On 20 March, a joint administrative service centre, established with the support of the Ukrainian and Swedish experts, was opened in the town of Kalynivka, Vinnytsia Oblast, on the basis of the ASC of the Rayon State Administration. About 60,000 hromada and rayon residents have access to high-quality administrative services, including the most essential ones: business and property registration, social, land and local services.

The U-LEAD with Europe Programme assisted the hromada in institutional establishment of the Centre, furnishing and modern equipment of the ASC. Besides, passport equipment to allow the hromada and rayon residents to receive national and foreign passports to travel abroad, was installed in the Centre with the support of the Programme. The service fee will be paid to the hromada budget. Specialised software was provided to the ASC by the EGAP Programme in cooperation with the Vinnytsia Oblast State Administration.

The Administrative Service Centre of the Kalynivska AH is one of the few in Ukraine joint ASCs, where AH and rayon state administration work together in one room, providing more than 150 services to residents. 15 workplaces were created in the town-rayon ASC. All specialists of the Centre have passed advanced training, specially developed by the Programme experts.

Susanna Dellans, Project Manager of the U-LEAD with Europe Programme’s Support to Improved Administrative Service Delivery, noted: "Provision of high-quality and accessible services to citizens is one of the main tasks of local authorities. Establishment of joint ASCs is a great practice that combines resources and efforts to deliver a wide range of quality services and significantly reduce expenses of taxpayers' funds. We are very glad that the Kalynivska AH, together with the rayon authorities, managed to implement this project."

Anatoliy Shamalyuk, head of the Kalynivska AH: "I am grateful to the experts for their support and contribution to the development of our hromada. Due to the new ASC, high-quality administrative services will become even more accessible to the residents of our hromada and the entire rayon. I am sure that we will demonstrate an excellent result and be able to share with other hromadas the experience of establishment and operation of a joint ASC."

On the eve of the opening, the residents were informed about the features of the ASC work, its advantages, rights and obligations of employees and consumers of services. The Centre is accessible to people with disabilities and has a children’s indoor play corner.

It is worth reminding that 26 ASCs will be opened in Ukrainian amalgamated hromadas within the framework of the U-LEAD with Europe Programme which aims at improving the delivery of local administrative services. The best practices for creating and improving the delivery of administrative services that are tested and implemented in the pilot hromadas of the inception phase will be applied to all ASCs to be opened or modernised within the next phase of the Programme. That is at least 600 ASCs by the end of 2020.