<h6><strong>Eduardo González</strong></h6> <strong>The Court of Auditors has detected “weaknesses and deficiencies” in the Sefarad-Israel Center in relation to strategic planning, the definition of objectives and the indicators to measure it and has attributed these deficiencies to “the lack of involvement” of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, on which it depends, in “the direction, technical assistance and supervision of the entity as an instrument of public diplomacy”.</strong> On November 29, the court published its report on the audit carried out at the Centro Sefarad-Israel Consortium (CCSI) for the year 2022. The Center, an entity established in 2006 by the General State Administration, the Community of Madrid and the Madrid City Council to promote relations between Spain and the Jewish community and organizations, is part of the so-called "public diplomacy" and is therefore part of the Network of ‘Casas’ (Houses) of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (together with Casa África, Casa América, Casa Asia and Casa del Mediterráneo) as a tool of State policy in promoting and improving the image of Spain. According to the document, the audit has revealed "some weaknesses and deficiencies in aspects related to strategic planning and the definition of the objectives to be achieved and the indicators to measure it." These problems, the Court of Auditors continues, are due, “in part, to the lack of involvement” of the Ministry “in the direction, technical assistance and supervision of the entity as an instrument of public diplomacy, its contribution being limited in this function for which it was created”. Specifically, the court warns that, although the Centre participates in Spanish public diplomacy as part of the Network of Houses attached to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, “it is not seen that it has received the corresponding direction, technical assistance and supervision from the Ministry to constitute an effective instrument on which it relies for the development of this function”. “The lack of strategic planning as a ‘global vision’ provided by the Ministry and the lack of annual plans that specify the specific objectives to be carried out and the indicators necessary to evaluate their achievement and the cost of the activities have resulted in the numerous activities carried out by the Consortium not being able to be valued in terms of efficiency”, the report continues. An example of all this, the Court of Auditors indicates, is that the advisory bodies provided for in the Statute of the Centre “have not been established or have not met, which makes them ineffective” In addition, the CCSI has not been subject to continuous supervision by the Ministry “to which it is attached”, nor is there evidence that the inspection of services has exercised control of effectiveness, in the terms provided for by the Law on the Legal Regime of the Public Sector (LRJSP), the norm that, since 2015, regulates the legal regime of Public Administrations. Also, the report continues, the CCSI does not carry out, in coordination with the Ministry, “adequate strategic planning and annual plans defining objectives, actions and indicators” and, in the area of the Network of Houses, the Foreign Ministry does not organise “the shared management of common services in order to improve their efficiency, or justify their inappropriateness”, in accordance with the provisions of the aforementioned LRJSP. As a result of this last deficiency, the Centre “has limited staff and resources, and no actions have been taken to share the management of common services with other centres in the Network of Homes”. There is also no record of the approval by the Ministry of the annual action plan for 2022, nor of the review of the strategic programming of the organisation every three years. This affects the control of effectiveness that is the responsibility of the Ministry's Service Inspection, whose purpose is to evaluate the fulfilment of the objectives of the entity's activity and the proper use of resources. For all these reasons, the function of the Sefarad-Israel Centre as an instrument of Spanish public diplomacy on which the Ministry of Foreign Affairs relies "is very limited", the document summarises. Consequently, the Court of Auditors' report warns that the Ministry "should fully exercise control of the effectiveness of the Consortium, through its inspection of services", and "should analyse the convenience of establishing mechanisms to manage common services, within its scope of action, on the entities that make up the Network of Houses". Another issue highlighted by the report is that the entity's funding, which comes from 98% of public administrations, is "quite limited, which conditions the activity carried out by the Consortium itself." In this regard, the Court values the efforts to obtain greater private funding, although it continues to point out, as it stated in its previous report for the years 2011 and 2012, that sponsorship and collaboration from companies and entities of the Jewish community should be increased, in order to achieve greater projection and effectiveness of its function.
