) and subsequently alienated.
Public employment Public employment comprises all the cases in which the Administration makes use of natural persons so that, in return for remuneration, they work for the account of the body or entity to which they are attached. The basic regulations are found in Law 5/2005, of April 12, about the Basic Statute of the Public Employee. Four general classes of public employees are regulated: career officials, interim officials, labor staff and eventual staff.Real Decreto Legislativo 5/2015, de 30 de octubre, por el que se aprueba el texto refundido de la Ley del Estatuto Básico del Empleado Público.
Career officials The backbone of public employment rests on career officials, people linked to the Administration by a statutory relationship. Their access to the public function is carried out by opposition or competition (such as via exams and through open competition for vacancies), and their separation is limited to certain cases contemplated in the legislation.
Interim officials The Interim officials or Temporary officials enjoy, as well as career officials, a statutory relationship with the Administration. His access and separation from the public service also follow the same guidelines, differing from the career official in the provisional character, as opposed to the alleged stability of the former.
Labor staff The massive incorporation of labor staff in the service of the Public Administration is a relatively recent phenomenon. Its relationship with the Administration is not statutory, like that of the civil servants, but by contract. Its legal regime is governed by the rules of administrative law, something that does not preclude the application of the common labor law regime. In its contracting and dismissal, the principles of equality, publicity, merit and capacity must continue to be respected.
The Administration can not freely contract labor staff, but must adjust to the jobs that the law allows.
Eventual staff Eventual staff are temporary public employees who have been appointed on a discretionary basis to perform a series of special functions or advice in the administrative apparatus of the State. Their general character is of non-permanent workers and they can be fired freely by the authority of which they depend or that made his appointment. In any case, they cease when the authority they consult is ceased.
Administrative Procedure The Public Administration governs its action on the basis of a series of rules that coercively impose a procedure, making administrative acts subject to a ritual form. Both the decisions taken and the way in which they are carried out must be carried out through formal procedures, a concept inherited from French legal doctrine.
Among the functions of the administrative procedure, it is worth mentioning its role as a source of administrative predictability. In this way, it is considered desirable that the performance of the Administration is moderately predictable, for the sake of legal certainty. On the other hand, imposing a series of formal guidelines reduces the spaces in which the professional officials must act in an excessively creative way (something typical of positions of political trust), with the consequent reduction of arbitrariness in the management of Public affairs. By regulating the procedure, it will be possible to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of administrative action without affecting labor pressures, which are possible in the private organization, but completely unthinkable in a contemporary Public Administration that operates on a bureaucratic and regulated basis, safe from the changes that come with the political future.
Public Procurement Regime The public administration usually uses the contracting mechanism with individuals to carry out an immense variety of tasks. However, the contracting regime differs from that provided for contracting between individuals, traditionally governed by civil law. When the administration acts as a contractor, a specific contracting regime must be used, in which administrative law plays a fundamental and indispensable role.