Ministerio de Hacienda y Función Pública

12:38 Feb 24, 2017 

I'd never bothered to look it up!
The only issue here, I think, is whether it's necessary to look for a way of reflecting this rather artificial and ad hoc change from "Administraciones Públicas" to "Función Pública" in the ministry's name; i.e. that FP is AP minus a chunk. I don't think it is, personally.

12:28 Feb 24, 2017 

función pública
1. f. función que desempeñan los entes públicos.
2. f. Conjunto del personal al servicio de las Administraciones públicas.

12:20 Feb 24, 2017 

I have to admit that I had not met the term "Función Pública" until this name change last year, but my wife, a funcionaria, assures me that it's an established term and they didn't invent it for the occasion.

The reason for the change, and for our having to find a translation for the ministry's new name, was simply that Rajoy wanted to give relations with the autonomous communities, a real hot potato, to Soraya Sáenz de Santamaría, whom he trusts completely, and take it away from Montoro (unaffectionately known as Gollum — look at his photo), whom he doesn't.

For Hacienda most of the English-speaking press uses "Finance", which is what I've always used personally, though Reuters, for example, call Montoro the Budget minister. On "Función Pública" I think the jury's still out.

20:08 Feb 23, 2017 

I withdraw my comment, but I will leave my answer in place.

20:02 Feb 23, 2017 

There's no great mystery about it really. It's not particularly about transparency. Función Pública in Spain means Administraciones Públicas minus relations between central government and autonomous community/local government. Administraciones Públicas used to be a separate ministry. It was given to Hacienda in 2011, which became Hacienda y Administraciones Públicas, and then in 2016 the part relating to central/AC/local govt relations was hived off to the Ministerio de la Presidencia, leaving Hacienda in charge of the remainder of Administraciones Públicas, which basically means state public employees. Hence the change of name, which happened only last year. The Ministry itself uses the term "Civil Service". There a Código de la Función Pública:
https://www.boe.es/legislacion/codigos/codigo.php?id=3&modo=...

19:31 Feb 23, 2017 

It may be meaningless for a reason. As Robert points out, the term in Mexico refers to transparency. It may be about financial transparency--or it may not. For diplomatic reasons, it may be wiser to stick to the original and leave it as vague as possible.

18:14 Feb 23, 2017 

should be presaged on what the Ministry's actual responsibilities are. Both of Simon's suggestions sound at least like natural English

18:01 Feb 23, 2017 

Will be the one they actually paid a native speaking human being to translate! Thanks for the comments guys, I feel a bit less frustrated now.

17:34 Feb 23, 2017 

The English version of the Moncloa website is supposed to be official, but it's a shambles and I feel free to ignore it when I don't like it. This is a classic case. The egregious Montoro is Minister of the Treasury and Public Function here:
http://www.lamoncloa.gob.es/lang/en/gobierno/gabinete/Pagina...

But his own ministry calls itself the Ministry of Finance and Civil Service here:
http://www.minhafp.gob.es/en-GB/El Ministerio/Paginas/El Min...

Which of these is the "official" one? They're both rubbish anyway (especially the first).

17:33 Feb 23, 2017 

I agree with Simon - with very few exceptions, "official", set-in-stone translations exist only for international bodies like the EU and the UN. There's no reason why a Spanish ministry should have one.

16:58 Feb 23, 2017 

Hi Neil. I don't think there's ever a consensus on what the "official" English name for a Spanish institution should be, since English isn't an official language of Spain. I would take your pick from your options or mine, which all do the job. There might be a version preferred in the English-language media, you could use that.

16:49 Feb 23, 2017 

So far, I've found other links calling it "Ministry of Taxation and State Administration", and "Ministry of Finance and Civil Service". Both of them sound equally convincing, so what I really need is someone who can reliably inform me what the latest official version is.