# How councils can lead the transformation of local government through artificial intelligence without leaving anyone behind

Author: Román Robles Valades
Original publication: 2026-04-22
Spanish original: https://estrategiabyaleph.substack.com/p/estrategia-134-la-hora-de-los-ayuntamientos
English URL: https://elcontemplador.github.io/estrategia-english/essays/134/
Status: Published translation

This is a translation of the original Spanish essay published on 22 April 2026. Its claims, examples and forecasts retain that historical context.

English publication: 2026-09-29

> This issue's main article is by [Román Robles Valades](https://www.linkedin.com/in/romanrobles/), Deputy Mayor of Galapagar and an AI and big data specialist. Drawing on practical experience, he considers how municipalities can lead the transformation of local government through artificial intelligence with sound judgement, responsibility and without leaving anyone behind. Román initiated [MUNICIP-IA](https://estrategiabyaleph.substack.com/p/estrategia-129-la-inteligencia-artificial), the event on AI in the public sector held in Galapagar in March, in which Institución Educativa ALEPH took part. We find his contribution particularly interesting because very few people combine technical knowledge in these fields with the political responsibility of running a municipality.



There are two ways to approach a conversation about artificial intelligence in public administration: with fear or with sound judgement. We have spent too long choosing the first. The time has come to choose the second, and councils have a historic opportunity to lead that change.



When I talk about artificial intelligence in a municipal context, I am not talking about science fiction or a distant future. I am talking about today: chatbots answering residents' questions at three in the morning, algorithms optimising waste-collection routes, systems detecting anomalies in public spending before they become real problems. The technology already exists. The question is whether we want to use it well.



Spanish municipalities handle enormous quantities of data every day: municipal population registers, building permits, social services case files, revenue collection and urban mobility. For decades, that asset has lain dormant on servers, on paper and in information silos that did not communicate with one another. AI is, in essence, the tool that allows us to turn all that accumulated knowledge into real intelligence serving citizens.



## The myth of the job destroyer



The most widespread — and, in the short term, most mistaken — narrative about AI in the public sector is that it will immediately eliminate jobs. It is understandable that this fear exists: automation has always created uncertainty. But we should distinguish the short term from the medium and long term, because the dynamics differ.



In the short term, AI eliminates repetitive, low-value tasks rather than jobs: manual document management, sorting applications and answering frequently asked questions. What it frees up is time: a social worker's time to give vulnerable families real attention instead of filling in forms; a planning officer's time to resolve complex enquiries rather than searching for case files in physical archives.



In the medium and long term, however, greater caution is needed. AI can transform organisational structures, professional roles and the very architecture of public services far more profoundly. Uncertainty increases the further ahead we look, and denying that would be naive. What we can say is that the ultimate impact will be determined by the decisions we make today, rather than by the technology: how we design the transition, how much we invest in training, how we support staff as duties are reassigned, and what governance we build around these systems.



Moreover, AI's arrival in the public sector is creating professional roles that barely exist in municipal organisation charts today: public data managers, algorithm auditors, digital sovereignty officers and specialists in technological ethics. If the transition is managed well, its net effect on public-sector employment need not be negative. But that outcome is not guaranteed by default: it will depend on organisational design, investment in human capital and the political will to preserve quality public-sector employment.



## Galapagar: a laboratory for local innovation



Galapagar is a municipality of around 38,000 people in the hills north-west of Madrid. It is not a great metropolis; it has neither Barcelona City Council's budget nor the size of the city of Madrid. That is precisely why it is a relevant example: what a medium-sized municipality can do with sound technological judgement disproves the argument that digital innovation is “a big-city affair”.



Since 2023, with the arrival of a governing team committed to modernisation, the council has embarked on a roadmap towards intelligent administration. This commitment to technology is a matter of conviction, not a whim: more efficient management frees resources for what truly matters — the residents who need them most.



The digital transformation of a council such as Galapagar does not necessarily require extraordinary budgets or a decade-long horizon, but it does require investment proportionate to each administration's starting point. The scope, depth and pace of change will depend on organisational design, available resources, existing digital maturity and each municipality's particular context. What all successful cases share is a combination of three ingredients: sustained political will, trained professionals and a clear framework of priorities. We must also understand that digitising an obsolete process merely produces a faster obsolete process, and that AI should be applied to structures already put in good order, with quality data.



Real applications of AI in municipalities such as Galapagar include:



- **Citizen services around the clock:** conversational assistants that complete procedures without the need to travel or book an appointment.

- **Managing the local area:** predictive models for infrastructure maintenance and the early detection of incidents.

- **Intelligent social services:** data analysis identifying vulnerability before it becomes more severe.

- **Resource optimisation:** cleaning routes, adaptive lighting and efficient management of the water cycle.

- **Transparency and spending oversight:** detecting budget anomalies through automated analysis.

- **Citizen participation:** systems that analyse residents' proposals and group together the area's real needs.



## Three conditions for getting it right



AI in public administration can be a powerful tool or a major source of problems, depending on how it is implemented. In my experience, both technical and political, there are three conditions without which a project is doomed to fail — or, worse, to cause harm.



The first is the regulatory framework. The European Artificial Intelligence Act establishes obligations and prohibitions that councils must know and comply with. Some public-sector AI systems — such as those making decisions that affect citizens' rights — are high-risk and require audits, records and effective human oversight. It is not optional. It is the law. Municipalities that get ahead in complying with it will avoid penalties and, above all, avoid making mistakes that affect real people.



The second condition is data sovereignty. Data in municipal population registers, social services files and planning permits are public-sector data that residents entrust to their councils. Who safeguards them, where they are stored and under what conditions they are processed are not technical questions: they are political questions of the first importance. Councils cannot outsource their digital sovereignty to large technology corporations without guaranteeing that these data remain under public control, with the strongest privacy safeguards.



The third condition is effective control of bias. Algorithms learn from historical data, and historical data contain the biases of the societies that generated them. An AI system trained on data from past years can perpetuate — and even amplify — existing inequalities: in access to social services, resource allocation, and the attention given to certain neighbourhoods or groups. Auditing the algorithms used by public administration is a democratic safeguard, not a bureaucratic burden.



## AI as a tool for fiscal fairness



One argument deserves more attention than it usually receives in debates about AI and public administration: efficiency is not a neoliberal value; it is a value of equity.



When a council reduces the cost of handling a case file through intelligent automation, that saving can be reinvested: in a new social worker post, extracurricular activities in schools or better municipal sports facilities. Whether those savings actually translate into more and better services, rather than simple cuts, is a political decision. Applied well and with the right priorities, AI does not shrink the state: it expands it, enabling it to reach places it could not reach before.



With resources limited — a reality Spanish councils know well — every euro saved on bureaucratic inefficiency is a euro that can be invested in real public policies. This is not techno-utopianism. It is straightforward arithmetic, provided the political will is there.



## The time to act is now



The window of opportunity will not remain open indefinitely. Municipalities that lead the responsible adoption of AI over the next two or three years will be better placed to benefit from European digital transformation funding, attract technology talent into the public sector and offer their residents a quality of service that still seems aspirational today.



The transition to intelligent local government is not a project for a single term of office. It is a generational project. But the first steps — auditing existing data, training staff and defining a strategy for algorithmic governance — can and must begin now.



Councils are not businesses. They cannot and should not compete in the market. But they can be the area's best employers for technology talent, the most rigorous in handling residents' data and the most demanding about the ethical standards of the systems they implement. That is their competitive advantage: trust.



And in the age of data, trust is the scarcest and most valuable asset there is.



[Román Robles Valades](https://www.linkedin.com/in/romanrobles/)



*Deputy Mayor, Galapagar Town Council. AI and big data specialist*



*Taking advantage of last night's launch of OpenAI's new image model, [ChatGPT Image 2](https://openai.com/index/introducing-chatgpt-images-2-0/), which we will analyse in greater depth in future issues but which appears to be an important advance, we generated the following infographic based on the article.*



*Archive note: “last night” refers to the original publication on 22 April 2026. The regulatory discussion and claims about municipal applications retain that historical context. The generated infographic below is translated as shown; some of its formulations are stronger than those in the article.*



[![Infographic on responsible municipal AI adoption, employment, Galapagar, six applications, three safeguards and public-service reinvestment.](https://elcontemplador.github.io/estrategia-english/assets/images/ba8b7670-6151-49ea-96b1-26ab6972a835_862x1825.png)](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!cRAa!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fba8b7670-6151-49ea-96b1-26ab6972a835_862x1825.png)



*English translation of the infographic's substantive text:*



**How councils can lead the great transformation of local government through artificial intelligence without leaving anyone behind.** The illustrated building is labelled “Town hall”.



