An ayuntamiento is the body charged with the government and administration of the municipalities in Spain not bound to the regime of concejo abierto ('open council').[n.
[2] An ayuntamiento is made up of a mayor (alcalde) and the elected councillors, who compose the plenary (pleno), the deliberative body.
Such a committee is optional for smaller municipalities, at the discretion of the plenary or the regulations of the ayuntamiento.
[5][6] The ayuntamiento follows a collegiate-representative model, with features of a Corporatism such as the fact that the mayor is president of both the plenary and the executive.
Councilors are allotted using the D'Hondt method for proportional representation with the exception of municipalities with under 100 inhabitants where block voting is used instead.