The Court of Auditors ' plenary session, held on November 26, 2015, has approved the following Instruction, which regulates the telematic surrender of the General Account of Local Entities and the format of the Account, to from that for the financial year 2015.

The recast text of the Local Government Law, approved by the Royal Legislative Decree of March 5, establishes in its article 223 that the external audit of the accounts and the economic management of the Local authorities and all the agencies and companies of which are dependent is a function of the Court of Auditors.  To this end, the Local Entities shall give the General Account referred to in Article 209 of this Law for the preceding financial year before the 15th of October of each year. This is without prejudice to the powers that, in matters of external oversight of the Local Entities, have been attributed by the Autonomous Communities. As provided for in Article 212.5 of the said legal text, these accounts have to be duly approved.

The accountability of the Local Entities constitutes a basic legal duty to guarantee the transparency in the management of the economic and financial activity of the same, which allows, on the one hand, that the organs of decision and control and the citizens know the financial situation of those, the results of their activity, the execution of their budget and their cash flows, and, on the other hand, that the audit of such activity can be carried out by the competent institutions. Article 28 of Law 19/2013 of 9 December, of Transparency, Access to Public Information and Good Government, considers the failure of the said duty to be very serious, providing for the corresponding sanction to the effect.

Compliance with the principles of transparency and good management by public entities makes it necessary for accountability to be carried out with up-to-date, reliable, accurate and detailed information, so it is It is essential to have the General Accounts formed, approved and rendered within the legally established deadline.

The need to implement computer and telematic means in the process of rendering the accounts of the Local Entities, as a stable one, in general as a way of operating the Public Sector, Article 45 of the Law 30/1992, of 26 November 1992, of the Legal Regime of the General Administration and of the Common Administrative Procedure, was already collected in the Motion of the Court of Auditors concerning possible legal and administrative solutions for the Local entities give their accounts in full and within the legally established deadlines, approved by the plenary session on 30 April 2003. It recommended that the necessary regulatory development be established so that the local public sector is incorporated in a homogeneous way to the process of obtaining and rendering accounts in computer support.

This process was promoted at the local level with the approval of the Regulatory Instructions of the Basic, Normal and Simplified Local Accounting models, approved by the Orders of the then Ministry of Economy and Finance. 4040/2004, 4041/2004 and 4042/2004 of 23 November, in force until the General Account for the financial year 2015. They expressly collected the need to promote the implementation of these techniques, and the External Control Institutions can establish for the surrender of the General Accounts procedures for sending through these means, provided that the authenticity, integrity and preservation of the accounting information to be provided are guaranteed, as well as the receipt of the recipient body.

The bases for this model of surrender were established with the definition of a standard format for these General Accounts, which was carried out by the General Intervention of the State Administration (IGAE), This was the first time that the European Council of the European Union (IGAE) adopted a resolution of 28 July 2006, which was adopted by the IGAE resolution of 28 July 2006. It recommended this format, making it available to the External Control Institutions to provide the technical specifications to which the corresponding files were to be adjusted. This was also intended to achieve the highest degree of homogenization in the elaboration and remission of the General Account of Local Entities, as well as in their treatment by the audit institutions.

The Court of Auditors and the OCEX regulated, for their respective areas, the telematic surrender of the General Accounts of Local Entities, eliminating their remission on paper, through the approval of the The following are the instructions for the format of the General Account of the Local Entities in computerised support-for reference to the one recommended by the IGAE in the aforementioned Resolution of 2006-and the telematic procedure for the surrender of the accounts, with effect from those for the financial year 2006.

In particular, at its meeting on 29 March 2007, the Court of Auditors ' plenary session adopted the " Instruction regulating the format of the General Account of Local Entities in computerised form and the telematic procedure for the accountability ", which was amended by the Plenary Agreement of 30 June 2010.

In addition, since 2007 the Local Entities Accountability Platform (www.rendiciondecuentas.es), a web application, managed by the Court of Auditors and most of the OCEX, for the reception, management, examination and exploitation of the accounts presented in electronic form and in electronic form by the Local Entities, which has also allowed the publication of the accounts of these, since 2011, through the Portal of Surrender of accounts, which provides citizens and any interested persons with easy and direct access to the information referred to.

