News

1 July 2025 

The Ombudsman Institution sent an opinion to Social Minister Borislav Gutsanov with a proposal for the creation of a single register of all social services (both community-based and residential – public and private ones), in which social services would be presented with detailed information meeting a uniform standard. Citizens should have access to the register via the official websites of the Ministry of Labor and Social Policy, the Social Assistance Agency, the Agency for Quality of Social Services, including the regional administration and municipal administration according to the address where the social service is provided.

The standard for presenting social services should include as much detailed information as possible, which would allow citizens to form an objective opinion about the quality of the services that their relatives will use, including the name of the social service, its profile, description, service capacity, what kind of specialized and non-specialized staff work there, the procedure for admission, provision of medical care, calculation of fees, contact with relatives, etc. The proposal is that all private social service providers publish a licence for the service they provide, granted by the Agency for the Quality of Social Services, and when the licence is terminated, revoked or cancelled, the information should be available on the official websites of the Social Assistance Agency, the Agency for Quality of Social Services, the regional and the municipal administrations, according to the address where the social service is provided.

 “There is no unified information platform for the social services provided, which makes it difficult for citizens to exercise their right to information and subsequent civic control,” writes Dr. Aysun Avdjiev, Secretary General of the Ombudsman Institution.

Therefore, he recommends that a letter of instruction be sent to the mayors of all municipalities in Bulgaria where social services are provided, requesting that a section entitled “Social Services” be created on their websites as soon as possible and in a prominent place, divided into two parts.

The first part should cover all residential social services for children and adults that provide 24-hour care. The second part should cover all social services for children and adults provided in the community, including both municipal and private residential social services.

The Secretary General emphasizes the need for action to supplement the Social Services Act in order to introduce a provision in the event that a private social service provider's licence is terminated, revoked or cancelled, the Agency for the Quality of Social Services should immediately inform the mayor of the municipality concerned and the relatives of the users of the social service. He also recommends that an appropriate information campaign be conducted periodically to inform citizens of their rights as users of social services, as well as the rights of their relatives.

Following numerous inspections, which revealed illegally provided social services, and complaints received by the Ombudsman Institution, the Secretary General points out that citizens find it difficult to understand the nature, scope, and quality standards of the social services provided in their municipality or region.

“The websites of municipalities mentioned in reports and complaints to the Ombudsman provide only tabular information about the social services operating in their territory and contact details, but there is no information about vacancies, the basic rights of users and their relatives, etc. In many cases, municipal websites not only fail to prominently display information about the actual social services provided in their territories, but lack such information altogether – the name of the service, exact address, and contact details. Often, the service listed on the website does not correspond to its actual profile, which misleads potential users, who, as is well known, are most often people from vulnerable groups. There are numerous cases where citizens turn to the Ombudsman Institution to ask what social activities are available in a given municipality because they have no other source of such information,” Avdjiev points out.

He adds that the websites of regional administrations, again in tabular form and without any additional information to assist citizens, provide information only about the regional map of social services.

The Secretary General of the Ombudsman also draws attention to the fact that people find it difficult to obtain information about the status of social service providers – whether they have a valid or revoked licence, an assessment of the quality of the services provided, etc.

“From the register maintained and updated by the Social Assistance Agency, citizens can obtain information only about the territorial distribution of social services for adults by type of social service, but without any information available on whether each provider is licensed or not. At the same time, the functionalities of the Register of Social Service Providers until 1 July 2020 completely lack up-to-date services, like the ability to search the entire database for the status of a social service provider across the country. In the register of licensed social service providers, maintained and updated by the the Agency for Quality of Social Services, the information is structured in a way that is convenient for the administration, but not for citizens – a total of 526 licensed social service providers are listed as of 31 May 2025, without following any standard that would facilitate the search by citizens: for example, social service providers from the Blagoevgrad region should be listed first, followed by those in the Burgas region, etc.,” Avdjiev points out.

He also highlights other issues – the lack of information about the rights of citizens as users of social services and their relatives, as well as the lack of an effective system for timely notification of the relatives of social service users, especially for homes for the elderly and sick, regarding the imposition of sanctions on homes that do not meet quality standards.

The Ombudsman Institution is adamant that it is precisely because of the lack of easily accessible and objective information that citizens rely on unverified sources and advertisements for unlicensed activities that resemble and even compete with actual social services.