The territorial tangle of the Generalitat

We face increasingly complex collective problems of all kinds, with overlapping and intertwined issues. It often happens that the public administrations responsible for responding have a division of powers and levels of government that frequently makes it difficult to know who is responsible for what. But if, in addition, the most relevant administration in Catalonia uses different maps and territorial divisions in each department, the situation becomes very worrying. Indeed, the various departments of the Generalitat of Catalonia operate with territorial divisions that do not coincide. It is true that this lack of uniformity stems from the specific historical and logistical needs of each area of government (healthcare, education, etc.), but it is also true that, as the effects of changing times make things more complicated, as we mentioned, we could begin to see a situation where "people have problems, the Generalitat has departments."

We've long heard talk of the veguerías (administrative districts) as a solution to this and other headaches, but the 2010 Constitutional Court ruling on the Statute of Autonomy halted its development, arguing that it altered the provincial divisions. But beyond this legal hurdle, from a political standpoint there are also doubts about the role of the provincial councils in this new distribution of territorial power, what would happen to the comarcas (counties), what potential recentralization effects might arise, and so on. But perhaps more important than all of this, what's difficult to overcome is administrative inertia and the fear of the reorganization costs involved in moving towards common territorial structures for all the regional ministries. What works now has flaws, but trying to improve it is simply too much of a chore.

For all the years we've been following the Process, focusing on this issue has been a distraction from the major objectives we wanted to achieve. Idescat has indeed made the change and uses the veguerías (administrative divisions) in its statistical analyses, but the rest of the Generalitat's administrative structures still use their own territorial divisions. And all of this within a map that includes nearly 1,000 municipalities, which want to maintain their identity and their territorial and community ties but lack the scale and resources necessary to cope with the challenges they face every day.

However, we might ask ourselves why it's important for the maps to match. Many might consider it a minor, strictly internal matter, and believe it would do little to improve the problem-solving capacity of Catalan public administrations. We might also wonder if Catalonia is an exception in this regard, or if the same thing happens more or less everywhere. It's true that similar situations occur in multi-province regions throughout the rest of Spain. And it's also true that countries like Italy and France aren't far removed from this fragmentation. But it's becoming increasingly clear that only through proximity can the necessary balance be found between specialized technical efficiency (different maps) and greater effectiveness in problem-solving through comprehensive coordination, planning, and action (a single map). And we only need to look at countries with similar populations to Catalonia, such as Denmark, Sweden, Norway, or Finland, which are prime examples of how a homogeneous and coordinated territorial administration facilitates the creation of comprehensive solutions to people's problems.

However, there are emerging movements in response to the obsolescence of a territorial division that is becoming increasingly dysfunctional. I'm referring to the proposal by CAIROS, the Commissioner for Social and Healthcare Research, which aims to create an integrated care model that breaks down the barriers between health and social services. This involves promoting joint governance spaces for the two relevant departments, defining new functional territories based on the population they intend to serve, and fostering multidisciplinary care teams from the health and social sectors working together in a territory where proximity is key, regardless of whether they fall under different departments administratively. If this proposal succeeds, overcoming administrative barriers, differing professional cultures, and mismatched databases, it will be an implicit acknowledgment that, until the major territorial reform (which is currently stalled) takes place, the best strategy is to create networks of cooperation and functional integration that transcend administrative boundaries and overlapping maps.