Background

Asking for and receiving information from municipal and tax offices is an important aspect of the interaction between citizens and institutions. As a part of the How to exercise our right to information project, the Access to Information Program Foundation, in cooperation with the Socio-Economic Analyses Agency, conducted a survey of Bulgarian public registers condition. The survey was funded by the Open Society Foundation, Sofia, and COLPI.

Practice

The survey had several stages. The first step was a review of all registers, in order to select those that are most wanted. The survey questionnaire was developed in the summer of 1999. It was based on a pilot survey in 18 cities. The survey included face-to-face interviews of citizens and institutions in all regional centers, in the period from November to December, 1999. A total of 593 citizens who had asked the respective institutions for information were interviewed. The interviewees within the institutions included bookkeepers, department heads and administrative secretaries of courts. The data collected from individual employees were summarized in a common questionnaire, in order to represent the opinion of the institution as a whole. 204 institutions countrywide were visited and a total of 184 persons were interviewed. The survey report was published in February, 2000.

Asking for and receiving information

The survey showed that the citizens most often ask the following municipal departments for information: citizen registration and administrative services 32.5%; technical department 25.6%; tax offices 23.5%; land use committee 19.9%. At the tax offices, the citizens most often ask for: real estate assessments; references for commercial activities and licenses; information on property taxes. At the Citizen Registry Office, most wanted are the civil status certificates and heir certificates.

The most wanted information at the Technical Department is related to: real estate drawings; territorial development certificates; references on the required construction documents. The information requested on neighborhood development plans has the lowest relative share of all requests.

The citizens most often go to the land use committee for information on deals and title of agricultural lands, as well as for references on the land division plan.

At the district courts, the citizens most often ask for information on the progress of a lawsuit, copies of court rulings and criminal certificates.

The most wanted information at the Registrar s Office is related to copies of notary deeds and titles.

At the Sofia City Court and the regional courts, the citizens most often visit the General Bookkeeping Office and the Company Department.

Condition of institutions

The automation process is at an advanced stage at the Citizen Registry Office and the land use committees. The situation in courts is deplorable: only 14.8% of area and 18.5% of county courts have computers and specialized software. It is not known whether the existing computer equipment allows the development of LANs or external modem links. Another stumbling block are the voluminous archives that make it difficult to enter the information in an electronic format, especially given the lack of qualified staff.

In general, the citizens know what information is provided by the individual institutions. Young people know less about municipal services than adults. The country average for a single visit at a municipal service is half an hour. 36.8% of the interviewed citizens have visited the Municipality at least twice for one and the same information.

The citizens, and especially the younger ones, are critical to the quality of service. The employees, on the other hand, expect the citizens to be specific and to have legislative knowledge, i.e. they don t treat them as clients.

Public Registers Manual

Based on the survey results, in March 2000 the Foundation developed and published a Public Registers Manual. The manual was published with support from the Dutch Organization for Joint International Development (NOVIB) under the Legislative regulation of access to information campaign project. The manual lists the information and services most wanted from the municipal departments and the courts. The references are sorted by department and contain information on the required documents, fees and deadlines. For more convenience, the references are presented as tables. The publication is distributed for free.

Results

The representative survey of the condition of public registers and the quality of service illustrated the necessity of automated systems, databases and information exchange networks between the institutions. It also clearly showed the need for the establishment of citizen information services and for the clarification of tax legislation through the media, as well as training, change of mentality and improvement of the workplace environment at the municipal departments. The Public Registers Manual s purpose is to make it easier for the citizens to go and ask information from any of these departments. Its full text is published on the Foundations web-page at www.aip-bg.org.