The main aim of this study is to demonstrate how important it is for Spain’s public universities to provide information on their intellectual capital in order to satisfy their users’ information needs. So, an empirical study was conducted to analyse the opinion held by the Social Councils of Spain’s public universities regarding the need for Spanish public universities to publish information on their intellectual capital when presenting economic, financial and budgetary information. The results of this research show extensive criticism of the current accounting information model used by public universities in Spain.