does not know the status and even the location of the goods

Absolute lack of control in the more than 560,000 embargoes executed in 2021 by the General Treasury of Social Security (TGSS) as a consequence of registered non-payments. That is one of the main conclusions of a report prepared by the Court of Auditors in which it warns of “serious deficiencies” in asset management. In addition to not having any type of inventory or control over them, Social Security does not even know the state in which they are or their location.

“The TGSS does not have a detailed, orderly and valued list of all the seized assets which also states the current state of conservation and its location”, therefore, according to the Court, “It is not possible to know centrally if the seized personal property is in the TGSS warehouses or in the possession of the debtor”, thus existing “a high risk of disappearance”.

Last year, according to the report, 558,649 embargoes were specifically carried out. Of that amount, 260,400 were vehicles, which represents 46.61% of the total; another 148,178, 26.70% were urban real estate and 118,638, 21.24% movable property. The rest are rustic real estate, boats and jewelry. After analyzing these data, the Court of Auditors states that “despite the large volume of seized assets, these are not inventoried or registered in any type of centralized support that can be used as a management and control tool.”

delays

In order to carry out the appropriate checks for the preparation of the report, The Court required the TGSS to create a database with the locations of the seized assets, answering this entity that such information could not be obtained from current computer systems. To remedy this deficiency, the TGSS had already requested the Social Security IT Management in March 2017 to implement a functionality for the management of deposited assets, but after more than five years, IT development is still pending. .

“This implementation should be carried out as soon as possible, especially bearing in mind that Royal Decree-Law 36/2020, of December 30, which approves urgent measures to the modernization of the Public Administration and for the execution of the Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Plan, Its cross-cutting axes are the ecological transition, digital transformation, gender equality and social, economic and territorial cohesion”, the Court now asserts.

Finally, the seizure and custody of assets and rights is not very efficient. 73.75% of the deposited vehicles are, for example, older than 10 years in some cases and the time spent in the warehouses is excessive. In 2021, The TGSS seized, as a whole, more than 3.5 million units between movable and immovable propertys, economic rights, salaries, pensions, benefits and checking accounts and collected 264.5 million euros for this concept, but according to the Court of Auditors, “the system can clearly be improved.”