José Ramón Riera has been in charge of showing the economic bankruptcy of the Spanish system, in which he has disclosed the research he carried out during the pandemic in which he demonstrates that, "using business techniques it is possible to reduce the costs of the regional system".

Riera has highlighted the high price of autonomies in Spain, “they cost 220,000 million euros in 2020 and the cost continues to increase, in fact in 2022 an increase of 6% is expected. All the autonomies also do not spend the same, for example, although the average spending is 8.3 percent, Catalonia has increased spending by 24% ".

In this sense, he highlighted the cost of personnel of the Autonomous Communities, "only the  personnel expenses are 67,000 million euros, which represents the 30% expenses. There are 450,000 public employees in the category of “others”, and they have entered through the revolving doors without control or supervision. This translates into captive votes, which means that in communities such as Catalonia this spending has increased by 18.02 percent, while for example in Castilla y León it has not increased because they have had to renew the budget. 

Another of the items of expenditure that Riera has highlighted is that of the current expenses that in the year 2020 increased by 6.6%. On average, they spent 4.1% in the Autonomous Communities, with Catalonia being the one that accumulated the most total spending, 9.6%. As for the cost of senior management, Andalusia breaks the spending record with 225 million euros in 2020. 

 

Regarding spending on Health, on average the communities spent 30% of the total budget. In Asturias they dedicate 40 percent of the Budget to it, while in Catalonia and Navarra only 23%. “When you spend a lot of money on other things, there is less left over for what is important”, pointed out José Ramón Riera.

The same happens in Education. “Only 50 percent of the Budget goes to the two major functions of the Autonomous Communities. Autonomous management can be measured, the I.G.A can be improved through the analysis of the different indices. If one dedicates oneself to research, one can improve the data. How can one save substantial money? Capping the cost per inhabitant and assimilating it to the one that has managed it better”.