The experience accumulated over more than 8 years shows that the implementation of the accountability of the Local Entities through computer and telematic means has been a major step forward in terms of effectiveness, efficiency and economy and generates a considerable increase in the levels of compliance with the obligation. It also allows to optimize the activity of external control, at the same time as it has constituted an improvement for the Local Entities, both in terms of agility of the procedure of surrender, and of improvement of the quality, comparability and homogeneity of the accounting information produced and rendered in those General Accounts. The application of information technologies to accountability has also resulted in a greater effectiveness of the transparency of local management, providing timely, agile and up-to-date information to stakeholders.

The use of electronic media is now an imperative for Public Entities. Laws 39/2015 of 1 October 2015 of the Common Administrative Procedure of the Public Administrations and 40/2015 of 1 October of 1 October of the Public Sector Legal Regime contain a firm statement in this regard, stating that they must operate in an environment where the use of such means and the electronic processing of the procedures constitute the usual action. Thus, the identification, signature and electronic notification, electronic headquarters, electronic exchange and computerized administrative action must be the general rule. The aforementioned laws also provide for the obligation of the Public Administrations to relate to each other by electronic means and collect the right and, at times, the obligation of the persons to interact electronically with those.

In addition to this process of the implementation of computer and telematic means for the surrender of the General Accounts of Local Entities, it should be emphasized, in what is in the interest of this Instruction, that, simultaneously to the same and Since the entry into force of the 2006 IGAE Resolution and the Court of Auditors ' Instruction of 2007, another process of accounting standards has also been developed. Thus, the approval of the General Accounting Plan, by Royal Decree 1514/2007 of 16 November, resulted in the harmonisation of the Spanish accounting rules by incorporating the accounting criteria of the International Standards of Accounting, all in accordance with European Union regulations.

The General Public Accounting Plan was also approved by Order EHA/1037/2010 of 13 April, adapting the public accounting standards to the International Standards of Public Sector Accounting (NIC-SP). This Plan constitutes the framework standard for the public sector, which requires adaptation for the various subsectors of the Administration.

At the local level, this adaptation has taken place through the Accounting Instructions for Local Administration, Normal and Simplified models, approved by the HAP/1781/2013 and HAP/1782/2013 Orders of 20 September, amending, in turn, the latter the Basic model, which is regulated in Order EHA/4040/2004 of 23 November. Under these Instructions, in force since 1 January 2015, the accounting rules applicable to Local Entities are fully standardised and harmonised with the accounting criteria of the State public sector.

These Instructions represent a new stage in Local Administration accounting. They incorporate substantial changes in the structure and content of the documents that make up the annual accounts, which has made it necessary to revise and modify the standard computerised format of the General Account, adapting the specificities of the files for the new accounts to be drawn up from the year 2015. To this end, IGAE has approved a Resolution dated November 13, 2015, which incorporates a new standard format for the General Account of Local Entities in computer support for their surrender. In turn, it is necessary to approve the Court of Auditors and the OCEX of new instructions to regulate the IT support to be applied to the General Accounts from the aforementioned financial year 2015 and the procedure for the surrender of the accounts of the Local Authorities; which, as far as the Court of Auditors is concerned, is carried out by this Resolution.

Thus, for the above, the Court's plenary session, at its sitting of 26 November 2015, approves the following

Instruction on the telematic surrender of the General Account of the Local Entities and the format of the Account from that corresponding to the financial year 2015

Rule 1. Object and scope of application.

1. This instruction is intended to regulate the surrender of the General Account of the Local Entities and the procedure to conduct it in a telematic manner before the Court of Auditors, as well as to establish the computer support in which they have the General Account of those Entities for the financial year 2015 and subsequent.

This General Account includes the accounts of the main entity itself, its dependent entities and, from the financial year 2015, also the accounts of the consortia that are assigned to it.

2. All Local Entities subject to the general system of local public accounting established in the aforementioned Accounting Instructions for Local Administration, approved in the Order, are subject to the scope of the Instruction. HAP/1781/2013, of 20 September, Instruction of the Normal model; the Order of HAP/1782/2013, of 20 September, Instruction of the Simplified model; and the Order EHA/4040/2004, of 23 November, Instruction of the Basic model, modified by the Order HAP/1782/2013 of 20 September.

The Local Entities in Autonomous Communities endowed with OCEX who have signed agreements with the Court of Auditors for the implementation of measures for the coordination of the telematic surrender of the General Accounts of the Local Entities (information available at www.tcu.es) may also be able to comply with this obligation by presenting the Accounts to the corresponding OCEX in the terms and with the requirements provided in the corresponding Regulatory Instruction, in the framework of the respective Reference Convention.

