The successful implementation of the pilot programme on CUPS (Unified Centres for Public Service Provision) at the level of the local public administration and the success registered in 17 rural areas in the country, since the beginning of the programme (February 2022), aroused the interest of several mayor's offices to modernize their public services offered to citizens at local level.

Today, 10 August 2022, the Cabinet of Ministers approved the amendment of the Government Decision on the piloting of the Unified Centres for Public Service Provision, which provides for the expansion of this concept to other mayor's offices that have expressed their intention to bring innovation to the locality.

The document also provides for the inclusion in the CUPS programme of several public service providers, who will express their readiness to participate in the project, the possibility to establish CUPS through the local public libraries and the expansion of the range of services provided through this tool to ensure administrative decentralization.

The project objectives are as follows:

• - enhancing the access of beneficiaries to public services;
• - increasing the number of electronic public services provided;
• - ensuring extended social inclusion, in particular for persons with disabilities and vulnerable groups; bringing the Government closer to the citizens and increasing their confidence in the modernization and digitalisation of public services, as well as creating prerequisites for an inter-agency cooperation between various public service providers and other central and local public administration authorities.

According to the Deputy Prime Minister for Digitalisation, Iurie Turcanu, this will ensure the accelerated implementation of provisions of the Law on Public Services, which provides for the general framework for the implementation of the "one-stop-shop" principle, including through CUPS. The implementation of the CUPS pilot programme at the level of local public administration authorities will be covered by and within the limits of funds available under the Modernization of Government Services Project (MGSP), implemented by the Public Institution "Electronic Governance Agency" with the support of the World Bank Group and amounts to about 11.5 million lei.