Nedelino Municipality has published its annual plan for social services for 2027 for public consultation, but the document is so unclear and carelessly completed that citizens may struggle to understand what is actually being proposed. Old dates, empty justifications, missing financial figures, contradictory addresses and instructions left in from the original template turn the consultation into something closer to a box-ticking exercise than a genuine opportunity for public participation.
On 22 July, Nedelino Municipality gave citizens and organisations 30 days to submit opinions and proposals on the draft annual plan for social services for 2027. The announcement lists two email addresses and the municipality’s registry office as places where comments can be submitted.
At first glance, everything required for a public consultation appears to be there. There is a published document, a deadline and contact details.
There is only one thing missing: a clear and understandable plan that citizens can actually discuss.
Instead of clearly showing which social services will operate in 2027, which ones will be new, how many people they will serve, how much they will cost and how many staff will be needed, the draft consists of eight pages of tables in which the same service can simultaneously appear to be existing, new and scheduled for termination.
As a result, public participation does not begin with the question of whether the municipality’s proposals are good. It begins with the much more basic question of what the document actually says.
A 2027 plan stuck in 2026
For day care for 20 adults with permanent disabilities, the date 1 January 2026 is given.
The same date appears for the increase in personal assistance from 100 to 150 users.
The more serious problem is that the date is entered under the column “Social services whose provision is planned to be terminated”.
Read as the table is headed, this would mean that the municipality is proposing in 2027 to develop services that should already have been terminated on 1 January 2026.
The person preparing the document may have intended to indicate a start date but entered it in the termination column.
But citizens are left to make that assumption themselves.
A public consultation should not be an exercise in deciphering the intentions of municipal officials.
The same confusion appears with the date 1 January 2027. It is entered in the termination column for the new residential homes for people with mental health disorders, the expansion of residential care for people with physical disabilities and the service for elderly people without disabilities.
What is supposed to start and what is supposed to end?
The plan does not make this clear.
The public is invited to fill in the missing justifications
For day care for 20 people, the field marked “Justification” is blank.
It is also blank for residential care for 35 people of working age without disabilities.
Instead of an explanation, the document contains ellipses and an instruction copied directly from the template:
“The reasons why a change in the number of users is planned, why the provision of a social service is to be terminated, or why a new social service is to be created, and the amount of funding from the state budget should be specified.”
This is not a footnote. It is an instruction to the person who was supposed to complete the plan.
It has remained in the document even after some of the justifications that were actually written, as though the file had been taken directly from a working draft and uploaded for public consultation.
It is not clear why exactly 20 day-care places are needed.
There is no explanation for the planned 35 places for elderly people without disabilities.
There are no figures showing how many people are waiting for such services, how the needs were identified or what facilities are available.
The introductory section claims that priorities were determined on the basis of “identified needs of vulnerable groups”.
The actual data supporting those needs, however, are not presented.
New services without a price tag
The financial section is no clearer.
In the column requiring the amount of funding for new social services, there are no actual figures.
Instead, the document says “according to the standards for delegated state activities” or “within the approved budget”.
That does not tell citizens how much the new services will cost.
Nor does it allow them to assess whether the proposals are financially secured or exist, for now, merely as numbers in a table.
No specific amount is given for mobile preventive work, day care for 20 people, the two homes for 30 people with mental health disorders, or the expansion of residential care for people with physical disabilities from 15 to 45 places.
The plan identifies “financial and social efficiency” as one of its principles, but does not provide the financial information needed to evaluate that efficiency.
What proposal is a citizen supposed to make?
Support more places without knowing what they will cost?
Ask for more staff without knowing how many employees are planned?
Suggest a different service without knowing what resources the municipality has available?
New homes, but at the municipality’s address
The plan proposes two new residential homes for a total of 30 adults with mental health disorders.
Fifteen users are supposed to be accommodated in Sredets and another 15 in Varlino.
In the section specifying the service address, however, the document gives 104 Aleksandar Stamboliyski Street in Nedelino – the address of the municipal administration.
The service is presented as new, but the column showing the number of places already secured also lists 30 users.
The same 30 users then appear again as the number of users of the new service.
For citizens to formulate an opinion, they first have to determine which information is correct.
Does the service already exist, or is it yet to be created?
Is the address in Nedelino or in the two villages?
Are the 30 places already secured or merely planned?
The plan gives no unambiguous answer to any of these questions.
The local project is replaced by a generic national text
The two homes are part of a Nedelino Municipality project under Bulgaria’s Recovery and Resilience Plan.
The local project is worth BGN 3,875,089.96 and also includes a Centre for Specialised Support for Adults with Disabilities and Their Families in Nedelino.
The stated implementation deadline expired on 30 June 2026.
The plan was published three weeks later, at a point when the municipality should already know what has been completed, what has been delayed and when the services are expected to become operational.
Instead of providing up-to-date information about the three local facilities, the document reproduces the general national procedure.
It tells readers that 254 services for around 3,000 users are to be created across the country.
It does not say what condition the buildings in Nedelino, Sredets and Varlino are in.
The Centre for Specialised Support in Nedelino is not even specifically presented in this part of the plan.
Two sections are missing – with no explanation
After Part II, the plan jumps directly to Part V.
Parts III and IV are missing.
One is intended for specialised institutions, while the other covers services financed from the municipal budget.
It is possible that Nedelino Municipality has no services to enter in those sections.
But instead of making that clear, two entire sections simply disappear along with their numbering.
This may appear to be a minor technical omission.
In a document intended for public consultation, however, it once again shifts the burden onto citizens.
They have to guess whether there is no information to provide or whether someone simply forgot to include it.
Nedelino Municipality has completed the first and easiest part of the procedure: it published a file and provided a 30-day period for comments.
The announcement, however, does not include a date, time or location for a public discussion.
The bigger problem is that the document itself creates the impression of something prepared merely to be uploaded and start the consultation period.
A public consultation is supposed to allow citizens to understand a proposal, compare options and request specific changes.
Here, they are expected first to correct the years, move information into the proper columns, work out the addresses and fill in the missing justifications.
