Secretarios, interventores y tesoreros de la Administración Local, elementos necesarios para una nueva regeneración

Abstract

In this thesis we give an account of the professional origins of the Secretaries, Auditors and Treasurers of the Spanish Local Administration, analyzing the regenerative contribution of their functions throughout the two hundred years of their recent history. The detailed examination of these historical antecedents is used to understand the reasons that justified their emergence and the consequences that derive from their subsequent evolution until they reach the present moment. In this context, the different periods that pass from its beginnings in the iconic Constitution of Cádiz of 1812 are analyzed, in whose text the figure of the Secretaries appears for the first and only time in the history of Spanish constitutionalism, a figure that is freely elected by their respective corporations but lacks the necessary requirement of technical preparation. In the field of economic management, the so-called, at that time, Depositaries are those responsible for the management, custody and collection of public funds of the mentioned local corporations. The prominence of the latter will be subsequently limited with the irruption of the Accountants, then called Auditors, starting from the sixties of that nineteenth century. The social phenomenon of the “caciquismo” (local despotism) and its malicious influence on the Spanish local life will characterize the long period of the Restoration (1875-1923), when the regenerative measures proposed in a number of failed legislative proposals went frustrated. Precisely, many of these proposals invoked the importance of the functions assigned to the protagonists of our study in order to eradicate this painful scourge. The situation will vary positively during the Dictatorship of Primo de Rivera thanks to the great work of José Calvo Sotelo in the General Directorate of Administration. The approval of the Municipal Statute in 1924 and the provincial Statute one year later, together with all the regulations that developed it, will forge the Spanish local regime to this day. In addition, and as far as the purpose of our work is concerned, it will bring about the consolidation of the professional bodies of the Secretaries, Auditors and Depositaries of the Local Administration, which will be provided with the level of professionalism and labour immobility that they required for a long time. The periods of the Second Republic and the long period of General Franco's Dictatorship that followed represent, despite their clear ideological differentiation, a certain continuity of the legal regime constructed previously. The warning of illegality attributed to Secretaries and Auditors is a prominent feature of their functions during the Franco regime, as well as the increase in their technical preparation through the lessons they receive at the Institute of Local Administration Studies. The arrival of Democracy after the death of the dictator in 1975 will open the way to a new stage in which these professional bodies must prove their capacity to adapt to the new times. The old National Local Administration Bodies disappear and instead a modern Scale of Local Administration Officials is established with a national qualification, which inherits their basic tasks, but subject to a clear delimitation in the functions attributed for them. The study of the current situation, in which the main problems that lurk this elite of the local civil servants are examined and proposals for improvement are formulated, ultimately leads to the statement of new challenges for their regeneration. The prevention of the scourge of corruption and the challenge of the implantation of modern information and communication technologies in our local entities, constitute, without a doubt, important stimuli to ensure their survival in the most immediate future.