Optimus - Center for Good Governance

The Law on Inspection Oversight was adopted in 2015, and came into force in April next year. This law brought innovations in the work of inspections, which are primarily reflected in preventive action, coordination of different inspections, reduction of the gray zone economy and standardization of procedures during inspection supervision.

Inspection oversight is the state administration work, carried out by state administration bodies, autonomous province bodies and local self-government units. The goal of each inspection is to ensure that the operations and actions of those inspected by are safeguarded by preventive action or by imposing measures, and that the protection of property, rights and interests is prevented or eliminated.
In order to complete and analyze the implementation of the Law on Inspection Oversight , Eclaw Consulting d.o.o. and OPTIMUS - The Center for Good Governance are currently conducting a comprehensive research on the implementation of the Law among inspections at the republic and local level. We prepared two different questionnaires - one for local and one for republic inspection. In a very short time, we collected over 350 questionnaires, collected from 104 towns and municipalities and 8 inspections operating on level of Republic.

In response to the questions, the inspectors gave their views on the existing Law, the preventive role of inspections, cooperation with industry and commerce associations, non-governmental organizations, the number of conducted controls, the reasons for the extraordinary supervision, the basis and foundation for initiating inspection supervision, the relationship of supervised subjects towards inspectors, cooperation among different inspections ...

Based on identified challenges, the comprehensive answers we received will help us formulate suggestions that would contribute to better implementation of the Law on Inspection Oversight and to prepare recommendations and proposals for amendments to the Law.

Inspections at the local level covered by the survey are: tourist, construction, communal inspection, local tax administration and environmental inspection, while among republic inspection we included administrative inspection, market, tourist, agricultural, sanitary and construction inspection, labor inspection and inspection for environmental protection.

In addition to the questionnaire and its analysis, in order to better examine the views of inspections, we are also organizing focus groups with representatives of local and republic inspectors, as well as one focus group with representatives of the industry and commerce. The first such focus group was held in Belgrade on November 1, 2017, encompassing republic inspectorates and inspections from local governments, different in size and number of inhabitants, in order to get comprehensive overview of challenges inspections are facing.

The whole process is carried out within the project "Monitoring and Analyzing the Implementation of the Law on Inspection Oversight and Informing Public on Achieved Results". Program is financed by the Ministry of Public Administration and Local Self-Government.