USE OF INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGIES IN THE ROMANIAN PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION

The article analyzes the problem of ICT within the larger topic of free access to public information. The first part consists of a presentation of the relevant ideas related to this topic and a short history of the evolution of the legal framework regulating access to public information. The second part links this topic with the issue of organizational performance and discusses its relevance at the level of local public administration. The paper is concluded by a brief analysis that attempts to demonstrate, based on empirical data, that in the Romanian public institutions ICT is used primarily as an information-offering tool, a channel to inform the citizenry and not as an interactive interface between communities and public institutions, an interface that can enable citizens to monitor and control (to a certain degree) their interaction with the public sector.