Civio 2024 Management Report

We call for public authorities to be accountable, and with this report, we lead by way of example. This is what we have done over the last year.

Journalism and action to unlock the public sector

In 2024, we focused on what’s important: understanding the public sector, demanding transparency, and reporting on what happens where and when nobody’s looking.

Behind every scrap of information lies a story. Behind every story, something isn’t working right. And behind that, there’s a chance for change. This is how we did it.

This is our 11th Management Report —an exercise we conduct every year with enthusiasm, honesty and a critical approach, to uphold the trust so many people place in us and to win over more every day. You can also browse the previous ones here.

Public service journalism

The Official Spanish State Gazette, within anyone’s reach

Once again, we got into the nitty-gritty of the BOE (Official State Gazette), with more than 50 analyses and explanations that put the decisions and policies that fully affect us into layman’s terms

What does the increase to the minimum salary mean? What do the extension of zero VAT on basic foodstuffs or rent price controls mean to 270 areas identified as ‘pressure-points’ in Catalonia?

Over 600,000 people browsed our content on the BOE in 2024.

We explained university access reforms, intern social security contributions, universal genetic testing during pregnancy, nationality regularisation on the basis of family ties, reforms to unemployment benefits and public transport discounts for young people.

And what about the medals stripped from convicted businessmen or the new ‘democratic heritage’ sites? We explained all about those too.

We are the only organisation to monitor the BOE on a daily basis, with an expert eye and as a public service.

We proved yet again that the BOE is not just a gazette: it’s a reflection of what’s happening in our country. And here at Civio, we make sure that you understand everything, because the public sector is rightly yours.

The DANA: Key information in times of emergency

In October, the DANA —a weather phenomenon leading to intense rainfall and flooding— hit hard. But we weren’t caught off-guard.

We focused on creating clear and concise information for those who needed it most: from practical articles on tax relief and moratoriums, , to a step-by-step guide and online assistant that became a go-to for many people.

Over 20,000 people, both those affected and others with an interest, have used our DANA resources.

We received dozens of inquiries, which we replied to one-by-one to ensure no question went unanswered. Because at Civio we don’t believe in empty promises: information is action. It’s also a right.

“Papel Mojado” radio show on Cadena SER🎙️

In summer, on Papel Mojado, we broached a topic that many prefer to ignore: policies that sound good but are often not put into practice.

Access to housing? A distant mirage. Labour rights? Great, if you know the ins and outs. Public investments? Some are just ‘garnishing’. Paperwork with the authorities? A lost cause.

Good intentions that often prove to be a dead letter. Listen to all of the shows and hear what’s behind some of these promises that never come to fruition.

In-depth investigations

This year we got the ball rolling on topics that affect us daily, but don’t often make the headlines. Investigations that reveal opacity, inequality and a lack of institutional oversight. Although some data might be bothersome, it’s important to be aware regardless. Here are a few examples:


  • 🛢️ Badly-managed hazardous waste. Aragon ad Castilla y Leon are home to one third of the most toxic landfills in Spain. Exposed to the elements, poorly guarded and with more drawbacks than benefits.

  • 💸 Companies with the most subsidies. In 2023, 897.252 public subsidies were awarded, totalling over EUR 33.255 million. We analysed who received more than 10 million with no requirement to pay it back.


  • 🆘 Millions in benefits that are never paid out. The Minimum Living Income, electricity discount rate, youth cultural voucher, 200 euro cheque… benefits that exist on paper, but aren’t paid out. We showed that, in the best of cases, these fall short.

👉 Read the full series on poorly managed government spending:


Eva Belmonte and Ter García, on working in jail, in Carne Cruda.

👉 Check out our series by region:


Scope and impact

In 2024, more than 1,100,000 people visited our website. Added to these are:

  • 23,000 subscribers to our newsletter.
  • Millions of indirect readers through media that share our work.
  • More than 250 mentions in the press, both nationally and internationally.

Additionally, we released 13 new datasets (there are now 150 in total, available at datos.civio.es, which have been downloaded about 500 times since June alone.

🎯 Objectives set out in the 2024 Action Plan:

To maintain and update our informative projects

Improve them continuously

Expand their impact

Pro-transparency action

2024 closed with grandiose speeches about “democratic regeneration” that, in practice, remained empty promises.

Regulating lobbies, improving the Transparency Law or publishing media funding were all oft-repeated commitments… that remain unfulfilled.

While the public was waiting, we didn’t hold back.

We ended the year with five on-going court battles—now six—for the right to know: from the price of medicine to algorithms that make decisions about public aid. Soon there will be more.

Here are some of the cases from 2024:

🏛️ BOSCO Case: algorithm transparency in the Supreme Court

After six years of fighting, the Supreme Court admitted our appeal to audit algorithms and programs such as BOSCO, which decides who receives the electricity discount rate.

