Uses of Time

» Time Use landed at the Barcelona City Council in 2003 with the Department of New Social Uses of Time
» In 2019, it became a pivotal year for the mainstreaming of the time dimension in all local policies and areas of municipal organization
» The commitment and work of the Barcelona City Council have been consolidating over these twenty years, to advance the right to time at the local, regional, and international levels

The Barcelona City Council has an extensive history of promoting time policies both locally and internationally. This trajectory reflects the evolutionary process of time policies, which initially focused mainly on harmonizing work and family schedules, to transition to an approach that recognizes and asserts time as a citizenship right. This change in the conceptualization and interpretation of time policies has been accompanied by the mainstreaming of time policies within the municipal corporation.

The pilot experience in the Sants neighbourhood, initiated from the project “In Barcelona, women change time” in 1992, began to bring time to the table of public and political debate, although these initiatives would not materialize until 2003 with the creation of the Department of New Social Uses of Time, the first department of time use in the country.

While various local projects were incorporating the time aspect, 2006 became a pivotal year for the promotion of local policies and the international projection of the Barcelona City Council as a key and reference body in time policies. An example of this is the creation of the Network for New Social Uses of Time (XNUST) formed by companies in the city of Barcelona in 2006. Subsequently, the Network of European Cities on Time Use in 2009 led by the Barcelona City Council in its beginnings and currently known as the Network of Local and Regional Governments for Time Policies, and the creation in 2013 of Barcelona Time Pact in which the administration, organisations, and citizens participate, reflected the ambition of the Barcelona City Council to take a step further in the impact of time policies, incorporating local and supranational agents in the design, implementation, and evaluation of time policies.

The years from 2006 to 2013 would be characterized by the deployment of a wide range of local policies, such as pilot experiences directly aimed at citizens, such as “open courtyards,” “neighbourhood time, shared educational time,” “time for you,” among others that were carried out in collaboration with other municipal departments and later transferred to them. Also, the creation of the “Time Dossiers” collection began in 2006 and currently comprises a total of 19 issues dealing with diverse topics such as actions on working time in the European Union, time and city, and care time for people, among others. This collection, developed from an educational approach to time policies, was reinforced by the creation of recognition instruments for organizations committed to promoting a new culture of time that is healthier, more egalitarian, efficient, and sustainable. Examples include the Barcelona Award for Innovative Business in Organization and Time Use created in 2012 aimed at recognizing, promoting, and disseminating the work of those companies committed to improving time management, which was strengthened in 2013 with the incorporation of the Time Use area into the General Call for Grants for entities promoting actions for the reconciliation of family, work, personal, and social time in organizations.

Continuing with this municipal deployment, in the last five years, time policies and the commitment of the Barcelona City Council to advance the right to time at the local, regional, and international levels have been particularly strengthened. The signing in 2017 of the Time Reform Pact-Objective 2025 became the starting point for consolidating the role of the Barcelona City Council as a key agent in promoting the right to time from different territorial levels.

Likewise, since 2019, the Barcelona City Council has participated in various international events and projects, such as the Time Use Week, an annual international meeting space to discuss time policies that the Barcelona City Council has promoted since 2019, and the aforementioned Network of Local and Regional Governments for Time Policies, which led to the signing of the Barcelona Declaration on Time Policies.

It is precisely within this framework of recognition of the Barcelona City Council as an institution committed to promoting time policies that lead to the consolidation of time as a citizen right that the Network of Local and Regional Governments for Time Policies named Barcelona during the period 2022-2023 as the first World Capital of Time Policies.

Although internal and organizational changes regarding the direction of time policies have also been a reality at the Barcelona City Council, its determination reflects not only the desire to ensure the mainstreaming of time policies within the municipal corporation and its public policies but also becomes a symbolic and political recognition of understanding time from an intersectional perspective.

If you want to learn more about the trajectory of the Barcelona City Council, you can consult the report Public Time Policies promoted by the Barcelona City Council 2022.