Issue 2009 no2 contents:

This article analyses the problems of the efficiency evaluation of administrative decisions in shpere of the land property. The research of the Russian public administration practise discovers a number of drawbacks in the existing procedure of making administrative decisions which lead to taking politically benificial decisions and not to the most efficient ones. In accordance with law it is necessary to evaluate particular types of administrative decisions efficiency on rare ocasions. Foreign experience provides a broad set of approaches to public decisions efficiency evaluation which can be applied to Russian practice of public property management. Working out of the technique of decision efficiency evaluation in sphere of land property management requires considering their specific traits. These traits predetermine the scheme of analysis and applicability of certain analytical tools to the measurement of administrative decision efficiency.

The author considers experience of management by objectives implementation based on key performance indicators in regional governance. In the article result reports of regional administrations taken from open sources are evaluated. The author pays special attention to the most topical methodological aspects of key indicators application – cluster policy of regional development and regional competitiveness. He proves that balanced key performance indicators system integrated in regional strategy allows active decision making in sectors and actions which requires additional attention of regional administration. In conclusion the author proposes recommendations on possible improvements of the methodology.

Public-private partnership as a new form of business draws attention of the academic community and the general public. However there is no clear understanding of what PPP stands for. The article considers the problem of formal definition of PPP and it’s role in contemporary economy. Similarities and distinctions between PPP and other forms of collaboration between private and public companies (e.g. privatization or public procurement) are revealed as a result of comparative analyses conducted in the article. Based on this analyses key features of PPP are formulated. Then there are considered causes and stimulus from participation of state and private companies in joint projects. Additionally there are given reasons for distinction between PPP and concession due to different level of risk transfer in these forms and different main source of income for private company. Special attention is given to the question of application PPP in infrastructure and innovations. As a result of the research the author has offered clarification for PPP definition and classification of PPP tools in Russia.

The article is devoted to the analysis of the public management in Great Britain where reforms held have been of a much broader scale than in any other country of the world. The article focuses on the customs of the British bureaucracy and the stages of its evolution. The author points out to the fact that despite being committed to the traditions, the current civil service in Great Britain is an open pluralistic developing structure which makes use of the service experience in the private sector, its own peculiarities being taken into account.

Analysis was based on seven main aspects of performance management systems: a form of assessment criteria confirmation, authority for assessment criteria establishment, authority for performance assessment and payment decision-making, methods of assessment, a form of performance assessment results, consequences of positive assessment and consequences of negative assessment. Despite of apparent similarities of performance management systems in different countries, most of them have particular features that lead success or inefficiency of performance management of senior civil service. As a result, several suggestions for performance assessment and motivation of senior civil servants in Russia were made. They include three main stages of application of performance management instruments. The first stage supposes setting up performance objectives for senior civil servants. The second stage assumes an experiment of limited use of performance bonuses for senior civil servants in some ministries. Results of this experiment should be used to form normative and methodological foundation for further application of these instruments in other ministries and agencies (the third stage).

One of the key objectives of the administrative reform that is now being held in the Russian Federation is enhancement of quality and availability of 209 state services through creation of a network of multifunctional centers (MFCs) providing state and municipal services. The necessity for creation and development of such centers is formalized in the current federal legislation, but the issues dealing with MFC legal framework (such as organizations and functional basis, interaction with governmental authorities whose services are provided in MFCs) has been left out. MFCs’ implementation practice shows that each Subject of the Russian Federation resolves the interaction issue in its own way. This article is devoted to MFCs’ organizational practice in the Subjects of the Russian Federation. It gives the analysis of organizational models showing how government authorities can participate in the activity of such centers, characterizes each of the models from the legal point of view, offers possible legal instruments for elimination of legal problems.

The creation of «Multifunctional centres of public services» (MFC) became a key area of administrative reform process in Russian Federation in 2008. The main role in launching MFC was given to the regions of Russia. Regional governments had to find a place, to hire labor, to provide communications and finance. But the requirement to provide federal services through MFC forced ministries and agencies to join the regional projects. In the article a common experience of federal government structures in dealing with MFC startup projects is reviewed. The key points of decisions (as the form of service provision, finance collaboration, team building and internal communication, PR and information support) are discussed, thus sketching out the best-practice and recommendations from a real experience.

It is still an open question how to organize public governance in order to increase the efficiency of the public sector. One of the aims of Russian administrative reform is to introduce corporate elements into the governance structure of public agencies like Ministry for Economic Development of RF (MED RF). This article explores characteristics of hierarchical, corporate and network governance structures in order to define current governance structure in MED RF. The analysis is based on the transaction costs theory and on formalized interviews of bureaucrats in MED RF that had been conducted by request of LIA. We show that the behavior of the bureaucrats of horizontal departments of MED RF demonstrates the hierarchical elements of the governance structure, while the behavior of the bureaucrats of vertical departments also reveals corporate and network elements. Moreover, the behavior of the bureaucrats that work in different positions shows the characteristics corresponding to different governance structures. The corporate elements are more common at the low levels, the mid level is mainly hierarchical, and the network and corporate elements prevail at the top level.