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

Public Administration Development Strategy 2014-2020 Main strategic document Road Mar for its implementation 2015-2020 Identify challenges and priority areas for reforms Working for the people

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

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

Regulatory Impact Assessment

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

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.

Shared services

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

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

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

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

Quality Management Tools

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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 - http://viz.opendata.government.bg/

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

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

Centralized Selection Procedure

Problems in the Implementation of the Civil Servant’s Act In 2014, of a total of 10 181 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

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

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

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

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

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

Decentralized stage of the competition 9 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