REPORT ON THE EXAMINATION OF PUBLISHED DOCUMENTS AND INFORMATION THAT PUBLIC ENTERPRISES AND INSTITUTIONS UNDER THE JURISDICTION OF THE MUNICIPALITIES ARE OBLIGATED TO PUBLISH ON THE WEBSITES

The Agency for the Protection of the Right to Free Access to Information of a Public Character, in accordance with its competencies, carried out monitoring of 47 holders, i.e. on the registered websites of public enterprises and institutions, and published on the List of holders of information on the Agency’s website. Nine holders have inactive websites and could not be assessed for their active transparency. The Department of Cooperation and Analysis monitored the full publication of documents and information that information holders are obliged to publish on their websites according to Article 10 of the Law on Free Access to Public Information.

Proactively published information of the holders should be easily accessible and understandable, usable, relevant to citizens and regularly updated.

The web pages of the monitored owners are updated according to their competencies, and they function as the first informant for the citizens and the services they provide. During the monitoring, good practice was established, among some of the holders, to respect the legal obligation to publish the Annual Report (Article 36) on their websites.

According to the established methodology, pursuant to Article 10 of the Law, a check was carried out to determine whether the monitored holders have published all 22 categories of information that they are obliged to publish on their websites and whether the published information is complete and up-to-date. Namely, each type of fully updated published information was evaluated with a score of 1, each partial publication of required information was evaluated with a score of 0.5, and each unpublished (or non-transparently published) information was evaluated with 0 points.

Depending on the total number of points that the monitored holders received concerning the publication of the necessary documents and information following Article 10 of the Law, a gradation was made of the degree of fulfilment of the legal obligation for their active transparency, as follows: holders with a very low level of transparency who have between 0 and 6 points, with a low level between 7 and 10 points, medium level holders between 10 and 14 points, and with a high level of transparency between 17 and 21 points. 

At the same time, it was determined that three holders are transparent to a large extent in relation to published information, eight holders have a medium level of transparency, 5 have a low level, and 22 have a very low level of compliance in terms of active transparency.

The Agency conducting the monitoring determined that the active transparency among the holders is still at a low level. In the future, the Agency will continuously organize training for the officials among the holders of information. It will emphasize active transparency and the consistent application of Article 10 of the Law on Free Access to Public Information. In this way, the holders help the citizens to better understand the functioning of the institutions, their rights and obligations, how they can influence the making of decisions that are reflected in their daily living and work, as well as to more easily access the services that the institutions offer them under the jurisdiction of the local self-government.