- **AI is already a reality:** technology improving public services today, not in the future.

- **Data that generate intelligence:** turning scattered data into useful knowledge serving citizens.

- **People at the centre:** AI frees time for what really matters — people.

- **More efficiency, more equity:** every saving from inefficiency can be reinvested in better public services.



**The myth of the job destroyer**



- **Short term: it eliminates tasks, not jobs.** AI automates repetitive, low-value tasks, freeing professionals' time to focus on what really matters.

- **Medium and long term: it transforms rather than replaces — if we manage it well.** The final impact will depend on our decisions: training, reassignment of duties and governance.

- **New roles, new opportunities:** public data managers, algorithm auditors, digital sovereignty officers and technological ethics specialists. The transition can generate more and better quality public-sector employment.



**Galapagar: a laboratory for local innovation**



A municipality of 38,000 residents demonstrating that innovation is not just for big cities.



- **Since 2023: a roadmap towards intelligent administration.** Modernisation through conviction: greater efficiency to direct resources towards those who need them most.

- **Technology is not a whim:** it requires political will, trained professionals and clear priorities.

- **Do not digitise the obsolete:** AI should be applied to structures in good order and quality data.



**Real applications of AI in municipalities such as Galapagar**



| Application | Description |

| --- | --- |

| Citizen services, 24/7 | Conversational assistants that complete procedures without travel or appointments |

| Managing the local area | Predictive models for infrastructure maintenance and early detection of incidents |

| Intelligent social services | Data analysis identifying vulnerability before it worsens |

| Resource optimisation | Cleaning routes, adaptive lighting and efficient management of the water cycle |

| Transparency and spending oversight | Detecting budget anomalies through automated analysis |

| Citizen participation | Systems that analyse residents' proposals and group together the area's real needs |



**Three conditions for getting it right**



1. **Regulatory framework.** Compliance with the European AI Act is not optional: it is law. High-risk systems require audits, records and human oversight. Complying today avoids penalties and, above all, protects people's rights.

2. **Data sovereignty.** Public-sector data belong to residents, not corporations. They must be safeguarded and processed under public control with the strongest privacy guarantees. Digital sovereignty is a political decision of the first importance.

3. **Effective control of bias.** Algorithms can perpetuate inequality if they are not audited. Auditing is not bureaucracy: it is an “automated safeguard”. Biased historical data generate unfair decisions. Let us prevent them.



*The generated graphic says “garantía automatizada” — “automated safeguard” — whereas the article says “garantía democrática”, or “democratic safeguard”. The difference is preserved here.*



**AI as a tool for fiscal fairness.** Efficiency is not a neoliberal value; it is a value of equity. Every euro saved on bureaucratic inefficiency can be invested in what really matters: more social workers, extracurricular activities, sports facilities and better services for everyone. Applied well and with the right priorities, AI does not shrink the state: it expands it, enabling it to reach places it could not reach before.



**The time to act is now**



- The next two to three years will be crucial for accessing European funding, attracting talent and offering better services.

- This is not a project for a term of office but for a generation. Yet the first steps can and should be taken now.

- Data audits, staff training and an algorithmic governance strategy are the starting point.

- Councils compete on trust, not in the market. In the age of data, trust is our greatest asset.



**The area's best employers. The most rigorous with data. The most demanding on ethics. That is our competitive advantage: trust.**



“Councils can lead digital transformation without leaving anyone behind. Technology used with sound judgement, data sovereignty and people at the centre: that is the way forward.”



**Román Robles Valades — Deputy Mayor, Galapagar Town Council. AI and big data specialist.**