Right of access: requesting information from your local council in Andalusia

Verified as of 27 September 2026. If anything has changed, let me know and I will update it with the date of the change.

To write about cultural policy in Málaga I have worked with what local councils publish: contracts, agreements and grants. When something is missing, anyone can request it. This guide explains how to do so with an Andalusian local council, what the time limits are, what happens if it does not reply and how to complain.

It is based on Law 19/2013 and Law 1/2014 on Public Transparency in Andalusia, as consolidated after its update of 6 March 2026. It is not legal advice.

Who may request information

Everyone can exercise the right of access. You do not need to live in the municipality, hold Spanish nationality or show a personal interest. Legal persons, including associations and companies, can also submit requests.

The right covers public information: content or documents held by the council that it has produced or acquired in carrying out its functions. It extends to information that already exists. It does not oblige the administration to write a new report, give an opinion or produce a tailored explanation.

Before making a request

First look in:

the municipal transparency portal;
the contracting authority profile hosted on the Public Sector Procurement Platform;
the electronic office and the official notice board;
the open data portal, if there is one;
the provincial official gazette and grant databases.

If the information is already published, the administration may reply by telling you how to access it. Keep a record of the exact address you consulted and the date, especially if the portal is incomplete or the link does not work.

How to submit the request

You can use the council's electronic office, an in-person registry or any of the places allowed under administrative procedure rules. Legal persons and anyone required to deal with the administration electronically must use the electronic route.

The request must make it possible to identify:

the applicant;
the information requested;
a contact address, preferably electronic;
the preferred form of access, if you wish to state it.

You do not have to explain why you want the information. The lack of a reason cannot on its own justify a refusal. A brief explanation can help to interpret an ambiguous request, but it does not turn the stated interest into a requirement.

Describe documents or data, not political questions. Give the subject, time period, file, body, contract or programme when you know them. Avoid phrases such as 'all information relating to', which can make the information harder to locate.

Minimal template

I request, under Law 19/2013 of 9 December and Law 1/2014 of 24 June, access to the following public information: [precise description of the documents or data, dates and file number if known]. I request to receive it in electronic format [reusable, if applicable] via [contact method].

Do not include more personal data than necessary. Keep the registration receipt, because it proves when the request was submitted and to which body.

If the request reaches the wrong body

If the body that receives the request does not hold the information but knows who does, it must forward the request to the competent body and inform the requester. If the information was produced mainly by another body, it may forward the request to that body for a decision.

The time limit for a decision runs from receipt by the competent body. This is why it matters to keep any notices of referral.

The council's time limit

The council must notify its decision within one month at most from the date the request reaches the competent body. It may extend the time limit by a further month when the volume or complexity makes this necessary, but it must notify the extension.

The time limit of twenty working days, extendable by a further twenty, set out in Article 32 of the Andalusian law applies only to the Administration of the Regional Government of Andalusia and its instrumental bodies. It does not replace the national one-month time limit for local councils.

If the rights or interests of third parties could be affected, they are given a period to submit representations. The time limit for a decision is suspended during that step and the requester must be informed.

The response

The decision must grant or refuse access. It must give reasons when it:

refuses access in whole or in part;
grants the information in a form other than the one requested;
allows access despite objections from a third party.

Access is generally free when it is provided electronically or by inspection. Issuing copies or converting information into a different format may give rise to charges under the applicable rules.

If access is granted but cannot be given at the time of notification, it must normally be provided within ten days at most.

If they do not respond

If the time limit passes without a notified decision, the request is deemed refused by administrative silence. Silence does not remove the duty to decide. Repeatedly failing to meet that duty on time counts as a serious offence for disciplinary purposes.

Silence allows you to complain, but it does not mean that the legal limits have been applied correctly. The administration will have to set out its reasons in the subsequent proceedings.

How to lodge a complaint

The complaint is submitted to the Transparency and Data Protection Council of Andalusia. It can be brought against a refusal, a decision not to admit the request, partial access, a form of access other than the one requested or a failure to reply.

It is optional. You can complain before going to the administrative courts or go straight to them. Decisions by certain non-administrative bodies covered by the law follow a different regime, but that is not the ordinary case of a request made to a local council.

The statutory time limit for complaining is one month from the day after notification or from the day after administrative silence takes effect. Although the Council has in some cases admitted late complaints against inaction, the prudent option is to submit it within that month.

Natural persons may submit electronically or in person. Legal persons and others under that obligation must use the electronic route. The official procedure catalogue does not mention a fee, but the law contains no general statement that the procedure is free, so it is best not to claim so without qualification.

Attach:

the initial request;
the registration receipt;
the decision received, if there is one;
subsequent communications;
a specific explanation of what has not been provided or why you disagree.

The Council has three months to decide and notify. Once that period has passed, the complaint is deemed rejected for the purpose of going to court.

Limits and personal data

The right of access may be limited if disclosure would harm protected interests, including public security, the prevention and investigation of offences, equality of the parties in legal proceedings, supervisory and inspection functions, economic and commercial interests, economic policy, professional secrecy, intellectual property, confidentiality in decision-making or environmental protection.

Merely invoking a limit is not enough. It must be applied in a justified and proportionate way that takes the case into account. If only part of the information is affected, partial access must be considered once the protected data have been removed, provided the result is not distorted or meaningless.

Personal data require a specific balancing exercise. Ask for the data needed to scrutinise public action, not private information unrelated to that purpose. In many cases documents can be provided once they have been anonymised.

Refusal to admit

A decision not to admit a request avoids examining its merits and must give reasons. Among other cases, it may happen when the information:

is in the course of preparation or general publication;
is auxiliary or supporting in nature, such as certain notes, drafts or internal opinions;
would need to be reworked first;
is not held by the body and the competent body is unknown;
is requested in a manifestly repetitive or abusive way that the purpose of transparency does not justify.

These grounds must be interpreted narrowly. In Andalusia, if the information is being prepared, the body preparing it and the expected completion time must be stated; mandatory reports cannot be treated as auxiliary information; and obtaining information through routine computer processing does not count as reworking.

Asking for an ordinary selection, anonymisation or extraction of existing data is not automatically the same as demanding a new document.

What should already be published

Among other information, municipal portals must provide:

Contracts: subject, duration, amounts, procedure, publicity instruments, number of tenderers, successful tenderer, modifications and decisions to withdraw or abandon the procedure. Andalusian rules extend the information on extensions, price reviews, terminations and subcontracting.
Agreements and entrusted tasks: parties, subject, duration, modifications, financial obligations and, where applicable, subcontracting.
Grants and aid: amount, objective or purpose, beneficiaries, call and budget appropriation, within the limits set by data protection.
Budgets and accounts: budgets, implementation status, annual accounts and audit or oversight reports.
Organisation and officials: structure, functions, applicable rules, organisation chart and the heads of each body.

If proactive publication is incomplete, you can request the information and also report the failure to the Council so that it examines the breach. These are separate procedures: the complaint protects your specific request; the report seeks to correct what should be published for everyone.

On the open conversation

This guide grew out of work with public records for the series 'Contra la vida optimizada'. It summarises the general national and Andalusian rules that apply to local councils. It does not yet include the practical experience of the requests submitted to Torremolinos, which are still being followed up. If you work in local government, at the Council or in administrative law and notice an error, the guide remains open.

Requesting information from your local council: a guide to transparency in Andalusia