The Mayor of Alaquàs, Toni Saura, and the director of the Valencian Anti-Fraud Agency, Joan Llinares, have signed this week a collaboration protocol between both institutions that will help promote the Integrity Plan in which the City Council of Alaquàs is working.
Within the general lines of the Integrity Plan, the implementation of both internal and external complaint boxes is contemplated, thus complying with the requirement of the new Law 2/2023 regulating the protection of people who report on regulatory infractions and the fight against corruption.
With this Law published in the BOE on February 21, the European Directive 1937/2019 on the protection of persons who report breaches of Union Law, better known as the Whistleblowers Directive, is transposed into the Spanish legal system.
The City Council of Alaquàs will enable as an external channel of complaints the mailbox of complaints of the Valencia Antifraud Agency which will be visible on the municipal website. This mailbox guarantees the confidentiality of the complainants and allows the possibility of being able to make the complaints anonymously.
The collaboration between both institutions will also extend to other actions and activities such as those of a formative nature through which the staff of the city council will receive training in aspects related to the promotion of ethics and public integrity, as well as the prevention and detection of situations constituting fraud and corruption.
The Integrity Plan of the City Council of Alaquàs will contain, among others, an institutional declaration of integrity; incorporating institutional integrity into strategic planning; enabling a dedicated internal whistleblowing channel and connecting it to the Agency’s external whistleblowing channel; the regulation and management of conflicts of interest; the training of City Council staff in the field of integrity or the promotion and dissemination of the culture of ethics and public integrity.
The Mayor of Alaquàs, Toni Saura, highlighted the commitment of Alaquàs City Council to “continue working to implement the Integrity Plan with the aim of protecting public service, pursuing the general interests of citizens and ensuring compliance with values, principles and ethical standards in the public sector”.
For his part, the director of the Agency, Joan Llinares, has declared that “compliance with the requirement of external complaint mailboxes in the Valencian Community can be easily resolved by having in our case an Anti-Fraud Agency and for this it is only necessary that each administration, company or institution includes next to its internal complaints mailbox the address of the external complaint mailbox of the Agency. The Agency offers assistance and advice in the implementation of both external and internal mailboxes and the only requirement is to sign a protocol regulating such collaboration”.
The signing of the agreement was also attended by the City Council of Alaquàs the municipal secretary, Alberto Buendía; and on behalf of the Agency, the Deputy Director of Legal Affairs, Teresa Clemente; the director of analysis and research, Gustavo Segura and the head of the administration and human resources area, María José Cervera.
