IVA – Chatbot republičkih inspekcija

Donor: European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD)

Partners: Ministry of Public Administration and Local Governmen

Beneficiaries: Ministry of Public Administration and Local Governmen

Implementing period: December 2020 – March 2022

Portal: www.inspektor.gov.rs

Since June 2017, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) has been providing the Ministry of Public Administration and Local Government with financial and technical support for the reform and modernization of the Serbian state-level inspection system. A Support Unit for the Coordination Commission for Inspection Oversight that coordinates a comprehensive reform involving 44 inspections and 14 Ministries, was established with the support of NALED.

The adopted National Program for Countering Shadow Economy for 2019-2020 and the Action Plan further envisaged the establishing of a comprehensive Contact Center of State-Level Inspections for Businesses and Citizens.

The State Inspection Contact Center, established on March 25, 2020, is a unique place where citizens and business representatives can report shadow economy, unregistered entities, and unfair competition, as well as file complaints and report irregularities regarding the work of inspectors by phone, e-mail or voice mail.

The contact center's efficiency has been technically upgraded with additional functionality to maintain and improve its efficiency: a Chatbot software application used for online communication. The Chabot application is available on the website of the Coordination Commission for Inspection Oversight - www.inspektor.gov.rs, and the plan is to enable access to the IVA chatbot via the Viber application. With the help of IVA, all interested parties (businesses and citizens) can receive answers immediately, thus avoiding the waiting process - operators, analysis, and inspections.

The Chatbot application will replace many repetitive jobs and inadequate processing requests that require a lot of time from operators, analysts, and inspectors.

Objectives and results:

• The chatbot application will navigate and support business representatives and citizens to fill out the online form to submit questions or petitions and provide answers to questions concerning the jurisdictions of inspection bodies, police, judiciary, local government units, etc.
• A chatbot application upgrade that enables initial triage of questions and risk assessment submissions (the software should pre-determine the risk using a formula) and suggests a possible answer to the party.
• Providing information on legal regulations and inspection practices to educate interested parties, ultimately reducing the number of calls, cases, and petitions that are not within the jurisdiction of state-level inspections.