Tsvetan Tsvetanov, Leader of GERB (Citizens for European Development of Bulgaria), former Deputy Mayor of Sofia Round table CREATING SUCCESSFUL PUBLIC-PRIVATE PARTNERSHIPS June 13, 2007 Federal City Council Introduction of the One-Stop-Shops in Sofia Administrative Centers and Sofia Municipality

The Sofia Economic Council: Challenges in the Business Environment of Sofia administrative services: unclear rules and diverging approaches –2/3 of commercial outlets operate without registration –the document requirements in the different regions of Sofia can be as different as tree times the elimination of commercial registration regime would add 0.75% to GDP arbitrary implementation of regulations –6 000 illegal constructions were ‘legalised’ in 2003 –some wait more than 5 years for a construction visa removing the most burdensome regimes would save businesses 2.24% of GDP in costs

Doing Business in Bulgaria (Number of Days and Procedures for Starting a Business) Source: Doing Business 2007, The World Bank

Introducing One Stop Shops: Improving Administrative Services in Sofia Goal of the Project: Changing the organization of service delivery in the administrative regions of Sofia and expandin the citizen’s and businesses’ opportunities for communication with the administration and for receiving quality services.

Improving the Business Environment: е –MUNICIPALITY

Piloting One Stop Shops: The Action Forming a team consisting of experts from the three pilot administrative regions and Sofia Municipality Analysis of the quality of the administrative services in the pilot administrations Defining the number and type of documents to be exchanged between the regions and Sofia Municipality Defining the necessary resources for the development of One-Stop-Shop in the three regions Visiting municipalities with functioning Municipality Centers for Services and Information in Bulgaria Development of specific projects for each of the regions Implementation of the projects

Pilot One Stop Shops: Results Opened Centers for Service and Information (One-Stop-Shop) in three regional administrations. Developing projects for the other 21 regions Developed project for VPN connection between all regions and Sofia Municipality and between the regions themselves by using the optic ring of the central government public administration Bought and configured routers for connecting five administrative regions Established secure connection between ten administrative regions and the Sofia Municipality, used for online exchange of documentation and information; the work will continue until all the other regions are connected as well; Adapted specialized communication software in five regions in Sofia Municipality for online exchange of documentation and information The introduction of the One-Stop-Shop principle continues in the rest of the regional administrations. The Sofia Municipality will invest more than one million BGN ($700 K) for construction and repair work for the adaptation of buildings and for the purchase of the necessary information technology for establishing the One-Stop-Shops.

Pilot One Stop Shops: Results Unification of the names and definition of the content of the administrative services for all regions and Sofia Municipality: legal grounds for the implementation of each service, necessary documents for accessing the service, deadlines for the implementation of the service and the cost of the implementation Introducing standard applications for each administrative service all over Sofia Printing and distributing a catalogue of the full administrative services of the regions and the Sofia Municipality, including the administration of local taxes and costs of the service Developing standard printed feedback form for studying the public opinion on administrative services

The Impact For the citizens and businesses: Customer-friendly environment Reduced time and efforts Improved information access and accountability Less corruption For the administration: Freeing time for delivering quality services Improved task distribution and management Opportunity for electronic /on-line/ control Effective management decisions

By the end of 2007, each of the regions in Sofia Municipality will be equipped with a Center for Information and Cervices Each of the centers will allow completely integrated service delivery by electronic processing of documents. Final Note