It is no longer necessary to go to a hospital in person to consent to surgery, and the paperwork to establish a domestic partnership has been drastically reduced, requiring only one member to initiate the process and the other to confirm it. Both measures are included in the plan promoted by the Government of Salvador Illa to transform the administration, eliminate bureaucracy, and make life easier for citizens. So far, the Executive has simplified 170 procedures and now aims to expand the range by 40 more cases, up to 210, possibly related to education. The cost of renewing all this machinery amounts to 11 million euros.
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The operation has involved applying 350 improvement measures to those 170 procedures, including 2,000 user interviews and the analysis of 20,000 citizen inquiries and complaints. The plan has included replacing more than 1,800 PDF forms and the progressive incorporation of 38 Artificial Intelligence programs. The Government estimates that with all this simplification, six million hours per year have been saved for citizens in areas as diverse as education, health, agriculture, civil relations, or access to obtain the Catalan accreditation certificate.
The administrative simplification plan is reflected, for example, in the case of domestic partnerships, which can be registered in the stable couples registry through a notarial deed or via the Directorate General of Law of the Generalitat. Until now, procedures were done by each member, and last year 25,092 couples took the step, resulting in 50,000 forms. The process involved 1,740 incidents. Starting next quarter, it will be enough for one of the two members to initiate the procedure and for the other to accept it through a link. “The new form will be a double form,” sources from the Presidency say to explain the reduction.
But where simplification has also been translated is in the health sector when a citizen has to undergo surgery. Through La meva salut, a patient can give approval, saving themselves the trip to the hospital if they prefer. The formula works because the Government estimates that 6,000 appointments for signing have been avoided and that 300,000 consents have been made available in the application. “It is an improvement for patients and professionals,” says Sandre Galve, anesthetist at the Vall d’Hebron hospital, who states that this procedure is already being applied in the anesthesia services of ICS hospitals and is beginning to extend to radiology. “They are given the option to do it digitally and consent through La meva salut,” she describes.
Simplification has also spread in education with the so-called Teacher Pool, a new application with the possibility to accept or reject substitute positions almost in real time during working hours. Currently, there are 78,000 teachers, and it quickly assigns a position when a permanent teacher is on leave. Applicants have half an hour to give their approval or freeze their case in case they have another job. Between May and June, 4,027 teachers downloaded the application, and 20% of them found employment through it. The improvement has also extended to the issuance of Catalan level certificates to download them digitally, through the Citizen Private Area, without needing to go to the Administration. So far, more than 8,000 have been downloaded.
Permits to carry out activities on the beach have been reduced, and inquiries have dropped by 55%. On the other hand, authorizations have increased: from a thousand in 2025 to 1,200 so far this year. Roadside works have gone from more than 200 teams to only 15. The agricultural sector will benefit from September from visual tools and maps to locate forest break zones—a change of land use—that will reduce waiting times from 5.5 to 2.5 months. The reduction will also be reflected in permits for pest control or in the official agricultural machinery registry, where 11,000 files are processed annually. PDFs have now been eliminated, forms have gone from eight to six, and they hope waiting times will go from 20 to 13. Farmers protested in Barcelona a year ago, and the Government committed to promoting a plan to reduce bureaucracy.
All this acceleration of procedures is part of the Government’s global plan to carry out a revolution in administration to make it more agile and effective for citizens, which also includes, for example, the professionalization of public function managers. So far, the Catgirem plan has involved an investment of 11 million euros and will now enter a second phase. More than a thousand public employees were trained in 2025 to improve administrative procedures. “There is a cultural change. The Generalitat is fighting against bureaucracy itself. The improvements are the result of effort, transparency, and shortening times,” says a senior official from the Presidency.
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