1. Priorities in the Public Administration Reform in Bulgaria
10-11 April 2018
Boyana Residence,
Sofia, Bulgaria

2. Public Administration Development Strategy 2014-2020
Main strategic document
Road Mar for its implementation
Identify challenges and priority areas for reforms
Working for the people

3. Strategic Goals 1: Effective governance and rule of law
2: Governance in partnership with citizens and businesses
3: Open and accountable governance
4: Professional and expert governance
Public administration reform

4. Strategic goal 1. Effective governance and rule of law
Priority areas:
Stable legal framework
Control for the proper implementation of the laws and eradication of corruption practices
Strategic planning and programme budgeting
Streamlining the institutional structure
Reform of the territorial administration
Regulatory, monitoring and revenue bodies
Introduction of quality management tools

5. Regulatory Impact Assessment

6. Amendments to the Legislation
Obligatory partial ex-ante IA - every draft law, code, secondary legal act of the Council of Ministers
Full ex-ante IA – for new laws and codes and when the partial IA shows a need for a full IA
Ex-post IA – 5 years after the adoption of the new legislation
Increased period for public consultations from 14 to 30 days
Law on Normative Acts, adopted on May 3, 2016, in force as of 4 Nov 2016
Ordinance on the Scope and Methodology for Preparing IAs, adopted by the CoM on 26 Oct 2016
Determines the scope and methodology for carrying out ex-ante (partial and full) and ex-post IAs
Gives templates for the partial ex-ante IA, the resume of the report of the full IA and the consultation document
Structural Regulations of the Council of Ministers
Regulate the legislative and operational programmes of the CoM – templates and process of adoption.
Mechanism for including draft legislation – only after the preparation of partial IA
Set up of a RIA Unit at the CoM and process for review of ex-ante IAs

7. Mechanism of Review from the RIA Unit
All IAs are sent to the RIA Unit for approval at least 30 days before the start of the 6 month legislative/operational program of the Council of Ministers
The RIA Unit has 14 days to evaluate the impact assessment – quality, depth, need for full IA. The opinion of the Unit may be:
1. Approves the partial IA
2. Recommends improving the quality of the partial IA or preparing a full IA
The IA is harmonized with the opinion of the RIA Unit and afterwards proposed for inclusion in the legislative/operational program.

8. Shared services

9. Current Situation Overstaffed general administration
Each administration has its own general administration
Hidden general administrative staff in the specialized administration
Inefficiency
Different structure for identical activities and functions
High expenditure for general administrative functions
Paper instead of technologies
Lack of uniform IT systems in the administration
Lack of common business processes for identical activities

10. IT, finance and accounting, human resources management
Priority Axes
Transferring the execution of general administrative functions to a higher level
Creation of centralized shared services units
Development of a new organizational model
Optimization and standardization of business processes
Introduction of new technologies
IT, finance and accounting, human resources management

11. Possible Models Decentralized Model Centralized Model
Coordination of the activities of various administrations within the system of a single or several ministries
Creation of shared services units for the administrations taking part in the initiative
Centralized Model
Centralized provision of shared services for the whole administration
Creation of integrated shared services units, providing services to all administrative structures

12. Next steps 1 2 3 4 Implementation of a project
Budget: 2.5 million BGN for 2 pilots
Partnership with the World Bank
Funding under the OP „Good Governance“
Deadline for execution: 24 months 1
Implementation of a project 2
Analysis and legal amendments 3
Creation of 2 pilots 4
Spreading the model
Elaboration of analyses for all ministries in the priority areas;
Legal amendments to allow the centralization of general administrative functions
Business process re-engineering
Trainings for the staff
Change management
Creation of shared services units in the other ministries
Introduction of shared services in 30 municipal and district administrations

13. Quality Management Tools

14. Quality Management Tools
Lack of systematic approach during the different periods
Lack of continuity in the implementation

15. Next steps 1 2 3 4 Creation of a CAF Center
National CAF Resource Center at the IPA 2
Implementation Guidelines
Development of Guidelines for Implementing the CAF Model 3
Effective CAF User Label
Creation of a specialized Commission for the assessment and certification of the administrations 4
Spreading the model
Implementing the model in 48 administrations by 2018 and 80 by 2020

16. Strategic Goal 2. Governance in Partnership with Citizens and Businesses
Priority areas:
Effective dialogue with the citizens, their organizations and the media
Improving the administrative service delivery
Partnership for a better regulatory environment

