Administrations introduce extended working hours for services to customers

More than 90 central, regional and local administrations, including the Ministry of Justice, the Bulgarian Food Safety Agency, Sofia Municipality and 4 other municipalities, 17 regional directorates "Agriculture" have introduced extended working hours from 8.00 to 18.30 for administrative services to individuals and businesses.

This became possible following the initiative of the Deputy Prime Minister for Effective Governance, Kalina Konstantinova, to facilitate citizens and businesses to request and receive services and information at their convenience in the Administrative Service Centres.

"One of the most unacceptable things for people related to the state administration was that the working hours of the counters coincided with theirs and in order to use them, they had to take half a day off. Therefore, we decided that extending the working day of the service-providing offices, as well as guaranteeing uninterrupted working hours, would give people the opportunity to use their lunch break to do their work, or to come in before or after the end of their working day. This is one of the first steps in the right direction that we have taken - the administration to serve the people, and not, as it was before - the people to serve the administration," said Deputy Prime Minister Konstantinova.

The lunch break of the employees is regulated and guaranteed, but flexible work arrangments have been been introduced to uninterrupted work process.

More than 500 central, regional and municipal administrations, including all ministries and most of their agencies, the Commission for Consumer Protection, the Regional Health Inspectorate and the National Revenue Agency, have already introduced the provision of administrative services to citizens under uninterrupted working hours. In parallel, the administrations providing the largest number of administrative services are intensifying their electronification process.

In case of detected violations in the Administrative Service Centres, Deputy Prime Minister Kalina Konstantinova appealed to citizens to report to the e-mail address of the Chief Inspectorate of the Council of Ministers udostoverenia@government.bg.