Valencian Anti-Fraud Agency sharing its experience in operating complaint mailbox

In March 2023, the Director of the Valencian Anti-Fraud Agency (Agency) of Spain, Mr Joan Llinares, delivered a presentation on the Agency’s complaint mailbox to the representatives of 27 member states of European Union (EU) as well as candidate countries to join the EU, who were experts of the European Commission in charge of the work of transposition of EU Directive 2019/1937, on the protection of whistle blowers.

The Agency was invited by the European Commission to explain how its complaint mailbox worked as well as its experience in the implementation. Its whistleblowing channel is based on the Globaleaks platform that was originally adopted in Spain by the NGO, X-Net. With some improvements such as making the channel bidirectional, allowing whistle blowers to submit documents or give their legal approval, the channel was implemented in 2018.

Currently, 88% of the complaints received by the Agency are made through this complaint mailbox, which allows anonymous complaints. The Agency’s complaint mailbox has been such a success that its complaint channel model has been adopted by other Valencian public bodies and institutions in accordance with the collaboration agreements signed with larger administrations such as the Provincial Council of Castellón or the City Council of Valencia and with smaller ones such as the City Council of La Yesa.

The Agency’s complaint mailbox now becomes the external complaint mailbox of these bodies and institutions. The technology is adapted by incorporating a link in their website to the Agency’s complaint mailbox, thus making them compliant with the EU Directive on the protection of persons reporting breaches of Union laws including corruption.

Likewise, the Agency helps and advises these bodies and institutions so that they can implement the mailbox as an internal channel of complaints, as part of the actions to be taken within the integrity framework and to fulfil the pledge under Code of Ethics and Conduct.

The Director of the Agency was accompanied by Javier Alamá, Head of the Agency’s Information Service and his colleague responsible for the operation of the complaint box to answer technical questions on the operation of the mailbox raised by the participants.

Source: Agency for the Prevention and Fight against Fraud and Corruption of the Valencian Community, Spain