"Gobierto" is essentially an online tool for aiding local government transparency. The operators of the website have gathered data on what major Spanish municipalities spend on their citizens' safety and security. Palma comes out of this study very well. It in fact spends more per head of population - 213.50 euros - than any other Spanish city, and almost 21% of town hall spending is dedicated to this. The average across Spain is 57.11 euros.
Contrasting this positive statistic is the level of criminality in Palma. In 2017 there were 28,654 criminal acts of one form or another. Palma isn't the worst city in this regard, but its crime is way above the national figure of 3,915.
Public safety councillor Angelica Pastor stresses the efforts made by the town hall. "Palma is a very safe city. Security is guaranteed." Nevertheless, more could be done, for which funding from the Balearic and national governments needs to be forthcoming.
Areas in which the city underperforms are social welfare and housing. Palma's annual spend for welfare (based on the data collected) is 141.52 euros per resident. The national average is just under 220 euros. Joan Antoni Salas, the city's director-general for welfare, is self-critical of this performance. "To subtract revenues from social services and spend them on security is an error." He argues that greater investment in social services will prevent situations such as social exclusion that give rise to problems and therefore affect general safety and security.
As for housing, Palma's spending per head of population is 46.61 euros, whereas the national figure is 170.25 euros. And Palma, as has been said often enough, is a city where there are issues with access to housing because of the high prices of property, whether for sale or rent.
Tourism is a reason why Palma invests heavily in security. The talk of the city becoming saturated by tourists is not actually backed up with hard and fast statistics regarding numbers. However, and as an example, when the number of people in Majorca is at its absolute highest (around this time of year), there are a staggering 550,000 or so more than the regular population of 870,000. And at some point, the majority of them go to or are in Palma.
