In Spain, as in most countries, the real obstacle to effective and efficient delivery of key infrastructure is not the availability of finance, but rather problems of governance. This review examines the transport infrastructure governance framework in Spain against OECD good practices. It identifies the main governance bottlenecks for the development of transport infrastructure projects and provides a comparison with what other countries have done to alleviate similar bottlenecks. Furthermore, it provides the Spanish authorities with assessments and recommendations to enhance their capacity to formulate, develop and implement policies and strategies that support better decision-making in transport infrastructure.
The Spanish government has made important efforts to close the gap in transport infrastructure in recent decades, and has an established practice of infrastructure planning. Important efforts have also been made to reform the institutional and legal framework in order to support liberalisation and private investment in certain transport sectors. However, there is a need to shift from a sector-oriented approach to an inter-modality approach, ensuring better integration between transport systems for infrastructure planning and investment.
The report also stresses that Spain can have a more robust project prioritisation process, and the need to strengthen the multiannual investment system to ensure value for money throughout the entire life cycle of the project. Important efforts have been made to improve infrastructure management within the annual budget cycle. These efforts should continue with a stronger emphasis in the multiannual dimension of infrastructure planning and delivery.
To help Spain improve its infrastructure governance from strategic planning all the way to project level delivery, the report has relied on OECD frameworks and standards, in particular on the OECD Recommendation on the Governance of Infrastructure (2020) – that addresses the key success factors and good practices for an effective infrastructure policy system ranging from planning and strategy to infrastructure implementation and monitoring. Likewise, the report benchmarks with the 2012 Recommendation of the OECD Council on the Principles for Public Governance of Public-Private Partnerships that provide guidance to policy makers on how to make sure that Public-Private Partnerships (PPP) represent value for money for the public sector.
The review is comprised by two parts: an assessment report of the legal framework and the decision-making process of transport infrastructure investments in Spain, and a technical note that provides a benchmarking analysis on practices from selected countries (i.e. Australia, Chile, France, Germany, Italy and United Kingdom), with a specific focus on the railway sector . The two sections are complementary since the benchmark refers to concrete good practices and case studies, supporting the recommendations provided in the assessment report. The benchmarking analysis is included as an annex.
This report was approved and declassified for publication by the Public Governance Committee on 29 July 2020.