He Governing Council of the Junta de Andalucía approved this week his fourth decree law of administrative simplification that considerably reduces the time with which the administration works. The decree still has to come out in the BOJA to know the details of it, although both the president of the Board, Juanma Morenoas the advisor to the Presidency, Interior, Social Dialogue and Administrative Simplification, Antonio Sanzhave already given some keys to what the standard will contain.
The decree seeks two things: that citizens do not get caught up in the times used by the administration and the boost economic activity, that is, making it easy for companies. According to what is known so far, this file that will be passed to the bureaucracy will affect multiple issues, from the time it takes to open a residence to the months you have to wait to have dependency recognized.
Administrative silence and responsible declaration
The decree, which has yet to come into force, “significantly” expands – as approved by the Government Council – the procedures to which positive administrative silence applies and those that can be saved with a responsible declaration. Positive administrative silence means that if the Board has not responded to a request or claim within the stipulated period that I had to do it, It is understood that said request or claim is favorable to the person who filed it..
In the case of The responsible declaration reduces (a lot) the stipulated times. Literally, a responsible declaration is a document signed by an interested party in which he or she states that he or she meets the requirements established in the regulations to obtain something. For example, in Córdoba, The Urban Planning Management allows you to present, in several cases, a responsible declaration to start a commercial activitywithout the need to request a license and with the possibility that the inspection services, a posteriori, confirm on the spot that what was stated in said declaration was true.
It remains to be seen what procedures the decree incorporates into the list of processes that can be carried out with these two figures, although the Board has set a very clear example. To open a residence, a responsible declaration will be enough and administrative silence will prevail.. With this, the regional government estimates that it will take from two years to three months on average to be able to open the center.
Heritage: less work for commissions
Something that will greatly affect Córdoba will be the simplification that is applied in terms of historical heritage.. In the city, practically any intervention that wants to be carried out in a BIC environment requires the Provincial Heritage Commission to meet and give approval. According to the minutes of the meetings held by the Heritage Commission in 2023, there were 18 meetings, between ordinary and extraordinary sessions, where almost 250 issues were discussedfrom the renovation of a private house on Arenillas Street to an intervention in the Alcázar requested by Urban Planning. With the new decree, the number of procedures that have to go through these commissions will be reduced. It’s more, there will be no need to have a report from the commission if an individual (company or family) wants to do a work in a protected environment.
In terms of heritage, also will be valid with a responsible declaration for those archaeological activities that are affected by the Historical Heritage Law.
Society: reduction where it is most needed
Beyond economic activities, urban planning procedures or works, bureaucratic reduction also is expected in procedures that have to do with the health and well-being of citizens. It will happen, for example, in the agency, where the Board hopes to reduce the resolution of requests in one year (from 555 to 180 days). The number of documents that must be filled out to process the Minimum Income for Social Insertion will also be reduced and the three annexes that must now be completed to renew the status of a large family will be unified into one.
Environment: environmental authorization
Environmental authorization is the permission given by the competent authority for the start of an activity, proving that it complies with environmental requirements. With the decree, the unified ones (a single resolution for the evaluation of the environmental impact where the different authorizations and requirements are collected) They will be resolved in a simplified way, going from integrating 48 sectoral authorizations to 16 and the integrated ones will go from 23 to 15. In the case of unified ones, a simplified unified environmental authorization will be created that will only need a ruling to be approved.
In the same matter, The start of an activity will be enabled with a responsible declaration from the promoter, without the accreditation certification of the director of the work being necessary. There will also be implemented a single window model for environmental procedures. The aim is to improve procedures that have to do with transportation, urban planning or drought.
More data
This decree law modifies 176 regulations, 53 laws, 95 decrees and 28 orders and will reduce the number of applications used in the Junta de Andalucía by 90%, going from having more than 1,000 to less than 100. In addition, it includes more than 450 administrative simplification measures to improve the relationship between citizens and administration, with the aim of putting an end to regulatory complexity, administrative tangle, cumbersome procedures, duplications and slow processing. The decree law is designed to shorten the administration’s response times.