The law requiring evaluation of State public policies

Automatic summary, not yet reviewed

1. The law organizes a public system to evaluate public policies of the State Administration (Administración General del Estado) and its related public bodies, aiming to improve public services, transparency and accountability.
2. Evaluations must be independent, objective and participatory, with scientific rigor. They can be done before a policy starts (ex ante), while it is being carried out (intermediate), or after it ends (ex post).
3. Before approving laws, plans and programs that develop public policies, an Evaluability Report (Informe de EvaluabilidadInforme de Evaluabilidad A technical report checking whether a public policy is well planned and has the data and resources needed to be evaluated.) must be prepared to check whether they are well designed and can be evaluated.
4. Public policies must have indicators from their design stage, and a Common Indicators System (Sistema de Indicadores Comunes) is created, managed by the new State Agency for the Evaluation of Public Policies.
5. As a general rule, evaluations will be carried out by a team external to the body responsible for the policy, whose members must sign a declaration of independence and impartiality. The Final Evaluation Report must be published within one month.
6. The State Agency for the Evaluation of Public Policies is created, with autonomy. It will plan the Government's strategic evaluations and submit an annual report to the Spanish Parliament (Cortes Generales). Each ministry will have an Evaluation Coordination Unit.

Who it affects

• Ministries and the State Administration, which must plan and carry out evaluations of their public policies.: They must prepare Evaluability Reports, use indicators, commission evaluations and respond to their results.
• Public bodies linked to or dependent on the State, which are also covered by the law.: Their public policies are subject to the same evaluation system.
• The new State Agency for the Evaluation of Public Policies, which coordinates and oversees the whole system.: It prepares methodologies, indicators, plans and the annual report to the Spanish Parliament.
• Public employees, who will receive specific training in evaluation.: The Agency, together with the National Institute of Public Administration, will design training plans.
• The general public, which can consult published evaluation reports.: Final Evaluation Reports and the results of public participation will be public.

Words worth knowing

Evaluación ex ante

An evaluation done before a public policy is applied, during its design or planning stage.

Evaluación ex post

An evaluation done after a public policy has finished being carried out.

Informe de Evaluabilidad

A technical report checking whether a public policy is well planned and has the data and resources needed to be evaluated.

Indicador

A piece of data or information used to measure the progress or effects of a public policy.

Declaración responsable

A document signed by a person stating they meet certain conditions, without prior verification by an authority.

It summarizes the law as published in the BOE. It is written by artificial intelligence and may contain mistakes: the official text is what counts. Read the official text · How we make summaries