Access to Information Programme

United Nations Development Programme

Protocol from a workshop with municipal and regional administration officials responsible for the provision of public information

held in Varna on July 05, 2007 within the project Increasing Government Transparency and Accountability through Electronic Access financed by UNDP Democratic Governance Trust Fund (DGTF)

I. Purpose of the workshop:

Conducting a one-day discussion on active provision of information, particularly publication of information on institutional web sites, with local and regional government officials from the regions of Varna, Shumen, and Dobrich.

II. Project performance/implementation issues addressed:

The following issues were discussed during the workshop:

1. Conditions for proper implementation of the Access to Public Information Act (APIA) and weaknesses in regard to Bulgarian access to information legislation.
2. Last amendments to the APIA, adopted in June 2007.
3. Obligations for publication of information under other laws (Public Procurement Act, Concessions Act, Statutes Act, Local Government and Local Administration Act).
4. Results from the assessments which Access to Information Programme Foundation (AIP) conducted in March 2006 and March 2007 of active information provision online by 411 public institutions (whether and how they publish public information on their web sites).
5. Results from the access to information part of the 2006 Report by the Minister of State Administration and Administrative Reform.
6. Foreign legislation providing for electronic access to information (Hungary, Estonia, USA, Serbia) - publication schemes, list of categories of information subject to active publication.
7. Problems with active provision of information, particularly publication on institutional web sites:
- necessity for government policy specifying the structure and content of institutional web sites;
- unclear legal regulations regarding the publicity of mayor's decisions;
- insufficient technical capacity and qualification of the staff to provide information electronically.
8. Categories of information that shall be actively published on institutional web sites.
9. Right to Know Day and the awards categories.

III. Follow-up and/or recommended actions:

On the bases of the discussion, the following recommendations were given by the participants in the workshop:

1. Services and procedures for active publication of information on institutional web sites to be unified.
2. An obligation for active publication of the following information on institutional web sites to be established:
- mayor's general scope decisions (as opposed to decisions affecting specific individuals);
- the schedule for the sessions of the Municipal Council with the respective agenda;
- drafts of all regulations before their final adoption, as well as information about the opportunities for public discussion/consultation on them;
- register of all decisions, regulations, minutes, and other documents, adopted by the Municipal Council, including short annotation and the full text;
- short description of all registers and other information resources maintained by the respective institution;
- all available information regarding public procurement procedure after its finalization - submitted tenders, the record from the sessions of the evaluating commission, the evaluation criteria and the contract signed with the winner in the tender - with the exception of information which has explicitly been specified as a trade secret by the bidders;
- APIA implementation reports which every institution send to the Ministry of State Administration and Administrative Reform;
- information about challenged administrative acts.
3. An Instruction by the Ministry of State Administration and Administrative Reform to the heads of the relevant administrations with a model of a web site containing categories of information that shall be actively provided online to be drafted and adopted.
4. Online publication of information can be facilitated by:
- connecting/linking the register of permissions/licenses kept by the municipality with the Regulatory Regimes Register to the Register of Administrative Structures and the Regulations of the Executive Power;
- connecting/linking the electronic register of acts issued by each institution with the web site of the respective institution.

Participants:

1. Stoianka Dragoeva - Head of "Administrative, Legal and Information Services" Department, Municipality of Dalgopol
2. Nadezhda Pencheva - Senior Expert "Information Technologies"
Department, Municipality of Shumen
3. Giulhan Musa Veysel - Public Relations Officer, Regional Administration - Dobrich
4. Dragoy Dragoev - Head of Administration, Regional Administration - Dobrich
5. Stilian Grozev - Deputy Regional Governor, Regional Administration - Varna
6. Denis Mollov - Junior Legal Officer, Municipality of Hitrino
7. Redzheb Zekrie - Deputy Mayor, Municipality of Hitrino
8. Ivan Grozev - Head of Administration, Municipality of Tervel
9. Pavlin Petkov - Junior IT Expert, Municipality of Tervel
10. Georgi Stratiev - Head of "Administrative, Legal and Information Services" Department, Municipality of Tervel
11. Kiril Valkanov - Public Relations Officer, Municipality of Suvorovo
12. Galia Ivanova - Head of "Administrative, Legal and Information Services" Department, Municipality of Kavarna
13. Boryana Andreeva - Head of "Administrative, Legal and Information" Department, Municipality of Dobrich
14. Maria Shopova - Senior Expert "Reception Room," Municipality of Dobrich
15. Sevdalina Ivanova - Head of "Information and Services" Center, Municipality of Dobrich
16. Stoyan Shaikov - IT Expert, Municipality of Smiadovo
17. Velichka Zhecheva - Deputy Mayor, Municipality of Smiadovo
19. Gergana Jouleva, PhD, AIP executive director
20. Nikolay Marekov, Information Systems Coordinator, AIP
21. Diana Bancheva, Media Relations Coordinator, AIP
22. Kiril Terziiski, Legal Projects Coordinator, AIP
23. Stela Kovacheva, AIP Coordinator for Razgrad