Context

The Diputación Foral de Gipuzkoa pays special attention to the Governances and the effective incorporation of the citizen participation in its daily management. The creation and configuration of the Governance and Communication with society Department, which depends on the Citizen Participation Direction and the "Good Governance Strategy" included in the Strategic Plan of Management for the 2015-2019 term is a good example of it.

The "Good Governance Strategy" advocates transforming forms of governance and making Good Governance the hallmark of the Provincial Council of Gipuzkoa, opening up new channels of participation for this purpose.

This strategy means a new way of government which incorporates an horizontal and decentralized vision of its exercise and a full development of the work in a network, conceived as an interinstitutional tool of cooperation and impulse of citizens participation policies.

The Strategic Plan of Management for the 2015-2019 raises the need to "establish an open relationship with citizens" as a general objective and, within this objective, the Council of Town Councils is set up for participation in networking and recognition of good practices in this area.

This interinstitutional space, with some precedents opened in the last term, even no formalized from the institutional point of view, case of "Herritarrekin Sarea", wants to go further than the conventional logic of functioning of the organs that traditionally institutionalize participation.

This Interistitutional Space of Citizen Participation of the Historic Territory in Gipuzkoa has now as an objective to build, through a process of effective institutionalization, an interinstitutional network or space of which the Provincial Council of Gipuzkoa and the municipalities of the Historical Territory form part, although other local entities of Gipuzkoa can occasionally incorporate and take active part of the interinstitutional network.

The creation or institutionalization of this space has in this moments a much more deeper because it coincides in time with the recent approval of Law 2/2016, of 7 April, on Local Institutions of the Basque Country, which includes in chapter IV, Title VI, a detailed and exhaustive regulation on Citizen Participation applicable to Gipuzkoa local entities and especially to their municipalities.

A regulation that develops and details a new normative framework of citizen participation that must necessarily encourage the development of this transversal policy in the municipalities of Gipuzkoa and reinforce the role of citizens in the promotion, design, execution and evaluation of local public policies.

Strategic Plan for the Management in the term 2015-2019:

http://w390w.gipuzkoa.net/WAS/CORP/DPDOficinaPrensaDigitalWEB/descarga.do?JcPK/nCEm1E/g/5ZL0Tl10/o0ctvZZ2FARvn9Axrxs5F0JnaaQg53w==

Law 2/2016, of 7 April, on Local Institutions of the Basque Country

https://www.euskadi.eus/y22-bopv/es/bopv2/datos/2016/04/1601544a.pdf

FORAL DECREE 1/2017, of 17 January, establishing the Interinstitutional Space for Citizen Participation of the Historical Territory of Gipuzkoa.

https://ssl4.gipuzkoa.net/castell/bog/2017/01/23/c1700361.htm

Experience
 

The Interinstitutional Space of Citizen Participation is governed by principles of antiformalism and flexibility in the definition of bodies and structures. The organizational norms of space may create new structures, adapt existing ones or open forums of different character to those originally planned.

The structure of this space is:

A.NEEDED STRUCTURES

A.1. General Space or plenary.

The General Space or Plenary is the body that brings together all the institutional actors that are part of Space. The activities developed are:

1. To know and inform the basic lines of the subsidies that the Provincial Council intends to approve in matters of citizen participation and that they are directed to the municipalities and to the rest of local entities.
2. Define the main lines of activities and benefits that must be promoted from this Space.
3. Receive detailed information on all activities and benefits in this area driven from the Executive Space and the agreements or proposals of the Technical Forums.
4. Propose to the Provincial Council of Gipuzkoa the budget to be allocated to the Interinstitutional Space.
5. To approve the internal regulation of organization and operation of the Space.
6. To approve the annual report of activities.
7. Appoint the three persons holding the mayor's office or a council that will be members of the Executive Area representing the municipalities. In this vote only the members representing the municipalities and not those of the Provincial Council will intervene.

The General Space or Plenary shall be convened at least annually. However, after a first call it may be agreed that meetings are held on a biannual basis

A.2. Executive Space

The Executive Space adopts, at the proposal of the Technical Forums, all kinds of agreements that are not reserved to the competence of the General Space or Plenary. It has as functions

1. To promote the elaboration of municipal regulations or ordinances in matters of citizen participation.
2. Define methodologies of participatory-type processes of type-agreements of participatory deliberation of municipal character and of the rest of local entities.
3. Provide support for the creation of registers of citizen participation entities promoted by municipalities or other local entities.
4. Design model-types of participation in the elaboration of the general normative dispositions of the municipalities and of the rest of local entities.
5. Develop methodology and standard instruments of citizen participation, particularly in what concerns popular consultations, sectoral or territorial consultations, open consultations, as well as providing technical support in the field of information technologies and telematic means to make effective such instruments.
6. Foster the development of municipal organizational structures and other local entities of a transversal nature in terms of citizen participation and support the political and technical levels of municipalities.
7. Exercise any other activity, attribution or function recognized by the rules or that has a direct relationship with the object and purposes of the Space and helps to promote citizen participation.

B. TECHNICAL FORUMS

Spaces for the debate, articulation of measures and elaboration of projects and regulations, mainly oriented to elaborate proposals directed to the necessary structures of the Space with the purpose of strengthening the policies of citizen participation of the city councils and other local entities of Gipuzkoa and the regional institution.

It will be possible to set up study and analysis groups, to promote workshops or seminars and to include experts in the different areas of citizen participation.

The composition of each of these spaces is governed by the provisions of Decree 1/2017 of 17 January establishing the Interinstitutional Space of Citizen Participation of the Historical Territory of Gipuzkoa and by the organizational rules that are approved by the General Space or Plenary on the proposal of the Executive Space and which will be published in the Official Gazette of Gipuzkoa.

