On June 18th and 19th, the Tecnocampus in Mataró was held third edition of the Public Management Congress, organized by theCatalan Association of Public ManagementThe meeting brought together nearly 500 public managers, academics and experts from the sector to reflect on the major challenges facing Catalan administrations and identify concrete proposals to move towards closer institutions.eres, agile, efficient and transparent.
The AOC was present with two complementary interventions: that of Miquel Estapé, director, focused on the opportunities of artificial intelligence for the local world, and that of Genís Vives, legal advice technician, dedicated to data governance and interoperability.
AI as an opportunity to transform administrations
In his speech, Miquel Estapé, director of the AOC, started from a clear diagnosis: Catalan administrations are highly digitalized, but still little transformed. The difference is crucial, and the key to overcoming it is to look at everything from the perspective of public value.
This is where artificial intelligence opens up a real opportunity for transformation: moving towards more inclusive and easier-to-use services, more efficient —with savings and reduced deadlines—, capable of generating useful knowledge (insights) and even make possible new services that could not have been considered before.
This transformation is precisely the mission of the AOC, and the shared services model is its lever. The logic is “add to multiply”: given the diversity and limited resources of the local world —remember that 90% of entities are very small—, shared services allow even the smallest organization to access the same capabilities. Added to this is open innovation, and a culture of sharing knowledge, solutions and data.
All of this is already translated into concrete projects with tangible benefits such as solutions for Video identification with facial recognition, which has allowed 600.000 people to remotely obtain a idCAT Mobile and access their digital rights. Or the chatbots with generative AI support for the use of AOC services which has allowed the capacity to provide care to be tripled with the same budget;
These opportunities, however, are only sustainable within a framework of ethical and responsible AI: reports from transparència algorithmic for all cases, a diverse team that brings different perspectives and the ability to resist the temptation to move forward too quickly.
In short, the opportunities are extraordinary, but it is important to position them well: AI technology is an accelerator of change, but transformation is done by people, and its foundation is data —its quality, its governance and the will to share it—. As Estapé recalled, quoting Genís Roca, “everything is going very fast, but nothing will be fast.” That is why the methodology must be that of learning by innovating: experimenting with low risk —at a personal, group and organizational level—, validating and, finally, scaling.
Data, interoperability and the role of the AOC in the country ecosystem
From the hand of the legal advice technician Genis Vives, the AOC participated in the round table of area 4, “Organizing public action looking at the new society (II)”, dedicated to the management of data policies: privacy and massive exploitation, the elimination of paper and the demand for documentation from citizens, and interoperability between administrations. The same table also included Laura Sunyol, director of Innovation and Digital Transformation of the Mataró City Council, and Andreu Francisco, director of Localret.
The underlying message connected with that of Estapé: Catalonia has digitized the Administration a lot, but the current challenge is transformation, and this requires a profound cultural and organizational change, because we already have the legal and technological fields ready. In this ecosystem, the AOC plays a key role, because it allows the transformation to reach from the smallest local entity to the Generalitat of Catalonia. Today, common services register 2,5 million daily operations by citizens, companies and administrations, and 93 million data exchanges between administrations.
This work makes sense because citizens value public services: they rate them 7,9/10, according to data from the 2025 CEO, and even those who never use them give them a 5/10 importance. Corresponding to this trust with good public services —including digital ones— is a guarantee of public legitimacy and democracy. However, there is still a long way to go: according to the AOC methodology, in interoperability we are at around 20% of the potential for effective use.
Vives focused especially on proactive and personalized services. Law 9/2025 has introduced them as a right of citizenship, but at the same time, express consent must be obtained, in accordance with the criteria of the APDCAT. However, there are international references such as theChildbirth allowance from Austria, where the proactive service is based on a standard with the rank of law and, therefore, does not require consent. The conclusion is practical: it is necessary to identify specific problems and work with legislators to have legal authorizations that allow services to be made even more proactive.
Finally, he highlighted the importance of the common local data platform, led by the AOC with the Smart Local Government Network. It is a great opportunity for public sector data to generate even more value, always through good governance and quality assurance.
