Provincial Elections in Spain
The Diputación Provincial, or Provincial Government, is also known as the “town hall of all town halls”. Every province has one of these government bodies, made up of representatives of all the town halls throughout the province.
The idea in creating a provincial government is to offer support to town halls by handling such services as tax collection in a centralised manner, thus saving resources.
Provincial governments will replicate all kinds of government offices that citizens usually come into contact with, such as the “consumer office”. The only difference is that these offices are generally for the use of municipal officials who need help solving specific problems for the people in their towns.
The general public elects provincial government officials only indirectly as this is handled through the representatives chosen to serve in local town and city halls.
The provincial govenments also run a 'tourist board' for the province. For example the Costa del Sol Tourist board is funded by the Diputacion de Malaga.