With around thirty signings and movements in the management of the City Council, the government of Jaume Collboni concludes the internal restructuring of the Casa Gran. The empowerment of municipal management has been a priority since the socialist mayor took over from Ada Colau; The changes move towards the Maragall model, enhancing the internal gearing to gain efficiency and agility and driving with more competitive criteria.
This new structure supports the action of a municipal government that has until now been in the minority (with 10 of the 41 councillors), but which sets the course for the next ten years, also with a clear commitment to digital management and the use and application of new technologies in all areas.
“This is not about announcing a dance of names, this is a fundamental change that has involved the restructuring of areas, eliminating some and merging others to be more effective and to give more coherence to management,” explains the municipal manager, Albert Dalmau, the person in charge of devising and leading this transformation, “the most ambitious in 15 years,” says. Thus, areas such as Housing and Urban Planning have been unified, “because the objective is to make more public housing and it did not make sense for them to be separated,” or the area of Economy with that of Economic Promotion.
The municipal structure run by Dalmau is now divided into seven managements, four of them with new managers (Joan Cambronero, Xavier Patón, Marta Clari and Sara Jaurrieta). In the list of internal promotions and signings with selection processes there are numbers such as Maria Buhigas and Gloria Viladrich (in the area of Urbanism and Housing), Oriol Altisench in Engineering, Oriol Marti (ICUB), Elena Molina (Municipal Institute of Treasury), Lorenzo Di Prieto (Barcelona Activa) and Álex Montes (Foment Ciutat).
Another notable incorporation, due to his career in the technological field, is that of Emili Rubio, who comes from the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya (UOC) to direct the Municipal Institute of Informatics. “The commitment to technology is a priority, we want to be a 100% digital administration and see how we can incorporate artificial intelligence in some processes, such as contracting, or streamline the licensing or construction permit processes and simplify regulations,” explains Dalmau.
The renewal of the management structure has also affected the management of the districts with changes in Ciutat Vella, Eixample, Sants and Les Corts.
“The transformation of the City Council is a priority of this mandate to prepare and address the current and future challenges of society and achieve a more efficient, agile and sustainable administration to provide the best service to citizens,” maintains the mayor, who adds that “The objective is to make a leap in scale in the implementation of technology and talent.” Despite being part of the previous municipal government team, with this fundamental remodeling, Jaume Collboni wants to establish his own profile with his sights set beyond this mandate.
“Barcelona City Council has always been a benchmark and solvent thanks to the team of top-level professionals that we have now reinforced,” says the municipal manager. “The transition has been impeccable and was necessary to make public administration more efficient, so as not to be left behind and to be able to continue providing quality services,” he adds.
With the changes already consolidated, Dalmau brought together 300 municipal management positions a few weeks ago – including companies, consortia, institutes, the Urban Police and firefighters – to share and establish with them the new roadmap: the Municipal Transformation Agenda. He has also shared the change of course with the City Council's 25 main suppliers: “Public-private collaboration is essential.”
The organizational changes and appointments respond to this Municipal Transformation Agenda that affects the entire executive structure and also the dependent entities assigned to the public sector. An agenda that establishes ten strategic areas, five with an external vision and another five with an internal vision. The first group includes Pla Endreça, decarbonization (measures against climate change), housing, major urban transformations and global reputation, which implies reviewing the story of the Barcelona brand in the world, enhancing the city's leadership. and promote great events.
On an internal level, the five objectives of the new municipal management involve, first of all, “an easy administration, which can guarantee comprehensive attention to citizens through all channels,” explains Dalmau, whose objective is to provide a leap to position Barcelona as a European benchmark for digital administration. Data culture, with a commitment to comprehensive and real-time management of automated information, is another objective. "This will allow us, for example, to improve the cleaning service because we will manage the data provided by all the sensors on the vehicles, which may mean that there will not be so many inspectors needed, because we will know what is happening at all times," says the manager of Barcelona City Council.
Territorial decentralization and the metropolitan environment are other priorities, without forgetting the primary one: “Maintaining solvent finances to guarantee financial and budgetary capacity,” says Dalmau, with the aim of maintaining a debt of less than 35% and, among others measures, negotiate a financial co-responsibility pact for Barcelona and concentrate municipal services in publicly owned buildings.
