Government agency in the context of "Intelligence agencies"

The Instituto Geográfico Nacional (IGN), or National Geographic Institute is a Spanish government agency, dependent on the Spanish Ministry of Public Works. Founded in 1870, it is the national mapping agency for Spain, together with the Centro Nacional de Información Geográfica (CNIG).

Since 2015, most of its products (including MTN50 and MTN25 topographic maps, and PNOA aerial photographies) are freely available online, and licensed under a CC-BY-4.0-like license, as FOM/2807/2015 decree requires its products must be released under a free license.

A municipally owned corporation is a corporation owned by a municipality. They are typically "organisations with independent corporate status, managed by an executive board appointed primarily by local government officials, and with majority public ownership." Some municipally owned corporations rely on revenue from user fees, distinguishing them from agencies and special districts funded through taxation. Municipally owned corporations may also differ from local bureaucracies in funding, transaction costs, financial scrutiny, labour rights, permission to operate outside their jurisdiction, and, under some circumstances, in rights to make profits and risk of bankruptcy.

The causes and effects of municipally owned corporations are posited to be different from those of state-owned enterprises. Corporatization may be more utilised locally rather than nationally allowing more hybrid or flexible forms of public service delivery such as public-private partnerships and inter-municipal cooperation. It also allows charging user fees. Effects can be different because of lower regulator expertise, lower contracting capacity for municipalities, and the higher presence of scale economies. Current research shows that municipally owned corporations are frequently more efficient than bureaucracy but have higher failure rates because of their legal and managerial autonomy. An additional problem is the fact that municipally owned corporations often have more than one municipal owner, and conflict between municipal owners can lead to reduced output for the municipally owned corporation due to various negative spillovers.

Management (or managing) is the administration of organizations, whether businesses, nonprofit organizations, or government bodies through business administration, nonprofit management, or the political science sub-field of public administration respectively. It is the process of managing the resources of businesses, governments, and other organizations.

Larger organizations generally have three hierarchical levels of managers, organized in a pyramid structure:

Ministry or department (also less commonly used secretariat, office, or directorate) are designations used by first-level executive bodies in the machinery of governments that manage a specific sector of public administration.

These types of organizations are usually led by a politician who is a member of a cabinet—a body of high-ranking government officials—who may use a title such as minister, secretary, or commissioner, and are typically staffed with members of a non-political civil service, who manage its operations; they may also oversee other government agencies and organizations as part of a political portfolio. Governments may have differing numbers and types of ministries and departments. In some countries, these terms may be used with specific meanings: for example, an office may be a subdivision of a department or ministry.

A law enforcement agency (LEA) is any government agency responsible for law enforcement within a specific jurisdiction through the employment and deployment of law enforcement officers and their resources. The most common type of law enforcement agency is the police, but various other forms exist as well, including agencies that focus on specific legal violation, or are organized and overseen by certain authorities. They typically have various powers and legal rights to allow them to perform their duties, such as the power of arrest and the use of force.

An intelligence agency is a government agency responsible for the collection, analysis, and exploitation of information in support of law enforcement, national security, military, public safety, and foreign policy objectives.

Means of information gathering are both overt and covert and may include espionage, communication interception, cryptanalysis, cooperation with other institutions, and evaluation of public sources. The assembly and propagation of this information is known as intelligence analysis or intelligence assessment.

Procurement is the process of locating and agreeing to terms and purchasing goods, services, or other works from an external source, often with the use of a tendering or competitive bidding process. When a government agency buys goods or services through this practice, it is referred to as government procurement or public procurement. The term "procure" may also refer to a contractual obligation to "procure" something, i.e. to "ensure" that the thing is done.

Procurement as an organizational process is intended to ensure that the buyer receives goods, services, or works at the best possible price when aspects such as quality, quantity, time, and location are compared. Corporations and public bodies often define processes intended to promote fair and open competition for their business while minimizing risks such as exposure to fraud and collusion.

A regulatory agency (regulatory body, regulator) or independent agency (independent regulatory agency) is a government authority that is responsible for exercising autonomous jurisdiction over some area of human activity in a licensing and regulating capacity. Examples of responsibilities include strengthening safety and standards, and/or to protect consumers in markets where there is a lack of effective competition. Examples of regulatory agencies that enforce standards include the Food and Drug Administration in the United States and the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency in the United Kingdom; and, in the case of economic regulation, the Office of Gas and Electricity Markets and the Telecom Regulatory Authority in India.