This fight isn’t merely about code: it’s about rights. It’s about preventing automated, opaque and uncontrolled decisions from affecting the lives of thousands of people without a single person being held accountable.

💊 Another victory for medicine prices

For the third time, the courts ruled in our favour on this matter. We demanded to know how much is paid for the cancer treatment Yescarta, in the face of opacity from the Ministry of Health and Gilead.

We continue to advocate that medicine prices should be public.

👎 Budget transparency: Spain, at the back of the queue

Spain failed yet again in budget transparency, according to the Open Budget Survey, with a score of only 54/100.

We intensified our demands for improvements to public expenditure data and accountability. Because without clarity on how public money is spent, there’s no way to demand accountability.

🕳️ Artificial intelligence: no to black boxes

Together with the IA Ciudadana coalition, we called for Spain to regulate artificial intelligence with transparency and a focus on human rights.

We demand a public registry of algorithms, anti-discrimination guarantees and the genuine participation of civil society in the development and supervision of these technologies.

🔥 Forest fires: more data, but still not enough

With more than 230,000 fires mapped since 1983, we’ve updated and strengthened the analysis of forest fire data.

Even so, we have also pointed out the lack of coordination and updating between authorities: without up-to-date data, there can be no effective prevention.

🏥 Health and anti-corruption: we continue to push

Among other measures, we asked the Ministry of Health for greater transparency in public procurement and limits on the influence of private interests in key decisions, such as the pricing of medication.

🕊️ Helen Darbishire: an eternal inspiration

In 2024 we said farewell to one of the people who has done the most for transparency in Spain.

Her legacy, courage and vision continue to lead the way. Thanks Helen.

Transparency might be on hold, but we’re not. 💪

🎯 Objectives of the 2024 Action Plan:

Improve transparency in public administration, increasing the information available on governmental activity and promoting its access for all citizens.

Strengthen civil society's capacity to actively participate in and give feedback on public processes.

Our tools: the public sector within everyone's reach

We create and maintain tools and civic tech that are actually used—unlike most. Because putting public sector oversight in citizens’ hands makes it useful, accessible and alive.

  • About 110,000 people used ¿Dónde van mis impuestos? (Where do my taxes go? in Spanish) to easily explore the General State Budget.

  • Our app on the requirements to access the electricity discount rate and streamline the application process was used over 46,000 times in 2024, and has already surpassed a million total uses.

  • España en llamas (Spain in flames), our tool to explore major forest fires, was checked on 30,000 occasions.

  • Our pardons search engine, part of El Indultómetro, was browsed 2,300 times.

  • The online Minimum Living Income assistant helped more than 5,000 people to find out if they were eligible for the benefit.

  • Our 2020 emergency contract finder —the most comprehensive database on this matter—recorded about 1,000 searches.

  • Contratopedia, our guide to understanding how public procurement works, was consulted around 10,000 times.

  • Farewell to Onodo. We shut down Onodo with gratitude and pride in everything it stood for. It was launched in 2015 to help thousands of people create interactive networks, but in recent years we haven’t been able to give it the attention it deserved. Maintaining Onodo required constant technical support and monitoring that we could no longer guarantee. Heartfelt thanks to its community: more than 50,000 users used it to explore and tell stories with its data. The code is available on GitHub for anyone who would like to continue the journey. Thank you for being part of the adventure!

🎯 Objectives in the 2024 Action Plan:

Provide tools and streamline processes that bolster citizens' ability to monitor public authorities.

In parallel

🚀 A redesign with you in mind

This year we gave our website a decent makeover to make it clearer, more intuitive and more useful than ever.

We reorganised the menus by topic and content type, improved mobile navigation, and created themed pages to organise the chaos.

It’s now easier to find our investigations, tools and campaigns, while we also redesigned the Impact and Us sections to proudly show who we are and how we work.

We want civio.es to be a place you always want to come back to. Because the public sector can—and should—be accessible as well as enjoyable. What’s next? Refreshing the landing page, Civio’s principle ‘storefront’.

🌍 We share what we learn

In 2024 we went far beyond our screens.

We participated in debates about fires at the Data Visualization Society Madrid, in round tables with the Congress of Deputies (Spain’s Lower House), workshops for civil servants at INAP, and at international events in Athens, Budapest and other European capitals.

David Cabo participating in the WinterLAB (Gijón) | Image: LABoral Centro de Arte y Creación Industrial

In total, we were involved in 20 training activities with more than 6,000 people.

Each meeting was a new opportunity to put journalism, transparency and citizen control on the table as pillars of a real democracy.

💥 Rawer than ever

Across more than 20 episodes of Civio en bruto (Civio in the Raw), we have spoken about everything that impacts, excites and annoys us. And we’ve done it without a filter.

