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 Plovdiv on November 14, 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 Plovdiv, Pazardzik, Smolian, Kardjali, Haskovo.

II. Project performance/implementation issues addressed:

The following issues were discussed during the workshop:
1. Weaknesses in the implementation of the Access to Public Information Act (APIA) with regard to active publication of information, particularly on institutional web sites.
2. Last amendments to the APIA, adopted in June 2007.
3. Recent litigation on access to information cases in Bulgaria.
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. Foreign legislation providing for electronic access to information (Hungary, Estonia, USA, Serbia, Russia) - publication schemes, list of categories of information subject to active publication.
6. Problems with active provision of information, particularly publication on institutional web sites:
- insufficient volume of information on institutional web sites about the registers the respective institution maintains and holds;
- necessity for government policy specifying the structure and content of institutional web sites;
- necessity for standardization of the format in which institutional data bases are being maintained and updated, and most importantly the format in which final documents are made available online;
- necessity for legal regulation establishing an obligation for the institutions to maintain public registers in electronic form.
7. Categories of information that shall be actively published on institutional web sites.
8. The Right to Know Day initiative.

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. Active publication of information online would provide answers to potential requests for access to information.
2. Services and procedures for active publication of information on institutional web sites to be unified.
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, as well as the format in which information shall be made electronically available, to be drafted and adopted.
4. 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) which are of public interest;
- the schedule for the sessions of the Municipal Council with the respective draft agenda;
- drafts of all regulations before their final adoption, as well as information about the opportunities for public discussion/consultation on them;
- records from the sessions of the permanent municipal commissions;
- register of all decisions, regulations, minutes, and other documents, adopted by the Municipal Council, including short annotation and the full text;
- information about measures/actions undertaken with relation to oversight functions;
- short description of all registers and other information resources maintained by the respective institution, as well as the means by which they may be accessed by the public;
- 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;
- a list of all contracts between the institution and private companies on which no procurement procedure has been put out;
- information about challenged administrative acts.
5. A possibility for topic search within orders and decisions on the institutional web will facilitate electronic access to information.
6. The requirement for a digital signature at the submission of an electronic access to information request is a hidden form of discrimination against the requestors.

Participants:

1. Tatiana Ivanov Vlasova – Senior Legal Officer – Municipality of Smolian
2. Margarita Solakova - Head of "Legal Services" Department, Municipality of Smolian
3. Dimitar Nikolov Pohlupkov – Head of Information Department, Municipality of Velingrad
4. Nevelina Karaasenova – Senior Expert “Public Relations” Department, Regional Administration – Smolian
5. Elena Dimova Shtilianova – Junior Expert “Information Services” Department, Regional Administration – Smolian
6. Nelly Petkova Ignatova – Senior Legal Officer, Municipality of Plovdiv-North Region
7. Nikolay Sakutov – Senior Expert “Information Services and Technologies,” Municipality of Hisaria
8. Tania Kuzmanova – Head of “Administrative Services” Department, Regional Administration – Pazardzhik
9. Svetlan Kartalov – Head of Administration, Regional Administration – Pazardzhik
10. Liliana Barganova – Senior Expert, Basin Directorate – Plovdiv
11. Venelin Hristov – Expert ‘Information Services,” Regional Administration – Plovdiv
12. Petar Kasabov – Legal Officer, Regional Administration – Plovdiv
13. Valentin Vasilev Yoshkov – System Administrator, Municipality of Plovdiv-South Region
14. Penka Raikova Raikova – Senior Expert “Information Services and Technologies” Department, Municipality of Septemvri
15. Yanka Angelova Martinova – Senior Officer “Computer Services,” Municipality of Sadovo
16. Panayot Pavlov – Head of Administration, Municipality of Plovdiv-Eastern Region
17. Anna Daskalova – Senior Expert “Registrars Office,” Municipality of Panagiurishte
18. Radka Petrishka – Senior Expert “Administrative Services” Department, Municipality of Panagiurishte
19. Slavena Shekerletova, Journalist, Eurocom BG
20. Mihail Aleksiev, Journalist, Ekologia magazine
21. Gergana Jouleva, PhD, AIP executive director
22. Nikolay Marekov, Information Systems Coordinator, AIP
23. Diana Bancheva, Media Relations Coordinator, AIP
24. Kiril Terziiski, Legal Projects Coordinator, AIP
25. Ralitza Katzarska, Coordinator, AIP
26. Veselka Venkova, AIP Coordinator for Plovdiv