There is already a replacement for José Luis Escriva in the Digital Transformation and Public Service portfolio. Óscar López, until now chief of staff of the presidency, will be the new minister of the branch chosen by Pedro Sánchez, according to ‘El País’. He was secretary general of the PSOE of Castilla y León between 2008 and 2012, and leader of the opposition in this autonomous community. He was later appointed “number three” of the PSOE as secretary general of the organization. He chaired the Paradores between 2018 and 2021, when the president took it over after the departure of Iván Redondo and he became one of his trusted men. Now acquire skills in aspects of vital importance such as investments in technological projects or the reform of the public administration.
Escrivá leaves as a legacy of López the foundations to deepen a profound reform of the General Administration of the State (AGE), a pending task after Escrivá’s departure to the Bank of Spain, as well as plans and investments related to digitalization or Artificial Intelligence. The former minister presented his projects to the Congress of Deputies and the Senate at the beginning of the year while preparing the texts to filter them through citizen participation and public hearings.
The most striking aspect he proposed was the removal of the replacement rate to renew the public sector workforce. This was accompanied by an embryonic roof rack project for opponents and the promise of providing greater agility to the vehicle. calls for public employmentwhich are now at record levels and must be managed by Lopez.
All this taking into account the progressive aging of the public sector workforce, which has lost 10% of its workforce since the financial crisis. Projecting to 2032, Escriva has calculated that 60% of career civil servants and permanent staff will be at risk of retirement, or around 100,000 civil servants. The civil service is also currently negotiating to modify flexible retirement in this group.
This is part of a process of renewing the workforce and the tasks it performs, with increased investment in human capital. Thus, it has established a new horizontal and vertical career model organized by functional areas and which it wishes to extend to the entire Administration, based on a model of levels and skills.
The former minister recently created the Spanish Society for Technological Transformation (SETT)a public company that would function as a digital SEPI to channel up to 20 billion in investments into projects in its field, such as Perte Chip – the one that will receive the largest European sum of money – or NextTech, which will invest in national digital projects.