17. Transformation of the Administrative Service Delivery Model
Life events
Different channels
Integrated Services
Service delivery centers
Registry reform
Standardized municipal services

18. Strategic Goal 3. Open and Accountable Governance
Priority areas
Open data and free access to information
Civil monitoring and evaluation of the policies
Ethic standards and accountability

19. Citizen Involvement in the Policy Making
Engaging with NGOs
Structured public consultations
Opening datasets
Public consultations for all draft legislation
Obligatory feedback to the citizens

21. Legislation
Access to Public Sector Information Act (adopted in 2015) – All public sector organizations are obliged to publish prioritized public information in an open, machine readable format on the Open Data Portal
Access to Public Sector Information Act – Every public sector organization annually plans the phased publication on the Internet in an open format of information and resources it maintains, the access to which is free
Ordinance on standard terms and conditions for the use of public information and its publication in an open format (adopted in 2016)
Council of Ministers Decisions № 103 of 2015 and № 214 of 2016 approved lists comprising a total of 423 datasets in priority areas to be published in an open format on the Open Data Portal during 2015 and 2016

22. Open Data Portal www.opendata.government.bg
2014 – 9 data sets
2016 – 1,375 data sets published by 381 Public sector organizations
VAT registered businesses
Train schedule
Commercial register
National Concessions Registry
Logging permits
Public registry of the currency exchanges
Air and soil pollution data
Water quality data
Vacancies advertised in job centers
Public Procurement Register
Licensing Norms
Free of charge
Open licensed
Policy encourages to use CC 4.0 license
Usability of Open Data Portal
API accessible
Search and download data sets
Possibility to give feedback
Possibility to ask for certain data sets
5,201 unique visitors average per month
Visualizations -

23. Have European countries developed their Open Data Maturity (2015-2016)?
European Commission
Directorate General for Communications Networks, Content and Technology

24. Strategic Goal 4. Professional and Expert Governance
Priority areas
Planning and assessment of the needs
Improving the selection and recruitment procedure
Policies for career development
Improving the skills

25. Centralized Selection Procedure

26. Problems in the Implementation of the Civil Servant’s Act
In 2014, of a total of appointments and reappointment, only 1887 civil servants are appointed after a competition;
Preconditions for increasing the number of employees who do not possess adequate competencies;
Breach of the principles of competitive procedures, general access to them and transparent allocation of public resources;
Decrease of public trust in the state administration. 1
Abuse of possibilities in the legislation created for special cases 2
Insufficient objectivity and transparency in the selection process

27. Vision for Improving the Selection Process
Objectivity and precision of the selection based on the competency model
Application of the principles of competitive selection
Improvement of the transparency of appointments
The necessary level of general competencies for working in the PA is guaranteed

28. Amendments to the Civil Servant’s Act
Management positions cannot be occupied on a part-time basis
Staff appointed without a proper competition cannot be reappointed to a new permanent position. The only exception is allowed for temporary replacements – they need to have an annual performance appraisal average or higher for the previous year.
Transparency of the positions offered for mobility programs and compulsory competitive selection. All positions need to be published on the Mobility Portal.   1
As of July 26, 2016
Centralized and decentralized stages of the selection procedure.
Compulsory competition procedure when occupying a management position for the first time.
All temporary replacements need to have passed the centralized stage of the selection procedure. 2
As of Oct. 2019

29. Centralized Selection Model
Online platform
Candidates
Initial Selection
Pool of candidates who have successfully passed the centralized stage
Final Selection
Second decentralized selection phase in the specific administration

30. Centralized stage of the competition (1/2)
Tests for assessing the level of general competencies of candidates and basic knowledge needed for working in the civil service. 1
Centralized first stage of the competition for all positions, including temporary replacements 2
Only candidates who are admitted to the competition for a specific position take part in this stage 3
Separate modules of the tests - the same for all candidates, including management positions

31. Centralized stage of the competition (2/2)4
A large database for all question types. For each specific test, questions will be generated randomly 5
Uniform rules will be followed and tests will be held in multiple locations, in a controlled environment 6
Specialized online platform for easier candidate access 7
3 year validity of the results of successful candidates 8
Organizational and logistic support will be provided by the IPA

32. Decentralized stage of the competition9
Only candidates, who have successfully passed the centralized stage are allowed to participate in the decentralized stage 10
The Competition Commission will be able to use the data regarding the candidates’ performance and score from the centralized stage