Methodology

The Interinstitutional Space of Citizen Participation of the Historical Territory of Gipuzkoa has a General Space or Plenary, which acts as the starter of the process of construction of the Space and that later acquires an intermittent and less effective role.

The protagonism is transferred in favor of the Executive Space, reduced in its composition with the purpose of making it the real engine of the network that is constituted of a multilevel institutional scope that has among its priority objectives to guarantee the effectiveness of municipal participation, although with a few Functional attributions in what affects activities and, where appropriate, benefits, of high level, especially in what affects the municipalities, and with a preponderance multilevel.

The Executive Space and its own functional activity is fed by the technical Forums, which are the areas of interrelation where the different proposals are prepared that are later raised to the Plenary or, as the case may be, to the Executive Space. In these Forums of a technical nature we work on the aspects of citizen participation at the municipal level, although with an undeniable interrelation with everything that is done or promoted from the Provincial Council.

Impact on public policies

This Interinstitutional Space for Citizen Participation serves as a technical cooperation instrument and vehicle for support or support to municipalities and other local entities of the Historical Territory in what concerns the implementation of the regulatory measures provided for in Law 2 / 2016, of April 7, of Local Institutions of Euskadi. The Space will promote and, where appropriate, guarantee the following activities and benefits:.

a) To promote the elaboration of regulations or municipal ordinances in matters of citizen participation that develop what is foreseen in Chapter IV, Title VI, of the Law of Local Institutions of Euskadi.

b) Provide support for the creation, where appropriate, of citizen participation entities promoted by municipalities or other local entities, as well as to comply with the requirements set forth in articles 70 and 71 of Law 2/2016, of 7 of April, of Local Institutions of Euskadi.

c) Design model-types of participation in the elaboration of the general normative dispositions of the municipalities and of the rest of local entities.

This legislation on citizen participation in the Law on Local Institutions also has a strong influence on many of its aspects (for example, in what concerns participatory processes) of Norma Foral 1/2010, of July 8, on Citizen participation, so that networking and the inter-institutional exchange space that is promoted through this provincial decree can enrich bi-directional to the regional institution and local institutions, also serving as a test bench for the modification of the Formal rule, which the Strategic Management Plan 2015-2019 also promotes.

On the other hand, the commissioning of the bilateral Commission for the coordination of citizen participation policies between the Diputación Foral de Gipuzkoa and the Association of EUDEL Basque Municipalities has among its functions to coordinate those powers of the Interinstitutional Space of Citizen Participation whose effects may affect The whole of the Basque municipalities or involving the implementation of participative methodologies, normative projects, training programs or any other instrument that may have applicability in municipalities of the other Historical Territories.

Impact on actors involved

The Interinstitutional Space for Citizen Participation in the Historical Territory of Gipuzkoa promotes a series of initiatives with obvious impact on the participants because:

• It offers training programs and specialized seminars that reinforce the institutional competencies of the public positions and develop the professional competences of the local and local managerial and technical personnel in matters of citizen participation.
• It consists of study and analysis groups, workshops and seminars and incorporates experts in the different areas of citizen participation.

It establishes channels of exchange, assistance and technical cooperation for the correct exercise and fulfillment of the normative obligations, and the implementation of methodologies, processes and instruments of citizen participation.

Evaluation

The Interinstitutional Space for Citizen Participation establishes effective monitoring and evaluation mechanisms based on the formulation of a series of quality criteria and the elaboration of a set of monitoring and evaluation indicators.

The Technical Forums have the obligation to finalize the exercise of the different ones to make a report-balance of the activities carried out during the exercise, as well as to report them to the Executive Space and the General Space.

The General Space or Plenary receives detailed information on all the activities and services in this area driven by the Executive Space and the agreements or proposals of the Technical Forums.

Specific programs of participation, training programs, meetings, seminars, training activities, etc. Developed within the framework of the activity carried out in the Interinstitutional Space for Citizen Participation, have a methodology for evaluating the quality of the participatory process based on a battery of proven and validated indicators to ensure compliance with a series of quality criteria:

• Criteria related to the coordination of the initiative: Degree of agreement, transversality, leadership, integration and interaction with local participation dynamics, clarity of objectives, resources.
• Criteria related to the level and nature of the participating citizenship: Extension, diversity, representation, gender, linguistic equality.
• Criteria with the methodology used: Degree of participation, capacity of proposal, quality of the information, quality of the deliberation.

Reasons to consider it as an innovative experience

1. It is a space whose structure and functioning are perfectly defined, regulated and legislated in the DECREE FORAL 1/2017, of January 17, which creates the Interinstitutional Space for Citizen Participation of the Historical Territory of Gipuzkoa in which its planning is defined , Coordination and assignment of responsibilities.
2. It overcomes the conventional logic of functioning of the organs that traditionally institutionalize participation. It runs away from the traditional system of assigning functions to an organ, because it seeks to foster networking, exchange and joint learning through different experiences driven from the two main levels of government represented in this Interinstitutional Space.
3. Its structure is based on anti-formalism criteria and flexibility in its configuration, in line with its formal and material distancing from the traditional model of "Councils" of Citizen Participation,
4. It establishes a bilateral Commission of policies of citizen participation between the Provincial Council of Gipuzkoa and the Basque Association of Municipalities EUDEL in order to coordinate the attributions of this Interinstitutional Space whose effects can affect all the Basque municipalities or that involve the implementation Of participatory methodologies, normative projects, training programs or any other instrument that may have applicability in municipalities of the other Historical Territories.

Candidacy form