Alejandro Marichal: “Our obligation is to guarantee services that work, not to maintain models that may sound good on paper but have not been viable in practice. Indirect management has been the only way to ensure continuity, quality, and stability in a service essential to our beaches.”
Yilenia Vega: “From our department, we have worked to update prices, modernize the service, and adapt it to the current situation. Pursuing the transfer of sunbeds and parasols from municipal control means improving conditions without increasing public spending.”
The Coastal Department submitted a proposal to the plenary session held on Monday, December 22nd, to initiate the process of transferring the beach umbrella and sunbed service from municipal control. The agreement, debated in the last plenary session of 2025, also includes the creation of a non-permanent commission tasked with drafting the explanatory report required by Article 97 of Royal Legislative Decree 781/1986, of April 18th.
The proposal formally calls for halting the municipalization process approved in December 2021, given that, four years after its final approval, the direct management of the service has not been effectively implemented. The initiative stems from a technical, legal, and organizational analysis of the service's evolution and the administration's actual capacity to guarantee its proper delivery under the current conditions.
The non-permanent committee will be composed of eight members: four corporate members (one from each municipal group) and four from the City Council's technical staff. Its objective is to prepare a supporting report that objectively evaluates the most suitable management model for the public interest. This document will be crucial in informing the final decision on the service delivery model.
It should be recalled that the City Council, in its ordinary session held on December 20, 2021, definitively approved the municipalization of the sunbed and parasol service. However, during the previous legislative term, it was not possible to implement this municipalization, as from an operational standpoint it was not the best option to guarantee a good service. Converting the service workers into municipal employees would not have improved the quality or the service provided to users.
Furthermore, there were clear legal and budgetary limits preventing the municipality from assuming direct management. The General State Budget Law stipulates that municipalities cannot increase personnel spending beyond legally established limits. In this case, directly assuming the service would have meant hiring approximately 40 new municipal employees, which would have resulted in an increase in personnel costs exceeding one million euros per year—something the law prohibits.
For these reasons, supported by reports from the municipal auditors, the previous administration was unable to implement the municipalization approved in 2021 and was forced to maintain the indirect management of the service, as is the case with other similar services. This situation demonstrates that direct management was neither legally nor economically viable, and explains why the service continued to be provided through indirect management.
The First Deputy Mayor, Alejandro Marichal, emphasized that “the review of the management model is not driven by ideology, but rather by a rigorous analysis of accumulated experience, which demonstrates that direct management has not been successfully implemented or offered sufficient guarantees, while indirect management has allowed the service to operate effectively.” Similarly, the Councilor for the Coast, Yilenia Vega, noted that “the department has worked on updating prices and modernizing the service, demonstrating that adapting public services to the current reality is key to the proper functioning of the municipality’s main economic engine.”
Indirect management also allows for the transfer of financial and operational risks to the successful bidder, ensures the professionalization of the service, maintains regulated and competitive prices through contract specifications, incorporates technological innovation without increasing public spending, and generates a fee that directly benefits the public interest. The procedure will now continue with the preparation of the technical and legal report, which will be submitted again to the Plenary Session for the adoption of the final agreement.
