Problematic and Effects of the Implementation of the Transparency Law in Spanish General Administration of the State

In September of 2013, Spanish Parliament approved the Transparency Act. It was into force one year later and it implied two innovations for all the Spanish Public Administration: First, they should publish “relevant and present” information -data- without the demand of the citizens. Second, the citizenship would have the right to access to the “public information”. This law had a triple objective: (1) Guarantee the right of the citizens to access public information (2) Obligate the Spanish Public Administrations to be transparent (3) Monitor the public management. This paper is a case-study of the implementation of the Transparence Act in the “General State Administration”, the national level government. In the paper we will try to assess the achievement of the three objectives mentioned above. For that we are studying the process to create “Transparence Portal” in the Public Administration Departments –Ministries- and the evaluating of their functioning. We are going to use public data for the Ministries, interviews of the Transparency Unit mangers and survey data about the legitimation and performance of the Public Administration. The main objective of the paper is set conclusions that can serve as a hypothesis to studies of the participation of the citizens in the public management.