Preliminary note

The term ‘public administration’ (administraciones públicas) in Spain is used to cover a variety of institutions and services operating at central, regional and local level, as can be seen in figure 6.1. Since the departmental reorganisation of July 1986, the co-ordination and overall control of this vast bureaucracy has been the responsibility of the Ministry of Public Administration (Ministerio de Administraciones Públicas).

This particular chapter is organically linked, as we have seen, to chapter 5 on central government and is primarily concerned with examining central public administration. The regional and local authorities are dealt with respectively in chapters 7 and 8. This chapter examines the structure and functions of the ministerial departments, with a section that examines the 'anatomy' of one particular ministry, the social security system and the numerous autonomous administrative bodies (organismos autónomos administrativos) (6.3) which are dependent on the government departments. However, autonomous commercial, industrial and financial bodies, which are linked to most departments, are seen as forming part of‘public sector enterprises’, and they are thus dealt with in chapter 9. Finally, although recent years have seen the transfer of many powers and functions from central administration to the autonomous communities, reference is made to the institutional structure through which central government is administered at a local level through the system of delegated administration (administratión periférica del estado) (6.5.1).