Annual Report 2015 - Spain’s National Preventive Mechanism The work of the Advisory Council, which meets at least twice a year, involves proposing visits to deprivation of liberty facilities, making suggestions for improving the visitation methodology, carrying out reports in relation to legislation, proposing training programmes and seminars about the prevention of torture, conducting follow-up work to the NPM and SPT reports and any other matters which it deems appropriate. In addition, the spokespeople of the Advisory Council are invited to form part of the teams which visit the different deprivation of liberty facilities, as well as to understand first-hand the work carried out by the NPM unit. In  2015, the spokespeople of the Advisory Council took part in 11 visits. In 2015, two meetings of the Advisory Council were held. The first took place on June 24th and the second on December 18th. Those meetings made the Advisory Council aware of the work of the NPM, and the spokespeople brought forward proposals about facilities to visit and matters to explore during the visits to be carried out during the first half of 2016. The NPM wishes to express its thanks to Javier de Lucas, Fernando Mariño and Yolanda Román for their collaboration and guidance on the work of this unit, both for providing their trained knowledge in diverse scientific disciplines during the visits they participated in, as well as for their proposals and comments throughout their two years as members of the Advisory Council. With regard to the composition of the NPM Unit, economic measures have been taken for the purposes of increasing staffing levels. Towards the end of 2014, an open call was made for the selection of an expert specialising in the competences granted to this institution in its role as National Preventive Mechanism against Torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment (BOE, December 15th 2014), which ended with an expert being contracted. Currently, the NPM Unit is made up of one manager, five experts and two administrators. Another two coordinators take part in this work as experts responsible for Security, Justice, Migrations and Equality of Treatment, and this Unit also receives the support of the institution’s experts (members of other fields related to this matter) in order to implement the visits. Furthermore, the NPM continues to collaborate with qualified and trained professionals in areas such as medicine, psychiatry or psychology for their assistance and cooperation as external experts. For the purposes of increasing the membership of the panel of external expert advisers who routinely collaborate with the NPM, a call was made aimed at the presidents of the General Council of the Official Colleges of Physicians in Spain and the General Council of the Official Colleges of Psychologists in Spain, so that they may disseminate the call amongst their colleagues. Numerous CVs were received from interested professionals, some of which were selected to broaden the membership of the panel of external experts which participates in visits. The NPM wishes to express its thanks to all those candidates who sent their CVs for their interest and willingness to collaborate with this institution. 16