Uses of Time

»  The Report “Time policies promoted by Barcelona City Council 2024” — which includes a total of 83 measures — is presented with the participation of practically all municipal areas.

» Municipal time policies are advancing in transversality, expanding areas of action such as education and health, promoted by the Government Measure “Actions 2024-2027 for digital well-being” and reinforcing axes such as work and participation.

» Barcelona City Council consolidates the temporal perspective in its public policies as the key to achieving a healthier, more egalitarian, efficient, and sustainable city.

On October 8th, the Maria Aurèlia Capmany Hall hosted the presentation of the Report “Time policies promoted by Barcelona City Council 2024“, the final version can be consulted here.

The event brought together representatives of the municipal bodies involved in the promotion of these policies, with the aim of jointly reflecting on time management as a key tool to move towards a healthier, more egalitarian, efficient and sustainable city. The representativeness of practically all sectoral managements demonstrates the progress in the transversalization of time policies within the consistory.

Raquel Gil, fifth Deputy Mayor of the Area of Social Rights, Economic Promotion, Labour, Feminisms and Democratic Memory, in charge of welcoming the conference, underlined the fact that time poverty especially affects the most vulnerable groups and highlighted the capacity of time policies to redistribute this time, improving well-being and increasing business productivity.

Content and results of the report

The third edition of the report offers an exhaustive view of municipal action through a mixed quantitative and qualitative methodology, based on the strategic axes of the Time Pact. This new edition makes a qualitative leap in three aspects: it allows a comparative analysis with previous reports and the identification of the main trends, standardizes the information collected and incorporates a new section on the expected impact on citizens’ uses of time. It also identifies the main challenges in the application of these policies.

During the meeting, Laura de Caralt, a technician from the Directorate of Feminism and LGBTI Services, presented the results of the 83 municipal actions in force during 2024 — 8 more than in the previous period — and the main objectives of these measures: to promote gender equality, transform space and urban mobility and guarantee equal access to services, among others.

With regard to the status of the measures, the report shows that the areas of care, citizen services and education concentrate most of the current actions. Education and health are the axes that have grown the most, driven by the Government Measure “Actions 2024-2027 for digital well-being. We educate and promote a healthy use of screens in childhood and adolescence“, presented by Anna Morancho, technician from the Department of Mental Health, during the working session. This measure promotes a healthy and conscious use of digital technologies, especially among children and adolescents.

Stable growth is also maintained in areas such as work and participation, confirming the consolidation of the temporal perspective in these areas.

During 2024, new actions have been incorporated such as the activity “The mystery of lost time”, the “Emotional basket” or the “Extended timetables in the Metro”, together with initiatives with a trajectory that have integrated the dimension of time, such as the “Home Care Service”, the “Workshops on co-responsibility”, the “Markets open in the afternoons” or the “Educational Afternoons Program”.

In addition, some key measures stand out, such as the Advisory Service for Companies on Equality and Time Organisation, the Barcelona Care Space, the “Caregiver Card” programme, the “Let’s protect schools” project  and the “Agreement to take care of mental health at work“, among others.

Impacts and challenges in the implementation of time policies

Vanesa López, representative of the Time Pact Technical Secretariat, complemented the explanation by analysing the main beneficiary groups, highlighting the potential of these policies on children, adolescents and certain groups of women, as well as the main expected impacts of these measures.  The increase in the possibilities of conciliation is consolidated as the main expected impact of the actions implemented.

Finally, among the challenges that will guide the municipal strategy are the transversalization of the temporal perspective in all municipal policies, the balanced development of strategic axes and the strengthening of internal coordination to join forces and maximise results.

The time use survey carried out by the Statistical Institute of Catalonia (Idescat), which is expected to be published at the end of 2025, will be a key tool to guide future municipal policies.

To achieve the challenges identified, the participants in the conference agreed on the need to promote specific training for the staff of the consistory to learn how to incorporate the temporal dimension in the design and execution of public policies. To this end, the presentation was complemented by the workshop “How to identify the time perspective”, led by Ariadna Güell, member of the Technical Secretariat of the Time Pact, focused on the analysis of the action “Outdoor Play Space 0-99” from a temporal perspective, generating proposals for improvement. The dynamic was highly valued and considered reproducible in other areas.

Finally, Maria Rangel, Director of Feminism and LGBTI Services, closed the day by highlighting the importance of these exchange spaces to continue building public policies that contribute to a healthier, more egalitarian, efficient, and sustainable city.