Rule 2. surrender of the General Account of the Local Entities in computer support and determination of the format of the Account from the one corresponding to the financial year 2015.

The General Account of the Local Entities corresponding to the financial year 2015 and successive will be rendered to the Court of Auditors by the accounting officers responsible exclusively through the Platform for Accountability of the Local entities, in the standard format and format recommended by the IGAE Resolution of 13 November 2015 (BOE of 20 November 2015)-which this Court of Auditors makes its own-before 15 October of the year following which correspond to the surrendered accounts, in accordance with the provisions of Article 223 of the TRLRHL.

For the remission of the General Accounts, the additional information defined in Annex 2 of this Instruction will be completed through the Local Entities ' Accountability Platform. The General Account must be sent with the reference document listed in Annex 3 of the Instruction.

Commercial companies whose share capital is wholly owned by the Local Entity, those in which it has a majority stake, those that are considered to be dependent on the application of the Organic Law 2/2012, of 27 In April, the Financial Stability and Financial Sustainability, as well as the business public entities dependent on the Local Entity, will render their accounts in computer support in the format and format set out in Annex 1 of the Instruction.

Non-profit entities dependent or assigned to a Local Entity referred to in Organic Law 2/2012 of 27 April of Budget Stability and Financial Sustainability shall render their accounts in the format set out in Annex 1 to this Instruction.

Rule 3. Rights and guarantees.

The application of the Instruction will be made subject to the provisions contained in the Organic Law 15/1999, of 13 December, of Protection of Personal Data, and to the other specific rules that regulate the intellectual property and the electronic processing of information.

Rule 4. Telematics process of accountability through the Telematics Accountability Platform of Accounts.

The referral of the General Account of the Local Entities, together with the other documents required in accordance with this Instruction, will be made through the Accountability Platform of the Entities. Local.

The accounts will be received through the Telematics Register of this Court, in accordance with the criteria laid down in the Agreement of the Government of the Court of Auditors of 30 March 2007, regulator of the Record.

The procedure for the telematic referral of the accounts (integrity, authenticity, security, inter alia) will be in accordance with the provisions of Law 30/1992 of 26 November of the Legal Regime of Public Administrations and of the Common Administrative Procedure, as well as the standards established in Law 11/2007, of June 22, of Access of Citizens to Public Services and in the Standards that develop it. As soon as Law 39/2015 of 1 October 2015, of Common Administrative Procedure of the Public Administrations, has elapsed, after the deadline of one year of vacancy since its publication, in the terms established in its provision (a) the law and its implementing provisions in relation to electronic procedures shall apply to the seventh and the single derogation provision.

Rule 5. Computes for the referral of documentation to the telematic registry.

The filing of electronic documents in the telematic register as well as its receipt by the latter shall be governed, for the purposes of calculating the time limits fixed in working days, by the criteria laid down in the said Agreement. the Government Commission of the Court of Auditors of March 2007.

Transitional disposition.

The surrender of the General Accounts of the Local Entities corresponding to the 2014 and previous financial years shall be carried out in accordance with the requirements and procedures contained in the Instruction that regulates the format of the General Account of Local Entities in Computer Support and the Telematics Procedure for Accountability, approved by the Court of Auditors ' Plenary Agreement of 29 March 2007, as amended by Agreement of 30 June 2010.

Final disposition.

This Instruction will take effect the day after your publication in the "Official State Bulletin".

Madrid, 2 December 2015.-The President of the Court of Auditors, Ramón Álvarez de Miranda García.

ANNEX 1

Files to be submitted

-Entities included in the subjective scope of the General Account that apply public accounting standards and principles.

The general accounts of local entities included in the subjective scope of the General Account of Local Entities that apply the rules and principles of public accounting, that is, that of the local entity itself, that of its autonomous bodies and that of the consortia assigned to it, shall be made up of the files set out in the IGAE Resolution of 13 November 2015 with the specifications in it.

The file relationship is detailed in Annexes II, III and IV to the above Resolution.

-Entities included in the subjective scope of the General Account that apply the PGC approved by Royal Decree 1514/2007, Normal and Abbreviated models, or SMEs (Royal Decree 1515/2007).

Commercial companies whose share capital belongs entirely to the Local Entity, those in which the entity has a majority stake, those that are considered as dependent on the application of the Organic Law 2/2012, of 27 April, of budgetary stability and financial sustainability, as well as the public entities dependent on the Local Entity, will render their annual accounts through the following files:

• ENTITY (9) _ EXERCISE.4) _NOR_CUENTAS-ANUALES.xml, for the normal annual accounts model.

