Active disclosure of Spanish historic archives' economic-financial information

摘要

Spain's national historic archives are entrusted with the custody of documents that shed light on historic events and periods of worldwide interest. Further to the country's Transparency Act (2013) and given such archives' importance as national scale public cultural institutions, their economic and financial information is pertinent and should be accessible to citizens. This study reviewed the economic and financial data available on the websites of eight historic archives in Spain and those of their parent institutions. That their activity does not pursue economic objectives is no reason for not providing an account of what they do, how they do it and the resources they deploy. Searches for a series of active disclosure-related indicators required under Spain's Transparency Act revealed that these archives fail to furnish any economic, budgetary or statistical information whatsoever on their websites. Those findings infer that the institutions at issue do not deem legal active disclosure obligations to be applicable to them as organizational units under the aegis of a higher-ranking body, in this case the Ministry of Culture. Archives are urged to adopt the good practices in place in other countries and make an effort to enhance their transparency, which would indisputably redound to their visibility, credibility and institutional image.