Context
The project ‘Sharing Talent between Municipalities’ is an initiative that explores the concept of sharing skilled civil servants across various organisations; in this collaboration, two or more municipalities can share professional people in a rational way. Some municipalities, due to their small size, population or income, cannot have their own full-time staff for some tasks of low frequency or employment, but of high technical specialisation. One option to meet these needs is to use public procurement, i.e. outsourcing of services. But on many occasions, due to their technical expertise or their knowledge of the environment, it may be preferable to use their own staff but shared with other public institutions.
The project was initiated by the Instituto Nacional de Administración Pública (INAP)’s Public Innovation Laboratory, which proposed an innovation project to analyse and disseminate the administrative collaboration model of the Noja Town Council and the Castro Urdiales City Council. During the project’s execution, the municipality of Canet D’En Berenguer joined the team.
Objectives
The primary objective of this project is to address public inefficiency, which is not merely a technical issue but a significant political one with direct impacts on people’s lives. The project challenges the conventional belief that institutions are the sole owners of public resources. It argues that resources should be allocated to public services or policies, not just institutions. This shift in perspective could mitigate the rigidity in resource allocation and improve the efficiency of public management. The project aims to shift the focus from institutions to people, thereby enhancing the recognition of the public sector and improving the efficiency and quality of public services.
Implementation
The implementation of the Sharing Talent between Municipalities project involved challenging existing legislation that restricts a public employee to work for only one public institution. The mayors of Noja and Castro Urdiales, recognising the inefficiencies this could cause, promoted and signed an administrative collaboration agreement. This agreement was supported by their legal staff and was based on Article 3.1 of Law 40/2015, which emphasises efficiency in the allocation and use of public resources and cooperation, collaboration and coordination among public administrations.
The project led to the publication of the manual Sharing Talent between Municipalities, which has been widely disseminated in various forums, networks and meetings. It also instilled a culture of innovation.