The series of workshops titled “Present and Future of the In-House Technical Services Provider” has 400 registered users and received over 1000 visits over its three-day run.

The series of virtual workshops “Present and Future of the In-House Technical Services Provider”, organised by the Instituto Universitario Gutiérrez Mellado (IUGM) of the National Distance Education University (UNED), has attracted great interest during its live broadcast from 19 to 21 October.

On its YouTube site (https://www.youtube.com/Isdefe), Isdefe has posted the full videos of the workshops.

This series of workshops, organised by IUGM in concert with the in-house providers of CORREOS, INECO, ISDEFE SENASA and TRAGSA, focused on analysing the activity undertaken by the in-house providers of Spain’s central government and offered an overview of the public policies that underpin their activity in service of the public administration, of the lessons learned in recent years, and of the main challenges facing them today. This series was broadcast on the dedicated website, https://www.jornadasmediospropios.es/.

Isdefe’s CEO, Mr Francisco Quereda, took part in roundtable 3, along with his counterparts from the other in-house providers in the series. In it, he expressed that “the in-house providers were not created to compete economically in the market, but arose from a need related to their creation; in the case of Isdefe, the need for high-level engineering and consulting, similar to programme offices, to manage the administration’s activity expeditiously”. He also noted that during the current pandemic, the in-house providers “are making an effort to devote resources to situations where this is often difficult to do”, serving the administration in a way that the private sector, due to its need to achieve operating margins, would be unable to do at a time like this. He alluded to the expensive rates of in-house providers as an “urban legend”, stating that “for the same value provided, the in-house providers are a better fit”, indicating that the key lies in why the in-house provider, which is part of the administration’s structure, was created.

Mr Jesús Alonso, Director of Business Development, took part in the roundtable on the 20^th, where he stated that in-house providers have a reason for being and must not be considered in the “market vs non-market dichotomy”; rather, the duties of in-house providers include “helping to create a market, a powerful industry in the area of defence and security”. As concerns investments, Mr Jesús Alonso stated that “oversight of the in-house providers is not incompatible with rewarding talent and managing innovation”.