We tackled the lack of transparency as if it were a national sport, we pulled apart political promises that have been dissolved like sugar in coffee, and we laughed (with gusto) at bureaucratic nonsense.

But we also applauded the little victories and sought to go beyond reporting: to connect with you. With your desire to learn and know. With your right to demand. Because, between the lines, the message is clear: the public sector is yours, and we won’t let anyone forget it.

Team

Changes to the Board of Trustees

Civio’s board of trustees was partially renewed this year. We sincerely thank Marisol García for her commitment over the years. Her vision and support have helped to strengthen the project.

Two new trustees were incorporated with careers that offer a valuable perspective:

  • Mar Abad, in December 2023. Journalist and writer. Editorial director and co-founder of the podcast El Extraordinario and collaborator on Mañana Más radio show, at RNE, as well as the magazine Archiletras. Well-known for her unique way of rigorously, creatively and sensitively reporting on reality.

  • Mercedes Valcárcel, in June 2024. An expert in social innovation and leadership, with extensive experience in the tertiary sector, public administration and business. Regarded as one of the 100 female leaders in Spain (2017 and 2019), and in the field of social enterprise in Europe (2021).

The Board of Trustees is thus formed by Rodrigo Tena (notary and member of the Hay Derecho Foundation), Olivier Schulbaum (Goteo), Javier de la Cueva (lawyer), José Luis Marín (Euroalert), Jacobo Elosua and David Cabo (founding members of Civio), together with Mercedes Valcárcel and Mar Abad.

The Civio team remained unchanged in 2024, with 10 staff members. Throughout the year we also had support from the journalist Beatriz de Vera, who joined us to consolidate our social networks, as maternity leave cover.

Accounts

Pending the definitive closure of accounts in 2024, we can advance that we have become sustainable once again, achieving sufficient income to maintain our non-profit work without compromising our independence.

Once they have been given the green light, we will publish our 2024 accounts here along with the voluntary audit report, as we do every year. We don’t just say we’re transparent, we prove it too.

As always, most of our expenses went on staff salaries, our main investment. The salary range was updated to adequately remunerate team members and mitigate the effects of inflation. It now ranges from 25,500 euros gross per annum at the lower end, to the 45,900 paid to our directors.

As for sources of income, we continue to make progress on one of our key goals: to consolidate and increase the share of donations from private individuals, which already account for about 35% of total income. We are continuing to work for this ratio to grow year by year.

Historical growth of membership

In total, 395 people joined in 2024 and we lost 166 members, which today allows us to finally surpass a symbolic and exciting bar: 2,000 members committed to public affairs.

🎯 Objectives of the 2024 Action Plan:

Maintain the organisation's sustainability through growth.

Increase the number of members and donors at a pace sufficient to give us greater stability and independence from other funding streams.

Campaigns: adding up, insisting, thanking

In 2024 we once again ran campaigns that not only asked for support, but also explained why our work matters. We did so with clear ideas and hard-hitting examples: what we don’t know impacts our rights, power, health and money. And we’re all paying for it. We had our best Christmas campaign ever.

It was also a year for listening to the people on the other side: those who make Civio possible. Instead of us doing the talking, we let them explain, in their own words, why they support this project. Heartfelt thanks go to Jon, Anabel and Joaquín, María, Mar and Pampa for their generosity, their clarity and their involvement. Their voices remind us we are not alone—and that Civio is not only made for people, but also with them.

Acknowledgements

We seek real and measurable impact, and thanks to your support, over the years we have delivered highly significant achievements for the common good. None of this would be possible without all the people—increasing in numbers by the day—who promote, support and defend this project.

Thank you, from the bottom of our hearts.

  • Firstly, to the 2,000 members who support us today. Living up to the trust you put in us is—and will continue to be—our priority. None of this would be possible without you.

  • To those who selflessly collaborated with us during 2024, either through their comments, lending their experience or giving us a helping hand when we needed it most.

  • To the authorities and public sector professionals who listen to us with a constructive approach to opening institutions up to citizens.

  • To the media that publicise our work and to those who [republish]https://civio.es/en/about-us/republish/ our content so it reaches further.

  • To the dozens of allied organisations, in Spain and abroad, that share knowledge and open roads through which we learn and grow.

In 2025 we continue to do what we do best: investigate, explain, build useful tools and demand accountability.

Because the public sector belongs to everyone. And because transparency is practised, not something we need to ask for.

Thanks for the trust you put in us!

✍️ David, Eva, Ángela, María, Olalla, Carmen, Ana, Adrián, Ter and Javi.

Para seguir tirando del hilo y exigir cuentas en 2025 solo faltas tú

Investigar, explicar y abrir lo público es cada vez más necesario… y más difícil. Pero en Civio tenemos la experiencia, el impulso y el rumbo claro. Y contigo, podríamos llegar mucho más lejos.

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