The process of adaptation of the entities that make up the institutional administration to the corresponding Law regulating its regime is not new and thus through Royal Decree 370/1999, of March 5, the adaptation of various entities of public law to the provisions of Law 6/1997, of April 14, on the Organization and Operation of the General Administration of the State was carried out.

Law 40/2015, of October 1, on the Legal Regime of the Public Sector was intended “to simplify the structure of public bodies by rationalising the typology of public bodies and bodies by establishing a new, clearer, more orderly and simplified classification”. The outline of this legal text allows us to understand how government and executive decisions are articulated in the organizational structure of public entities, as well as the responsibilities and functions of each entity.

This legislation provides for a division within the institutional public sector between autonomous bodies, public business bodies and state agencies, and then also includes independent administrative authorities, state-owned companies, consortia, public-sector foundations, funds with no personality and non-transferable public universities in the catalogue of entities in the institutional public sector.

The aforementioned Law contains in its fourth additional provision (Adaptation of existing public entities and agencies at the state level) a mandate for the entities that make up the state institutional public sector without specific regime to adapt to its regulation in order to establish a homogeneous framework for the more general types of entities and thus provides that:

“Entities with specific legal regime at the entry into force of this law will continue to be governed by their specific legislation, maintaining their legal nature, and only as a substitute, and as long as it is compatible with their specific legislation by the provisions of this law.

The other bodies and entities, referred to in article 84.1 of this law, existing at the time of the entry into force of the same, must adapt to its content before October 1, 2024, being governed until the adaptation is carried out by its specific regulations.

The adaptation will be carried out by preserving the current specialties of the agencies and entities in terms of personnel, assets, budgetary regime, accounting, economic-financial control and operations as a financing agent, including, with respect to the latter, submission, where appropriate, to the private legal system. Specialities shall be preserved provided that they have not led to significant deficiencies in the control of income and expenditure causing a situation of financial imbalance at the time of adaptation.

Entities that do not have the status of contracting authority will preserve this specialty as long as it does not oppose Community regulations.”

This normative project deals with the legal mandate contained in the fourth additional provision of this legal text and addresses the adaptation of the public bodies that appear in the Law as a central categorization of the entities that make up the institutional public sector, distinguishing between autonomous bodies, public business entities and state agencies. This normative project aims to establish a homogeneous framework for the most general types of entities in relation to their structure and operation, as well as their management, especially in relation to the evaluation of their effectiveness, efficiency and transparency.

In short, this normative project incorporates the necessary adaptations to the regime provided for in that Law in terms of denominations, legal regime, personnel, contracting, economic-financial and patrimonial, budgetary, accounting and economic financial control. These are adaptations in many cases of detail or punctualization but it is necessary to establish a homogenization of the regulatory regime of these entities, taking into account their typology and specific characteristics.

This normative project therefore becomes the appropriate and voluntary legal instrument to advance the process of rationalization and simplification of the state institutional administration undertaken by the legislator. Suitable because it makes the necessary modifications to make effective the uniform framework established by Law 40/2015, of 1 October, on the Legal Regime of the Public Sector; and voluntary, because it has included the entities that have opted for this route instead of resorting to a specific and concrete rule for its adaptation. Those that have not been included have been because the adaptation was carried out recently through the modification of its corresponding Statute or because they are processing an amendment of its Statute.

Consequently, it is necessary to adapt the regime of the public agencies indicated to the regulation contained in Law 40/2015, of October 1, on the Legal Regime of the Public Sector, and thus establish a homogeneous framework.

The future rule would aim to comply with the legal mandate contained in the fourth additional provision of Law 40/2015, of 1 October, on the Legal Regime of the Public Sector.

Discarding the non-regulatory options required to adapt its regime to the content of Law 40/2015, of 1 October, the following regulatory options are considered:

An alternative to carry out the adaptation would have been to adopt a specific normative project for each of the public bodies that must adapt to the content of Law 40/2015, of 1 October, however, this would mean a large number of rules, which does not seem opportune; especially when the modifications that are necessary in most of the entities have not been extensive.

Therefore, criteria of rationality have advised to choose to bring together in a single standard the set of modifications required by the regulatory standard of the agencies and entities.

Another alternative would have been to go to a normative project similar to Royal Decree 370/1999, of March 5, which opted for a general adaptation referring to the regulatory regime of the LOFAGE. However, this alternative has also been discarded because it has been considered that the scheme that the normative project draws is more clarifying and transparent.