About the Survey
The COVID-19 pandemic has significantly affected and even transformed almost all aspects of societal relations, administrative ones – between the state or other authority and individual citizens, businesses, NGOs and other parties -, included. Therefore, administrative bodies applied various strategies, techniques and communication channels to continue carrying out their tasks towards parties to the procedures, as well as effectively organize work among civil servants and other agencies. Some of these approaches immediately proved to be a value added also for future while others are still causing problems when searching for a balance between protection of legally defined public interest and exercising private rights. In order to analyze these responses and related issues for tomorrow’s better policy making on both supra- and national scales, researchers at the Faculty of Public Administration of the University of Ljubljana, and partner institutions in other countries, launched an international study ‘The impact of the COVID-19 epidemic on the efficiency of public administration: the case of general territorial administrative districts’ in June 2020. Since individual countries have different administrative structures, the focus was put on the administrative bodies, competent to conduct procedures and provide services as general units at the local level (e.g. issue building permits or decide in internal affairs). By asking heads of these bodies how they have addressed troubles they had faced during pandemic, it is expected to establish the most salient drivers and barriers for classically and remotely run activities, and further formulate the recommendations for agile operation thereof in line with the rule of law and other principles of sound public governance.