Spain's Ombudsman spends half a million on restaurant vouchers

Half a million on meal vouchers: Spain's Ombudsman and its staff

How much does it cost to eat at the institution that is supposed to protect us? The Defensor del Pueblo, Spain's parliamentary ombudsman, led by Ángel Gabilondo, has spent nearly half a million euros on restaurant vouchers over two years, according to information circulating these days. Taken on its own, the figure sets alarm bells ringing: almost 700 euros a day on meals. It sounds like a permanent banquet. It is not quite that, once you break it down.

The key lies in who is eating. The vouchers are not a privilege of the Ombudsman himself, but a benefit for the institution's staff, made up of around 180 employees. The individual amount is roughly 11 euros per working day for those on the afternoon shift, and senior officials are excluded. With that sum, the set lunch menu is the most realistic option, not caviar.

What the Ombudsman's meal vouchers actually are

The mechanics are simple: the institution hands out meal cheques or cards to its staff to cover meals during working hours. It is a common system in both public and private companies, and here the beneficiary is the workforce, not the director. The circulating calculation of 685 euros a day comes from dividing the total by the days of the calendar, without subtracting weekends, public holidays or holidays. A piece of arithmetic that inflates the perception of spending.

The half million covers two years, not one. In other words, the annual outlay is around 250,000 euros for the entire organisation. Spread across 180 employees, the per-head annual figure is a long way from the image of a monocle and a lit cigar rolled in 500-euro notes.

The calculation that fuels the controversy, and the one that dismantles it

The first headline doing the rounds spoke of 685 euros a day. A calculation that, as the more detailed analysis points out, includes every day of the year. If you adjust for actual working days and divide by the workforce, spending per person per working day comes to those 11 euros on average. The difference between the two figures is not trivial: it is the distance between a luxury scandal and a set-lunch allowance.

Even so, the spending exists and is paid for with public money. That is where the deeper debate comes in: does it make sense for an institution with 180 employees and an annual budget of 23 million to allocate a line to restaurant vouchers? For some, it is a normal HR practice. For others, it is yet another example of how the administration stretches itself.

The debate over the Ombudsman's real usefulness

Beyond the vouchers, the conversation has drifted towards the institution itself. Some argue that the Defensor del Pueblo is a kind of golden retirement for political figures, with no executive powers or real capacity to intervene. Others point out that its role is to oversee the administration and that, even if its rulings are not binding, its watchdog work has value.

Gabilondo's appointment, a former Education Minister, feeds that suspicion of a sinecure. The comparison with other cases of institutional spending, such as the opaque credit cards that landed a former Caja Madrid executive in prison, inevitably surfaces in the conversation. The difference here is that the spending is a regulated benefit, not an irregular use.

How much the Ombudsman's structure costs

The institution manages a budget of around 23 million euros a year, according to the figures cited in the discussion. Most of it goes on salaries and allowances for a workforce of around 180 employees. The question hanging in the air is whether that size is proportional to the usefulness perceived by citizens.

The ombudsman has no executive power. Its reports bind no one. Its ability to influence depends on media and political pressure. With that profile, a structure of 180 people and half a million spent on catering over two years becomes an easy target for criticism.

The political backstory behind institutional spending

The story has landed at a moment of political tension, with the spotlight on public spending and institutional transparency. The opposition has found in this figure a recurring argument: if cuts are made to health or education, why not to the restaurant vouchers of an agency many consider dispensable?

The official defence rests on the normality of the measure: it is just another workplace benefit, like the ones millions of workers in Spain have. The problem is one of framing. A meal voucher for a civil servant is not news. A meal voucher for the Defensor del Pueblo, with its name in the headline, is. And there the institution loses the battle of the narrative.

In the end, the question is not whether 11 euros buy caviar. It is whether the Defensor del Pueblo needs 180 employees and half a million on restaurants to defend a people who, in most cases, have no idea what their defender actually does.