El VI report on the clarity of Spanish administrations, by Prodigioso Volcán, analyses this year the citizen folders: that of the State and those of three autonomous communities (Catalonia, Madrid and Andalusia), which bring together nearly 44% of the Spanish population. The conclusion goes beyond each product: the folders have improved, but citizens continue to carry an administrative backpack, because they need to know which administration is competent, which portal they need and which identification system they need. The report puts the number of folders created since 2010 at more than 1.300.
The report does not evaluate El Meu Espai, but its conclusions directly dialogue with it. The AOC service is the inter-administrative layer that brings together procedures, notifications, taxes, fines, automatic issuance of registration flyers and data queries from the entity's electronic headquarters, without any city council having to build its own folder. It is a shared response to a problem that cannot be solved administration by administration.
A more digital, but not simpler, administration
The underlying question is an uncomfortable one: we may have created a more digital Administration, but not a simpler one. Folders promised a single point of access and, in part, they have fulfilled this: they gather data, notifications, appointments and files, increasingly sorted by life situations. But the person still has to know which agency is involved, which folder or office to use and which identification method corresponds to him. A folder organizes information; a backpack carries the weight of many folders.
The missing map: from “look for it” to “tell me what you need”
The next step, says the report, is not to make more folders, but a map of needs: that someone can say “I've moved” or “I have three children, what help can I ask for?” and that the Administration finds the competent body and the steps. Artificial intelligence (AI) can interpret these intentions, but it will only provide reliable guidance if public information is clear, structured and traceable. With fragmented data, it warns, it will not navigate the maze either.
The experiment shows this. Of 15 synthetic profiles aged 20 to 70 who were asked to renew their ID, 14 indicated that the information was spread across three or more websites as a friction, they opened an average of 4,5 pages and none felt fully prepared to go to the appointment the next day.
Six years measuring the right to understand
It is the sixth report in a series that Prodigioso Volcán has been publishing since 2020 and that has already analyzed more than 900 texts, procedures and platforms of Spanish administrations. The value lies in the method: four pillars (language, usability, accessibility and interaction design), a matrix of its own clarity, expert analysis of portals and applications, citizen ratings in application stores and an experiment with synthetic profiles, of which it makes explicit the limits: it is used to detect friction, not to estimate population percentages. And it ends with a question that has no owner: who is responsible for the complete citizen experience when several administrations are involved.
El Meu Espai: a door so you don't have to guess where to start
The report does not analyze El Meu Espai, but its conclusions are a good mirror to measure it. The service, available from October 15, 2020, is the AOC's inter-administrative citizen folder.
Accessed as an int personeressada or as representathanks to the integration with the service of Representa of the AOC and gathers procedures, e-NOTUM notifications, data queries made by administrations through Via Oberta and authentications with VÀLid. It integrates with the state folder and allows an entity's own folder to be connected to it: it is not just another folder, but a layer that connects them.
It points to two demands of the report. The first is that interoperability be measured by the experience of the person and not just by the exchange of data: a El Meu Espai, the person sees which administrations have consulted their data through Via ObertaThe second, reduce the dispersion between skills: the initiative to integrate local taxes and fines, in collaboration with the four Management and Collection Bodies (ORGTs) of Catalonia, to make it easier for a person to see their taxes without having to know who manages them.
Identification, however, remains a requirement. It can be accessed with idCAT Mobile, digital certificate, Cl@ve and other systems, and the report warns that this menu, without guidance, is a barrier to entry. The AOC provides the registration assistantidCAT Mobile, which the report highlights because it guides the process with a question on the screen.
The logic is that of a shared infrastructure: the AOC builds and maintains it once, at no cost to the entities, and more than 1.800 entities are already integrated into it. The alternative is the one described in the report, each administration with its own folder, its name and its identification. A small town council that activates it offers residents the same as a provincial council, without developing anything.
What the report still asks of us
Read with demand, the report also points out duties. The nomenclature: each administration calls its personal space differently; it must be made recognizable in the electronic headquarters of each entity, where the person is already. The information: a conversational map will only be reliable if there are clearly described services and procedures underneath.
The objective set by the report is an Administration where complexity is internal and clarity is visible. This cannot be asked of every town hall; it is built once, for everyone. That the resident of a town of five hundred inhabitants sees her procedures with the same clarity as that of a large city will not be a merit of her town hall, but of having shared it.
Finally, it is for these reasons that El meu Espai We continue to work on validating new improvements with tests and interviews with users. Among them, the simplification of showing your procedures, a more proactive personalization of services, especially with a new version of the Social Recommender. And additionally, new information and data integrations.
