The Court of Accounts has urged the Ministry for the Ecological Transition and the Demographic Challenge (MITECO) to "reflect on the advisability of maintaining the Autonomous Body of National Parks (OAPN)", in light of the conclusions of its latest review of this public body.
This request is set out in the Audit Report of the Autonomous Body of National Parks (OAPN), referring to the 2022 to 2024 fiscal years, which reviews the delays in the preparation and submission of its accounts, the degree of execution of the investments financed with the Next Generation Funds, and various aspects of its economic-financial management.
According to the document, the Autonomous Body of National Parks "has not completed its statutory adaptation and lacks a formal organizational structure", which affects its functioning, since it "has lost its original powers" in the direct management of the National Parks, now in the hands of the autonomous communities. As a favorable element, the Court highlights that since 2022 the body has begun to develop strategic planning.
Between 2021 and 2024, the OAPN received an allocation of 349.4 million euros in investments from the Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Plan (PRTR), linked to component 04, intended for the "Conservation and restoration of marine and terrestrial ecosystems and their biodiversity". Of that amount, 166.4 million euros were distributed among the autonomous communities for the execution of projects.
Despite this, the body has not managed to use its own human and material resources to manage the entirety of the allocated funds, which has forced the redirection of 60.5 million euros to the Ecological Restoration and Resilience Fund (FRER), dependent on the Ministry for the Ecological Transition and the Demographic Challenge.
Up to 2024, the OAPN had only directly executed 68.7 of the 122.5 million euros it had been entrusted with, a figure that, according to the Court, shows its limited capacity to absorb and manage the economic resources entrusted to it.
The report also underscores that the OAPN "has been failing to meet the deadlines for the preparation, approval and submission of its accounts since 2021 due to the lack of staff in the Accounting Service, so it has had to cover these functions with its own staff from other services and external staff from the Tragsa Group".
Although the auditing body values that the delay in the submission of the 2024 account has been reduced from fifteen to six months, it warns of the existence of "errors in the accounting adjustments of its budgetary results," which highlights weaknesses in internal procedures.
Among the favorable elements, the Tribunal highlights "the control of administrative contracting and its adjustment to annual planning," although it warns of "a high volume of orders to the Tragsa Group," a circumstance that calls into question "the sufficiency of the Organization's own staff to carry out its functions."
The analysis likewise detects shortcomings in the justification and supervision of volunteer grants awarded by the OAPN between 2020 and 2024. However, the launch in 2025 of a new service is positively valued, one that "has corrected the deficiencies in the procedures and currently reviews the files from previous fiscal years to request reimbursement of the unjustified aid."
In the area of human resources, the Report details the "existing shortcomings," after finding that 29.6% of the jobs in the workforce were vacant, in a context in which, over the next ten years, the retirement of 63% of the staff is expected. In addition, the organization maintains a strong dependence on the Tragsa Group's own means, to the point that its external staff doubles that of its own workforce.
Along with these observations, the Court of Accounts includes other comments, generally favorable, on the work of monitoring the state of the National Parks Network and on the application of the principles of environmental sustainability, transparency and access to public information, gender equality and the fight against fraud.
The report also recalls that, to this day, the transfer to Castilla-La Mancha of the management of the national parks of Cabañeros and Tablas de Daimiel remains pending, since an agreement has still not been reached between the administrations involved to constitute the inter-administrative commission in charge of steering the transfer.
In conclusion, the Court of Auditors conveys to the Ministry the advisability of "reflecting on the usefulness or advisability of maintaining an autonomous body that has lost its original powers and that does not have sufficient autonomy and capacity to cover its structural needs in terms of human and material resources", thus opening the debate on the future of the OAPN within the state administrative structure.