The lack of skilled civil servants in some councils, such as auditors, a key figure in overseeing the economic activity of municipal governments, generates a lot of setbacks in municipal management. In addition to this internal control, the Sindicatura de Comptes de Catalunya is the external body in charge of inspecting the accounts in the Catalan public sector. Despite this, the auditors consider that these filters are "insufficient", which is why they ask for "greater and more transparent" financial control, especially in councils. In this sense, in this electoral campaign they have proposed to politicians that they undertake to carry out "mandatory and systematic external audits" every year.
A report on auditing in the public sphere in Spain, recently published by the Institute of Statutory Auditors of Spain, concludes that 92% of the expenditure of the councils in Spain is not audited, there is no internal control or the information has not been provided directly. The authors of the study contacted the 149 municipalities with more than 50,000 inhabitants, but obtained only 27 responses, of which 12 indicated that they audit the annual accounts. Extrapolated to Catalonia and without official figures available, the president of the College of Statutory Auditors of Catalonia, Antoni Gómez, estimates that the "vast majority" of Catalan councils are not audited "voluntarily" by private professionals because it is not mandatory, so its implementation is almost "anecdotal". As an exception to the rule, one of the few that does this is the Barcelona City Council since 1992, when it acceded to the international financing of the Olympic Games.
The president of the Catalan auditors adds that the Audit Office published 33 reports on its actions during the 2022 financial year, but comments that "they are limited to reviewing formal aspects" and their intervention "does not involve the auditing of the annual accounts presented ". He insists that his control "does not reach the councils" (947 in Catalonia) and gives as an example that this body in the previous year only carried out a complete financial review of one council (Badia del Vallès in the year 2020) and two more partially (Sabadell in 2019 and Montcada and Reixac in 2020).
In addition, it highlights that 27% of Catalan municipalities submitted accounts after the deadline, and in 84% of the cases of those that did so on time, deficiencies were detected, such as "lack of information, consistency or other anomalies ”, according to the report on the General Account of Local Corporations on the accounting data for 2020, published at the end of last year by the Union.
In view of this situation, the collegiate entity has sent a letter to the political formations in which it urges the Administration to oblige at least the Councils with a population of more than 5,000 inhabitants to submit to an external audit annually, as is the case with companies that have a certain dimension.
