1. For the last 25 years the Spanish local government system has changed in terms of tiers, size and regional differentiation.
2. Diminishing resources and financial uncertainty have forced local governments to implement a kind of hybrid governance which includes regionalization, privatization and community governance:
A. Fiscal pressure caused by cutbacks in state assistance, mainly due to austerity measures, has been the primary driver for regionalization in order to achieve economies of scale, while reducing competition for funding. There has been a discussion on whether this regionalization has implied a loss of organizational identity and caused other disruptions in delivering local programs and services, since the instruments used for this regionalization (Mancomunidades) are facing trade-offs between conflicting public interests, reduce autonomy and require high levels of coordination.
B. Privatization requires less coordination than regionalization but, in many instances requires long term contracting relationships with private organizations. Bidding processes are required. Contracts for the provision of certain services (utilities, social services, etc.) are sophisticated (i.e. others subcontractors are implied,) and, particularly in large cities, urban development requires joint ventures or PPP, where relatively large amounts in terms of money are involved, and require the appointment of board members that may have connections with other private interests. This implies the necessity for more complex accountability instruments.
C. Yet, local governments also enter into delivery arrangements with local civic associations not only to provide a sense of community, but also for the provision of local social services that are mainly funded by the local government, in which case, some associations may become dependent, less autonomous and less critical.
All these changes imply a large array of levels of discretion that might be beneficial for the actors involved, but not necessarily for the good of the local community, and thus, have implications in the design and setting of new accountability mechanisms.
The purpose of this paper is to describe, analyze and evaluate the accountability framework for Spanish local governments, which include not only formal regulatory mechanisms and their different levels of compliance, but also the variety of responses to local and regional accountability initiatives. Many of these measures have been put in practice in order to face serious cases of corruption and to improve public trust.
The paper will be based on data from Spanish councils that had scored excellent or good, as well as those that have done less well on local accountability, relying on data already collected by the Spanish Association of Municipalities and Provinces and Transparency International. To find out practices of accountability regulation in each municipality, and the different levels of compliance, semi-structured interviews will be conducted in ten local governments (different size, political parties, minority-majority, etc.) which will include about 100 individuals (council and party group leaders, monitoring officers, local journalists and local activists, among others).
