Press Release 20/11/2023

Information Society Survey. ESI-Administration. 2023

Remote working advanced in the Basque Administration in 2023, reaching 40% of establishments and 6.6% of workers in the Basque Country

The use of social networks to interact with users reached 85.5% in public centres

40.0% of Public Administration centres had staff who worked remotely in 2023, according to Eustat data. Likewise, in 2023, 6.6% of public sector employees worked outside their workplace for at least half 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 in 2021 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 in previous years, increasing by 3.3 points in respect of 2022 regarding centres with remote workers and by 1.2 points in the case of public sector employees.

As regards employees in Public Administration, on average, 95.2% used ICT (Information & Communication Technology) systems and 6.0% were ICT specialists. Additionally, just over a third of the total personnel (34.5%) 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 (61.4%) was higher than that of women (38.6%), in terms of ICT use as well as having a remote connection or remote working, the percentages stood at around 60% for women and 40% for men.

However, greater differences can be seen when analysing by activity branches. To name the most significant, ICT is used in almost all Healthcare Activities and use is very high, although comparatively lower, in Social, Recreational, Cultural & Other Activities (84.7%); likewise, ICT specialists are significantly more frequent in Other activities of the Administration (13.7%) than in the remaining activities. Education-related activities (9.2%) were second in the ranking; it is precisely in Education where having a remote connection appears with more frequency among employees (68.8%). Finally, the highest proportions of remote workers were observed in Public Administration and defence (12%) and in Other activities of the Administration (11.8%).

Meanwhile, almost all Public Administration centres (99.9%) had staff who used ICT systems. Furthermore, 67.5% had specialists in ICT systems, 78.7% had employees with remote access to their workplace and, as mentioned above, 40.0% had staff who were teleworking for at least half 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 85.5% of centres using them for business purposes. Cyber Security Activities came in second place with 66.4%. Next was Cloud Computing, with 58.4% 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 below 50%, were Mobile applications for clients (48.5%), the Internet of Things (IoT) with 44.2%, Big Data Analysis (37.9%), Use of Artificial Intelligence Systems (17.1%), 3D Printers (10.4%) and Robotics (6.6%).

97.7% of Basque companies carried out electronic procedures with the Public Administration

As regards the use of e-administration services by Basque companies, 97.7% of them carried out electronic procedures with the Public Administration in 2023, either directly, with third parties (consultancies etc.) or through a combination of the two. This means that 59.6% of companies performed some kind of procedure directly, whilst 77.3% did so through third parties.

In the case of companies with 10 or more employees, electronic processing reached 98.5% of establishments. Seeing as these companies have more resources at their disposal due to their greater size, they predominantly carry out procedures directly (88.1%), whereas the percentage of companies that carry out procedures through third parties is lower, at 62.1%.

Most of the electronic procedures carried out were to obtain different types of information (74.0%), to obtain documents and forms (70.6%), to carry out an administrative procedure completely electronically (64.8%) and to return completed documents and forms (66.4%). This method was also widely used to declare employees’ social security contributions (70.5%) and complete various types of taxes: Mainly VAT (82.4%) and Corporation Tax (61.7%).

As regards the Administration Basque companies carried out these electronic procedures with, two notable examples were the Provincial Councils (89.6%) and the Central Administration (77.4%). These percentages are largely explained by the competencies of both administrations in relation to the main taxes. Next were the Basque Government (68.2%), followed by local entities (36.7%) and the European Union and others (11.4%).

In companies with 10 or more employees, the gap between the Basque Government (83.2%) and the Provincial Councils (88.6%) or the Central Administration (90.0%) was considerably lower. The proportion of companies that used e-administration services with local bodies (56.5%) and the European Union and others (23.1%) also increased significantly.

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

In 2023, 99.4% of Public Administration centres either had their own website or shared one with the entity they belong to. This proportion was 100% for centres with 10 or more employees.

Likewise, almost all Public Administration centres in the Basque Country had basic ICT equipment in 2023. In addition to a website, 99.9% of public centres had a computer and an internet connection.

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 percentage points in favour of the Administration (54.4% in the business sector).

The proportion of public sector employees that used ICT equipment in 2023 was also very high: 92.8% of public sector staff used computers and 92.5% had internet access. In the business sector, usage rates amongst staff were lower, at 75.7% and 73.2% 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, the majority of centres (99.5%) adopted some form of computer security measure, in particular, using updated software (98.5%), as well as establishing secure passwords (98.4%) and external backups (89.5%).

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 (99.4%) of centres that have one, reaching 100% in centres with 10 or more employees. In the business sector, the percentage was just 54.4% for establishments as a whole, but much higher (92.3%) for companies with ten or more employees.

In 100% of cases these websites provided General information on the institution. Furthermore, 86.1% have a statement on privacy/confidential data protection, 74.2% have links to the company’s profiles on social media (Facebook, Twitter etc.) and 64.4% have links to a product catalogue or price list, among other options. In comparison with the business sector, the Administration attached greater importance to posting information on job vacancies, 73.9% versus 28.4% of companies, and accessibility for persons with disabilities, for which provision was made on 51.2% of the Administration’s websites, as opposed to 21.3% of company websites.

Regarding the languages they could be accessed in, Basque and Spanish stood out with a similar percentage, 98.6% and 99.8%, respectively, whereas 34.0% of websites could be accessed in English and 22.9% in other languages. In the business sector, the availability of websites in Basque was considerably lower (43.8%), as were, to a lesser extent, websites in English (30.1%) or other languages (14.9%).

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