On June 15, 2025 during an online press conference, the Access to Information Programme (AIP) presented the Results from the 2022 audit on institutional web sites.
The aim of the audit is to evaluate if the executive bodies fulfill their obligations for proactive disclosure of information online under the Access to Public Information Act (APIA) and other legal regulations and to assess how they respond to electronic requests.
In the lack of a public body to coordinate and control the implementation of the APIA, including the obligations for proactive publication of information, the AIP Audit serves as a model publication scheme for public bodies to increase their active transparency.
Results are available here: https://data.aip-bg.org/en/surveys/O24H73/
Audit Methodology
The 2022 audit was performed within the period April 1 - June 10, 2022 by nine researchers from the AIP team. The web sites of 563 executive bodies on a central, regional, and local level, as well as public-law entities and independent state bodies were reviewed and assessed along a checklist of indicators (see below).
Within the audit, 563 electronic requests were filed with the request to provide information about the number of court cases initiated against decisions of the respective public body under the Access to Public Information Act for the year of 2021.
The 2022 transparency level was assessed along a checklist of 108 indicators for the primary budget-managing bodies, 118 indicators for the municipalities, and 94 indicators for the territorial units of the central government bodies and for the secondary budget managing bodies.
The results were sent for feedback to all the audited institutions on June 2, 2022. The AIP considered all received statements within a given time-frime and refledted all 92 feedback responses in the audit results.
The assessment indicators in the checklist are combined in four groups, reflecting:
Availability of institutional, organizational, operative, and contact information under Art. 15, Para 1 of the APIA
Availability and content of the Access to Information Section under Art. 15a, Para 2 of the APIA
The obligation for launching and maintaining an Access to Information section with specific content that aims to facilitate the exercise of the right to information is effective since 2008. The 2015 APIA amendments introduced additional categories for online publication in the ATI section.
Availability of budgets, financial reports, conflict of interest declarations, public procurement information under the Public Finances Act, the Public Procurements Act, the Law on Prevention and Ascertainment of Conflict of Interests
Response to the e-request
As mentioned already, in this year’s audit AIP’s researchers requested information about the number of court cases initiated against decisions of the respective public body under the Access to Public Information Act for the year of 2021.
Results
2022 Active Transparency Ratings
AIP's internal web based system generates separately the Active Transparency Ratings for the different categories of administrative bodies.
The comparative rating of the institutions indicates the positions up or down in the rating, taking into account the results of each institution from the two previous years.
The web based audit module generates different types of ratings:
• Active Transparency Rating of Central Government Bodies
• Active Transparency Rating of 265 Municipalities
• Active Transparency Rating of the Regional Governors’ Administrations
• Active Transparency of Regional Bodies of Executive Bodies
Also, Ratings of agencies, commissions, independent state bodies; Ratings of the institutions by region; Ratings of the regional offices of the Ministry of Interior, of the Ministry of Environment and Waters, the Ministry of Education, the Ministry of Agriculture, Foods and Forests, etc.
Since 2019, the AIP had the web based audit module upgraded which allows for the generation of the Active Transparency Rating of 265 Municipalities.
Another upgrade allowed for the Comparative Ratings to indicate the upward or downward motion in the rating of each institution.
Map Visualizing Results of Budget, Financial Transparency and Integrity of Municipalities 2022
The results from the implementation of the obligations of the 265 municipalities in Bulgaria to proactively publish information on their budgets, financial reports, conflict of interest declarations, public procurements are visualized in the 2022 Budget, Financial Transparency and Integrity Map of Municipalities of Bulgaria.
Responses to the e-requests and information provided
The AIP publishes the answers to the 563 e-requests filed within the audit (in Bulgarian), as well as the provided information.
The web based audit system also allows for following the statistics on the responses and the provision of the requested information (in Bulgarian).
The Access to Information Forum project is implemented with the financial support of Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway under the EEA Financial Me
chanism.
The main objective of the Access to Information Forum project is to improve the transparency and accountability of public institutions. Click here to visit the project's webpage.