On May 30, 2012 in Sofia FLGR held a National conference "Monitoring of public services at local level" as a closing event of the project "Monitoring of the effective management of public resources".

The event was attended by 90 representatives of NGOs, ministries, Local initative froups, municipalities and regional governments across the country: from Svishtov and Varna, Smolyan and Vratsa, Silistra and Sofia ...

The forum participants were welcomed by Zdravko Sechkov, FLGR, and Lenko Lenkov, America for Bulgaria Foundation.

Petar Paunov, Mayor of Kyustendil, addressed the participants with the introductory words on relations "municipality – citizens” and the benefits of transparent local authorities and civic monitoring of their work.

FLGR and representatives of partner municipalities presented the methodology and results of citizen monitoring of four public services at local level:

- Cleanliness of streets, public places and quality of garbage disposal (Gotse Delchev);

- Maintenance of green areas (Kyustendil);

- Maintenance of the street network (Knezha);

- Home social patronage (Knezha).

As a result of monitoring in Gotse Delchev the concession for separate collection of garbage is terminated by the municipality and a new service provider will be looked up.

As a result of monitoring in Kyustendil is built playground in the district “Zapad”.

As a result of monitoring in Knezha the views of citizens and the municipality leadership regarding the priority which streets to be repaired had been set closer and portions of clients of home care were enriched.

Antonia Raleva of Ruse Regional Administration presented the beginning of civil monitoring of maintenance of the street network in all municipalities in the region, which started in June 2012 and was based on the methodology developed by FLGR. Planned is the application of two more methodologies of FLGR in citizen monitoring on the territory of Rousse Region: that of the clean streets, public places and quality of garbage disposal and Green areas maintenance.

Other practices implemented in Bulgaria in the field of civic monitoring were presented:

- Daniela Dimitrova from the Association "Pleven Public Fund - Community Centers" presented realized citizen monitoring of the compliance program for small settlements in the municipality of Pleven (2007-2013);

- Antoaneta Tzoneva, Institute for Public Environment Development, presented realized in 2005 the first (and only) monitoring the performance of Sofia Municipal Council and the long-term results of it;

- Gergana Zhuleva, Access to Information Program, briefed the participants of the forum with the trends and problems of active transparency of municipalities (Results of the audit of AIP, 2012);

- Pavel Antonov, BlueLink.net, presented three electronic instruments for citizen participation at local level;

- Miglena Kuzmanova, ESRI BULGARIA, provided information of the platform for registering irregularities Aktiven.BG and urged municipalities and other local institutions to take advantage of opportunities provided by this free tool.

At the forum participants were given a brochure with 30 best practices from Bulgaria and the world in citizen monitoring of public services at local level. It can be found online on the FLGR website.

Presentation practices attracted the interest of participants and generated extensive discussion. Shared experience created new ideas for future projects.