• ENTITY (9) _ EXERCISE.4) _AB_CUENTAS-ANUALES.xml, for the abbreviated annual accounts model.

• ENTITY (9) _ EXERCICIO(4) _PYM_CUENTAS-ANUALES.xml, for the model of annual accounts of SMEs and micro-enterprises.

• ENTIT(9) _EXERCISED( 4) _MEMORIA.PDF

In the "ENTITY" field, the NIF of the accounting entity (company or business public entity) must be entered.

The "xml" files will conform to the technical specifications published in the Court of Auditors ' Portal on the Internet (www.tcu.es) and the Local Entities Accountability Platform. (www.rendiciondecuentas.es.).

pdf files may not be fractionized or exceed their published size on www.rendiciondecuentas.es.

-Non-profit entities included in the scope of the General Account.

Non-profit entities dependent or assigned to a Local Entity in accordance with Rule 49 of the Simplified Model Instruction or Rule 48 of the Normal Model Instruction, in relation to Organic Law 2/2012, of 27 From April, on budgetary stability and financial sustainability, they will send their annual accounts in the following pdf files:

• ENTITY (9) _ EXERCISE (4) _ ESTADOS_CONTABLES.PDF

• ENTIT(9) _EXERCISED( 4) _MEMORIA.PDF

ANNEX 2

Additional Information

-Additional information from provinces, islands, municipalities, local authorities (the latter in accordance with the provisions of Law 27/2013, of 27 December, of Rationalization and Sustainability of Local Administration).

Local Entities will complete additional information consisting of the following points:

• Identifying data: MAP code, NIF, name, entity on which it depends (if applicable).

• Data identifying the President, General Controller, Secretary and Treasurer of each of the Local Entities.

• Information about each of the entities that the Local Entity is a part of (identification, legal nature, etc.).

• Data on each of the entities dependent or assigned to the Local Entity, with the expression of their identifying and activity data.

• Information about other entities in which the Local Entity participates in a minority manner.

• Information on the dates on which the various procedures necessary for the submission of accounts were carried out (approval of the clearance of budgets, formation of the general account, opinion of the Commission) Special Accounts, General Account approval, etc).

-Additional information for communities, districts, municipalities, metropolitan areas.

Local Entities will complete a series of additional information for:

• Identifying data: MAP, NIF, name, as well as entities that are part of the entity that renders the accounts.

• Data identifying the President, General Controller, Secretary and Treasurer of each of the Local Entities.

• Information about each of the entities that the Local Entity is a part of (identification, legal nature, etc.).

• Data on each of the entities dependent or assigned to the Local Entity, with the expression of their identifying and activity data.

• Information about other entities in which the Local Entity participates in a minority manner.

• Information on the dates on which the various procedures necessary for the accountability were carried out (approval of the settlement of budgets, formation of the general account, opinion of the Special Commission) of Accounts, General Account approval, etc.).

ANNEX 3

Document for telematics remission

The file containing the accounting statements, accounts and supporting documents, will be accompanied by a remisory document, also protected by digital signature, of the following tenor:

D/Dst .............. (name of the account holder), ............... (position held by Mayor of .............../President of ..........), the General Account of ......... corresponding to the exercise .................., known by the Local Entity in the plenary of ..............................., fulfilled the the procedure laid down in Articles 201 and 212 of the recast text of the Local Government Law, approved by the Royal Legislative Decree of 5 March, in the form and with the additional documentation referred to in the Statement of the Court of Auditors, adopted by agreement of 26 November 2015 adopted by its plenary session, which regulates the telematic surrender to this Institution of the General Account of the Local Entities and the format of that Account from the one corresponding to the financial year 2015.

The information relating to that account is contained in the file ............, whose electronic summary is ............, in the terms indicated by the sixth paragraph of the IGAE Resolution of 13 November 2015, for which recommends the standard format of the General Accounts of Local Entities in Computer Support (BOE of 20 November 2015).

In ....................., a.....de..............of 20 ...

The Mayor/President of the Local Entity.

This file will be named as follows:

ENTITY (9) _ EXERCISE (4) _ DOC-REMISION.pdf

In the "ENTITY" field, the NIF of the Local Entity in question must be entered.

The "EXERCISE" field will consist of the one that the General Account refers to.