Report from a study of Internet sites of public institutions in Bulgaria
In 2006, the Bulgarian APIA does not explicitly oblige public institutions to regularly publish information on their own initiative on their websites. The aim of this study, which was conducted by AIP between February 20 and March 5 of 2006, was to check how local government authorities and institutions of the executive branch make use of the Internet to publish important information on their own initiative and whether citizens are assisted when seeking information on the official institutional websites. 411 public institutions were selected for review from the official Register of Administrative Structures, broken down by type:
| Institutions reviewed | Number |
| Municipalities | 264 |
| Ministries | 17 |
| State Agencies | 10 |
| State commissions | 4 |
| Executive agencies | 38 |
| Institutions established by an act of Parliament | 50 |
| Regional governors | 28 |
We believe that the study is representative enough, since it covers all ministries, all regional governors, all municipalities and most of the other administrative structures in Bulgaria.
The main task of the seven reviewers from the AIP team was to find out whether each institution maintained its own Internet site. Official web sites were maintained by 281 institutions.
| Does the institution maintain its own official web site | 2006 |
| Municipalities | 157 |
| Ministries | 16 |
| State agencies | 9 |
| State commission | 4 |
| Executive Agencies | 31 |
| Institutions established by an act of Parliament | 38 |
| Regional governors | 26 |
| Total: | 281 |
The survey results summarized in the table above show that a greater percentage of the central government institutions maintain their own websites, when compared to the local government institutions.
Results and analysis is part of AIP annual report Access to Information in Bulgaria 2005.