The newly appointed first vice president of the Government and Minister of Finance, María Jesús Montero, handed over this Friday the baton of the Public Function portfolio to the head of Digital Transformation, José Luis Escrivá, who in this new stage as a member of the Government of Pedro Sánchez faces the complex challenge of digitizing not only the Administration, but also the broad body of State officials.
The number two of the Executive has highlighted during her speech at the transfer of command ceremony held at the Secretariat of State for Public Function that this is not “just any” portfolio, since it deals with “the most important capital of public administrations, What are human resources?
After ensuring that he could not leave this portfolio “in better hands,” Montero highlighted Escrivá’s work at the head of Social Security, where he launched reforms as relevant as that of the pension system. And he has done so in the presence of his replacement in the Ministry, Elma Saiz, who assumed duties a little over a month ago, when Nadia Calviño, now out of the Government, passed the baton of Digital Transformation to Escrivá.
“He will be in charge of the most important projects of the next decade, which have to do with paradigms that will change the contemporary world, such as digital transformation, technology, the ability to apply Artificial Intelligence or the automation of processes “, listed the first vice president, to later refer to the great challenge of “human capital training.”
Escrivá, for his part, wanted to thank the President of the Government for allowing him to “contribute to improving people’s lives” from the different areas that he has piloted in recent years, such as Inclusion, Social Security, Migration and, now, Transformation. Digital and Public Service.
Already as the new minister in charge of policies that affect public administrations and civil servants, he has referred to the agreement reached with the unions during Montero’s mandate, but has avoided commenting on the 2% salary increase agreed for 2024.
Unlike pensioners, who did see their revaluation in black and white in the BOE this Thursday, public employees will have to wait, in principle, until the approval of the General State Budgets (PGE), which the Government hopes to be able to culminate in the first quarter. Although the minister now has in his hand the possibility of carrying out this commitment through an urgent decree, an option on which he has avoided making a public statement. In any case, the increase will be retroactive to January, as has happened on previous occasions.
However, the minister has highlighted the role of officials and has valued their work in the pandemic and the “extraordinary effort” they carried out in those complex moments at all levels. “This solution that we have had so powerful and so strong from the pandemic and so internationally recognized would not have been possible without such a deep-rooted vocation for public service,” he stressed.
He has also highlighted Montero’s achievements during his time at the head of the Public Service, highlighting that he has had the capacity and vision to define a regulatory base on which the transformation of the Administration will now continue to be built.
“If we look at the most prosperous and most advanced countries in Europe, which are the Nordic countries, the quality indices of Public Administration and the quality of bureaucracy appear in the highest ranking,” he explained. According to Escrivá, the better a public administration functions, the better the foundations for the prosperity and economic growth of a country. “We are in an intermediate position in those rankings and what we have the ambition to do is go up,” he promised.