Proactive transparency: 11 institutions met more than 80 percentage of the standards

“The results of the research have shown that the average standards fulfilments (for 57 institutions) are 64.04 percentage, with an increased degree of standards fulfillment by 0.5 percentage points compared to the last year's research. Over 80 percentage of the degree of standards fulfillment were met by 11 institutions, and only four institutions of the BiH Council of Ministers have achieved the maximum 100 percentage of the proactive transparency standards: The Directorate for European Integration of BiH, the Agency for Statistics of BiH, the Agency for the Development of Higher Education and Quality Assurance in BiH and the Public Administration Reform Coordinator’s Office (PARCO). These four institutions have published all data and information of public importance, from employees’ contact information on the total salaries of the management of these institutions and all employees, "doc. dr. Dragan Ćuzulan, State Coordinator for Public Administration Reform in BiH stated at the press conference in Sarajevo today. These are four institutions that, in cooperation with three civil society organisations (Transparency International BiH, Center for Social Research Analitika and Center for Investigative Journalism) in 2015 within the Program for Strengthening Public Institutions in BiH, developed a policy and standards of proactive transparency.

He emphasized that the questions referred to whether the administrative institutions at the state level have made it available for citizens and users of official websites to access data sets /the information divided into six categories: budget information, public procurement information, strategic documents, operational information, organisational information and information on freedom of access to information.

The State Coordinator for Public Administration Reform warned that some institutions still do not provide the public with insight into their integrity plans, internal organisation and job classification rulebooks, tender documents, and highlighted that proactive publishing of information of public importance directly contributes to the concept of good public administration in BiH, restores public confidence in the work of state institutions and make it easier for citizens to be better informed and thus achieve their participation in the work of public administration.

Acting director of the Agency for Statistics of BiH Ms. Vesna Ćužić expressed her satisfaction with the participation and commitment of the Agency for Statistics to continue taking part in the activities related to the improvement of proactive publishing of information. She underlined the importance of inter-agency cooperation and that the Agency provided support to The Public Administration Reform Coordinator's Office through the development of a new software system, using knowledge and experience obtained from the statistical surveys.

Mr. Mathias Mühle, project manager in GIZ that on behalf of the governments of Germany and Great Britain implements the Programme for Strengthening of Public Institutions in BiH, as part of the support to the reform of public administration, explained that since 2015 this programme has supported the development of the standards of proactive transparency, strengthening civil society cooperation. Mr. Mühle also pointed out that pandemic has shown the importance of proactive publishing of information on the official websites of the institutions as citizens more and more rely on on-line communication with the public administration.

In comparison with the last year, in this year’s research 19 new institutions took part, and among them are judiciary institutions such as the High Judicial and Prosecutorial Council of BiH and the Constitutional Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina and the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina.