Development worth around three billion forints is currently under way in local public administration. State administration, government offices and customer service points are preparing for further changes and developments.

The Ministry of Public Administration and Justice is coordinating the realisation of projects worth 2.1 million forints in the organisational development of government offices, 500 million forints in development of work on customer services and 300 million forints on service provision at regional offices. The developments have been made possible through EU funds.

The Government is implementing the most comprehensive public administration reform for twenty years. One of the most important areas of reorganisation is the restructuring of regional public administration, within which one of the most important phases was the formation of county and Budapest government offices and the opening of so-called ‘government windows’ in January 2011. Currently there are a total of twenty-nine government customer service points or government offices across the country at which around half a million people have already received assistance in dealing with their official affairs. There are plans to increase the number of locations for government windows to 300 by 2014, which will mean that citizens throughout the whole country will have much better access to assistance in dealing with their official matters. The number of matters which can be dealt with at the offices will increase to more than two thousand. In each location, thanks to the ‘one window’ approach, regional offices (and district offices in the capital) will help to simplify dealing with official matters and increase accessibility for citizens – particularly those living in the countryside.

In addition to changes in the legislative environment, there is great need for organisational developments assisting the changes in local public administration and the development of new task allocation and service-centred public administration which is completely committed to the needs of citizens. This goal is served by the projects currently being launched.

(Ministry of Public Administration and Justice)