The city’s civic centres have become a permanent feature on Barcelona’s cultural map. They are a reference point for thousands of people who participate on a daily basis in the construction of an active, innovative culture that is deeply-rooted in the day-to-day workings of the different districts that make up Barcelona. There are 51 facilities in total, dotted across all the city’s neighbourhoods, and they make local culture accessible for everyone.

In 2012 the coordination of civic centres became the responsibility of the Institut de Cultura de Barcelona (ICUB, Culture Institute of Barcelona) and, with the participation of the district leaders and the centres themselves, a plan was drawn up that set out the strategic areas and basic criteria for the activities in these facilities. Among other strands of work, a new shared indicator system for all the centres was put underway.

An attempt had previously been made to gather this information in a systematic and rigorous way, but it wasn’t until 2014 that we had access to homogenous and standardised data for all the centres. Now we can know how many courses or workshops are held, how many people attend, what activities are organised, the activities in which participants can be counted and those in which they can’t, what use associations make of civic centres, etc. To gather this data, the involvement of the leading figures involved in the management and coordination of the centres has been essential, as has the work of specialists who handle the data every day.

The development of this initiative has been slow, with constant revisions, but now it sheds light on a hidden reality. Similarly, efforts have been made to carry out a deeper study on the profile of visitors through the different surveys that have been carried out and that, among other aspects, have allowed us to know that civic centres are one of the municipal services that citizens value most highly.