ISSN 2367-5721 SocioBrains INTERNATIONAL SCIENTIFIC REFEREED ONLINE JOURNAL PUBLISHER: WWW.SOCIOBRAINS.COM “SMART IDEAS – WISE DECISIONS” Ltd., BULGARIA ISSUE 18, FEBRUARY 2016 SILVIYA SALTIROVA-RADKOVA 70 - 74 70 Functions and Powers of the Executive Authorities and Local Self-Government in the Area of Social Assistance Silviya Saltirova-radkova Attorney at law, PhD in Law Lecturer at Department “Social work” at Konstantin Preslavsky – University of Shumen BULGARIA ssaltirova@gmail.com ABSTRACT: The following article presents a brief overview of the functions and powers of the executive authorities and local self-government in the area of social assistance. There are discussed and analysed not only the functions and powers of the various state bodies but is presented the structure of their administrations, as well as an analysis of the degree of decentralization of government in the field of social assistance. KEYWORDS: functions and powers of executive, functions and powers of local self- government bodies, executive, local self-government, social assistance, decentralization, devolution he examining of the functions and powers of the executive authorities and local self-government in individual areas of the state government is the task of the special part of administrative law. Unfortunately, due to the numerous amendments to the different legislative acts and the fact that the legal framework of the functions and powers of the administrative bodies is scattered in many different laws and regulations, the Bulgarian administrative law literature lacks in-depth studies on these issues. Most publications in this field are limited to individual analytical reports (most of them produced in the period before the acceptance of the Republic of Bulgaria in the European Union in order to converge the Bulgarian to EU legislation), that reviewed and analysed the legal framework in isolated areas of state government. The analysis of the various functions and powers and their distribution between the executive authorities and local self-government is an important moment not only for determining the degree of decentralization of the executive but also for determining the future measures to improve the administration’s activity. This article, without being exhaustive, gives a short overview of the functions and powers of the executive authorities and local self-government in the area of social assistance. The main legislation in the area of social assistance are:  the Social Assistance Act [1];  the Implementation of the Social Assistance Act Rules [2];  the Structure of Social Assistance Agency Rules [3];  the Structure of Ministry of the Labour and Social Policy Rules [4]. Under those legislation acts the functions and powers in the field of social assistance are carried out mainly by several bodies:  the Council of Ministers; T