Press Release 30/11/2022

Information Society Survey. ESI-Administration. 2022

In 2022, 36.7% of Administration centres and 5.4% of public sector employees teleworked in the Basque Country

The use of social networks to interact with individual users reached 83.9% in public centres

36.7% of Public Administration centres had staff who worked remotely in 2022, according to Eustat data. Likewise, in 2022, 5.4% of public sector employees worked outside their workplace for at least a third of the working day on a regular basis, using telematic networks to connect to ICT systems, and can therefore be considered remote workers.

These figures, although they are lower than those obtained a year ago at the height of the pandemic (44% of centres with remote workers and 11.6% of employees in Public Administration teleworking), are higher than those registered at the beginning of 2020, at the start of the pandemic, by more than 10 percentage points regarding centres with remote workers (26.1% at the beginning of 2020) and more than three points more in the case of public sector employees (2.1% two years before).

Furthermore, on average, we find that 93.9% of employees in Public Administration used ICT (Information & Communication Technology) systems and 9.0% were ICT specialists. Additionally, almost a third of the total (31.5%) 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 noteworthy that, except for ICT specialists where the percentage of men (59.3%) was higher than that of women (40.7%), 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.

Meanwhile, almost all Public Administration centres (99.8%) had staff who used ICT systems. Furthermore, 65.0% had specialists in ICT systems, 78.5% had employees with remote access to their workplace and, as mentioned above, 36.7% had staff who were teleworking for at least a third of their working hours.

Industry 4.0 indicators in Public Administration centres

As regards the digital transformation of the Administration, Social Networks was the top indicator of the nine analysed, with 83.9% of centres using them for business purposes. Cyber Security Activities came in second place with 59.5%. These were followed by Mobile Services (understood to be the use of applications relating to the activity), with 48.4%, and Cloud Computing, with 46.0% 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 38%, were the Internet of Things (IoT) with 37.7%, Big Data Analysis, (36.4%), Use of Artificial Intelligence Systems (17.8%), 3D Printers (9.7%) and Robotics (6.2%).

94.3% of Basque companies carried out electronic procedures with the Public Administration

As regards the use of e-administration services by Basque companies, 94.3% of them carried out electronic procedures with the Public Administration in 2022. These procedures could either be carried out directly, with third parties (consultancies etc.) or by a combination of the two. This means that 54.7% of companies performed some kind of procedure directly, whilst 76.1% did so through third parties.

In the case of companies with 10 or more employees, electronic processing reached 97.5% of establishments. Seeing as these companies have more resources at their disposal due to their greater size, they predominantly carry out procedures directly (85.5%), whereas the percentage of companies that carry out procedures through third parties is lower at 58.3%.

Most of the electronic procedures carried out were to obtain a different type of information (71.1%), to obtain documents and forms (68.0%) and to return completed documents and forms (63.1%). This method was also widely used to declare employees’ social security contributions (67.7%) and complete various types of taxes: Mainly VAT (79.0%) and Corporation Tax (61.3%).

Regarding the Administration the Basque companies carried out these electronic procedures with, two notable examples were the Provincial Councils (87.1%) and the Central Administration (73.8%). These percentages are largely explained by the competencies of both administrations in relation to the main taxes. Next were the Basque Government (63.6%), followed by local entities (33.4%) and the European Union and others (8.9%).

In companies with 10 or more employees, the gap between the Basque Government (83.2%) and the Provincial Councils (88.5%) or the Central Administration (89.0%) was considerably lower. The proportion of companies that used e-administration services with local bodies (50.3%) and the European Union and others (20.7%) also increased significantly.

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

In 2022, 99.5% of Public Administration centres either had their own website or shared one with the entity they belong to. This proportion was even higher for centres with 10 or more employees, at 99.9%.

In 2022, almost all Public Administration centres in the Basque Country had basic ICT equipment. In addition to a website, 99.8% of public centres had a computer and internet connection, and 99.7% had an email address. As for mobile phones, they were the least widespread item of ICT equipment, yet 86.2% 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 45.2 percentage points in favour of the Administration (54.3% in the business sector). However, mobile telephone equipment was more common in the business sector (95.8%) than in the centres of the Public Administration sector (86.2%).

The proportion of public sector employees that used ICT equipment in 2022 was also very high: 90.7% of public sector staff used computers, 93.3% had email and 90.2% had internet access. In the business sector, usage rates amongst staff were lower, at 73.3%, 69.8% and 70.6% respectively.

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

In addition, almost all centres (99.7%) adopted some form of computer security measure, in particular establishing secure passwords (98.3%), using updated software (98.0%), and external backups (88.3%).

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 75.0% also had some kind of mobile connection. Standing out among the former were fibre optic connections (cable, FTTH, etc.), with 92.8%, which in the space of only five years experienced an increase of 13.9 percentage points (78.9% in 2017).

The Public Administration in the Basque Country places great importance on having an internet presence via a website, as can be seen from the high percentage (99.5%) of centres that have one, reaching 99.9% in centres with 10 or more employees. In the business sector, the percentage was just 54.3% for establishments as a whole, but much higher, 92.0%, for companies with ten or more employees.

These websites provided General information on the institution (in 99.8% of cases), Catalogues of products or price lists (68.9%) or Links to social media profiles (68.5%), amongst other options. In comparison with the business sector, the Administration attached greater importance to posting information on job vacancies, 68.3% versus 30.4% of companies, and accessibility for persons with disabilities, for which provision was made on 45.2% of the Administration’s websites, as opposed to 20.9% of company websites.

Regarding the languages that they could be accessed in, Basque and Spanish stood out with a similar percentage, 98.5% and 99.5%, respectively, whereas 35.4% of websites could be accessed in English and 18.2% in other languages. In the business sector, the availability of websites in Basque was considerably lower, 44.6%, as were, to a lesser extent, websites in English (30.0%) or other languages (13.2%).

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