Press Release 26/11/2021

Information Society Survey. ESI-Administration. 2021

In 2021, 44% of Administration centres and 11.6% of public employees teleworked in the Basque Country

There was greater availability of equipment and use of Information & Communication Technology within the Administration than in companies

44% of Public Administration centres had teleworking staff in 2021, according to Eustat data. In 2021, 11.6% of public employees worked outside their workplace for at least a third of the working day on a regular basis, using telematic networks to connect to the company’s ICT systems, and can therefore be considered remote workers.

Furthermore, on average, we find that 93.7% of public employees used ICT (Information & Communication Technology) systems and 7.4% were ICT specialists. Additionally, almost a third of the total personnel (32.8%) had a remote connection via a portable device for professional use.

Meanwhile, the size of the Administration centres made no significant difference to the percentage of employees using ICT.

If we analyse these staff by gender and province, it is worth noting that, except for ICT specialists, where the percentage of men (60.9%) was higher than that of women (39.1%), in the other categories mentioned the percentages stood at around 60% for women and 40% for men. However, greater differences can be seen when analysing by gender and activity branches.

From the point of view of Public Administration centres, personnel used ICT systems in almost all of them (99.7%). Furthermore, 65.9% of them had ICT specialists, 80.3% had employees with remote access to their workplace and, as mentioned above, 44.0% had teleworking staff.

Industry 4.0 indicators in Public Administration centres

As regards the digital transformation of the Administration, Social Networks, with 83.0% of centres that use them for business purposes, was the top indicator of the nine analysed. Cyber Security Activities came in second place with 61.7%. These were followed by Mobile Services (which is understood as the use of applications relating to the activity), with 45.8%, and Cloud Computing, with 41.7% of centres paying for this service in order to access information or services, through an internet connection from any mobile or fixed device in any location.

With less use, and with percentages ranging from 6% to 35%, were the Internet of Things (IoT) and Big Data Analysis, with 34.7% in both cases, Use of Artificial Intelligence Systems (16.0%), 3D Printers (9.0%) and Robotics (6.2%).

92.1% of Basque companies carried out electronic procedures with the Public Administration

As regards the use of e-administration services by Basque companies, 92.1% of them carried out electronic procedures with the Public Administration in 2021. These procedures could either be carried out directly, with third parties (consultancies etc.) or by a combination of the two. This means that 51.9% of companies performed some kind of procedure directly, whilst 73.0% did so through third parties.

In the case of companies with 10 or more employees, electronic processing reached 95.9% of establishments. Seeing as these companies had more resources at their disposal due to their greater size, they predominantly carried out procedures directly (83.1%), whereas the percentage of companies that carried out procedures through third parties was lower at 55.2%.

Most of the electronic procedures carried out were to obtain a different type of information (69.5%), to obtain documents and forms (67.2%) and to return completed documents and forms (58.0%). This method was also widely used to declare employees’ social security contributions (65.6%) and complete various types of taxes, primarily VAT (78.1%) and Corporation Tax (57.3%).

Regarding the Administration with which the Basque companies carried out these electronic procedures, two notable examples were the Provincial Councils (83.8%) and the Central Administration (71.6%). These percentages are largely explained by the competencies of both administrations in relation to the main taxes. Next were the Basque Government (59.1%), followed by local bodies (32.1%) and the European Union and others (8.3%).

In companies with 10 or more employees, the gap between the Basque Government (78.6%) and the Provincial Councils (85.8%) or the Central Administration (84.8%) was considerably lower. The proportion of companies that used e-administration services with local bodies (49.2%) and the European Union and others (20.9%) also increased significantly.

There was greater availability of equipment and use of Information & Communication Technology within the Administration than in companies

In 2021, 99.5% of Public Administration centres either had their own website or shared one with the body to which they belong. This proportion was even higher for centres with 10 or more employees, 99.9%.

In 2021, almost all Public Administration centres in the Basque Country had basic ICT equipment. In addition to a website, 99.7% of public centres had a computer and internet connection, and 99.4% had an email address. As for mobile phones, they were the least widespread item of ICT equipment, yet 85.0% of public centres had them.

Compared to the business sector, the usage rates of Information & Communication Technology (ICT) were higher in public administration centres. In the case of website availability, the difference was 46.5 percentage points in favour of the Administration (53.0% in the business sector). However, mobile telephone equipment was more common in the business sector (94.9%) than in the centres of the Public Administration sector (85.0%).

The proportion of public employees that used ICT equipment in 2021 was also at a very high level: 90.4% of public staff used computers, 92.3% had email and 87.4% had internet access. In the business sector, usage rates amongst staff were lower: 72.4%, 67.9% and 67.9%, respectively.

It should be pointed out that these high percentages, in both equipment and use by personnel, occurred regardless of the employment strata to which they belong. Therefore, the size of the Public Administration centres had practically no influence.

In addition, almost all centres (99.5%) adopted some form of computer security measure, in particular, using updated software (98.7%), as well as establishing secure passwords (98.1%) and external backups (89.7%).

With regard to the means of internet access in centres that had an internet connection, almost all of them (99.9%) accessed the internet via fixed connections and 74.3% also had some kind of mobile connection. Standing out among the former were fibre optic connections (cable, FTTH, etc.), with 91.4%, which in the space of only four years experienced an increase of 12.5 percentage points (78.9% in 2017).

As indicated above, the Public Administration in the Basque Country placed great importance on having an online presence via a website, as can be seen from the high percentage (99.5%) of centres that had one, reaching 99.9% in centres with 10 or more employees. In the business sector, the percentage was just 53.0% for all establishments as a whole, but much higher, 92.5%, for companies with 10 or more employees.

These websites provided General information on the institution (in 100% of cases), Catalogues of products or price lists (68.6%) or Links to social media profiles (66.9%), amongst other options. In comparison with the business sector, the Administration attached greater importance to posting information on job vacancies, 61.7% versus 27.9% of companies, and accessibility for persons with disabilities, for which provision was made on 45.9% of the Administration’s websites, as opposed to 21.4% of company websites.

Regarding the languages that they could be accessed in, Basque and Spanish stood out with a similar percentage, 98.8% and 98.9%, respectively, whereas 38.8% of websites could be accessed in English and 21.1% in other languages. In the business sector, the availability of websites in Basque was considerably lower, 42.5%, as were, to a lesser extent, websites in English (30.6%) or other languages (13.0%).

For further information:

Euskal Estatistika-Erakundea / Basque Statistics Institute C/ Donostia-San Sebastián, 1 01010 Vitoria-Gasteiz Press Service: servicioprensa@eustat.es Tel.: 945 01 75 62