El Gordo launches internal whistleblowing channel after its regulations are definitively approved

The El Gordo City Council now has a definitively approved Whistleblowing Channel. The Official Gazette of the Province of Cáceres No. 0205, dated October 26, 2026, publishes in its Section I the definitive approval of the Regulating Regulations of the Whistleblowing Channel of the El Gordo City Council (official reference BOP-2026-5009, file 2026/0221). The text is approved without any objections and obliges the municipal corporation to implement an internal reporting system.

From the August Plenary to administrative silence

The initial approval agreement was adopted by the Plenary of the Corporation in a session on August 26, 2026. The announcement was inserted in the Official Gazette of the Province No. 0169, dated September 3, 2026, and the file was open to the public for thirty business days to submit claims and suggestions.

Once that period and the prior hearing ended, the Municipal Secretariat certified that no claims or suggestions had been submitted, therefore the agreement is considered definitively approved in accordance with Article 49 of Law 7/1985, of April 2, Regulating the Bases of the Local Regime. The announcement is signed in El Gordo, on October 20, 2026, by the mayor-president Pedro Javier Gutiérrez Recas.

The regulation develops Law 2/2023, of February 20, regulating the protection of persons who report regulatory infringements and the fight against corruption, which transposes Directive (EU) 2019/1937 and obliges all public sector entities, including Local Administration, to have an internal reporting system. The text consists of a statement of reasons, eleven articles, one repealing provision, and two final provisions.

A collegiate body with a mandate of independence

The management of the channel falls to a collegiate body that must act independently and autonomously with respect to the rest of the municipal bodies, without receiving instructions of any kind and with sufficient personal and material means. Its composition is as follows:

• Presidency: a civil servant with national qualification.
• Full member: María Felicidad Martín Martín; substitute designated by the Provincial Council of Cáceres.
• Full member: Sandra Pedraza San Román; substitute designated by the Provincial Council of Cáceres.

The body must delegate the management of the system and the processing of investigation files to one of its members.

How to report and within what timeframes

Reports may be submitted in writing—via postal mail or electronic means—or verbally, by telephone or voice messaging, and also through an in-person meeting, which must be held within a maximum period of seven days. The channel will admit anonymous communications, provided that the level of detail allows for their processing.

The procedure establishes the following milestones:

• Acknowledgment of receipt to the whistleblower within a maximum of seven calendar days from reception.
• Decision on admission or inadmissibility, which shall be communicated to the complainant in all cases.
• Maximum response time for investigative actions: three months, extendable in cases of special complexity.
• Possible outcomes: archiving of the file, referral to the Public Prosecutor’s Office or the European Public Prosecutor’s Office if EU financial interests are affected, or the opening of disciplinary proceedings by the Human Resources Department.

Confidentiality, registration, and protection against retaliation

The regulation guarantees that the identity of the whistleblower shall not be revealed to third parties and may only be communicated to the judicial authority, the Public Prosecutor’s Office, or the competent administrative authority within the framework of an investigation. The City Council shall maintain a registry book of reports and investigations, which is not public and accessible only by judicial order; data may not be kept for more than ten years and shall be deleted after three months if no investigation is initiated.

Whistleblowers shall not be subject to retaliation and shall be entitled to the support measures of Law 2/2023, with a protection period of two years, extendable upon justification. The reported persons retain the presumption of innocence, the right to defense, and access to the file.

The regulation will enter into force once its full text is published in the Official Gazette of the Province of Cáceres and fifteen business days have elapsed, according to article 65.2 of Law 7/1985. An administrative appeal may be filed against the agreement before the High Court of Justice of Extremadura within a period of two months.

The new channel makes El Gordo one of the municipalities in Cáceres that comply with the state mandate to establish an internal reporting system, a requirement affecting the entire public sector that, until now, was only covered by administrations that had developed their own regulations. For municipal employees, contractor and supplier workers, and citizens with information regarding irregularities, the regulation opens a formal reporting channel with fixed deadlines, confidentiality, and legal protection against retaliation.

Source: Official Gazette of the Province of Cáceres, no. 0205, October 26, 2026, Section I - Local Administration, page 24348 (official reference: BOP-2026-5009).