Issue 2012 no2 contents:

The article deals with the evolution of meanings and legal regulation of public services in the current history of Russia.  It is in the framework of this evolution, that the institute of public services emerges as a tool to promote the market of services in the spheres of activity of executive bodies of power and to restrict their authoritative aspirations.

Results of the study: at present public services in Russia embrace virtually all services provided at the expense of the state budget. The state seeks to make rules and control requirements to the quality of services as are done or provided from the state budget. It mainly concerns public administration services.

Conclusions: not bad assessments of the efforts on improving the quality of public services are not a reason for complacency. There are still a lot of problems with the quality of public services. Yet, they show that the efforts on improving the quality of services are useful and must continue. To achieve a high level of customers’ satisfaction with the quality of public services both the current efforts on inculcating advanced mechanisms, including the optimization of the re-engineering of their delivery, and further institutionalization of public services with the logic of the evolution of their meanings and legal regulation are very important.

The article considers the lack of effective mechanisms at federal and regional levels that should focus public service to search for internal reserves, ensuring the accumulation of skills potential and encouraging quality work of officials.  The sociological poll of civil servants conducted in November 2011 showed that only 20% of them, on average, find the conditions for career development clearly definite and predictable.  54% of public servants feel the problem of “brains drain” acute or even extremely acute, which is associated with professionals leaving the public service for other fields. Another 30% recognize this problem more or less significant, and 47% of civil servants from time to time, or often, think about changing their professional career in the public service or moving to the private sector. The authors of the article, basing on the results of the sociological survey, analyze the mechanisms of bringing into line the number and qualified personnel of civil servants with functional executive authorities.

Conclusions and proposals: the public service should implement a matrix professional-functional model of organization in which public servants may simultaneously be attributed to a specific functionary (for example, preserving the highest, senior, the major, leading, minor) and professional-functional (for example, “personnel”, “customs”, etc.) group. The introduction of professional-functional groups will require above all the simplification and modification of the registry of key posts in the public service, with the specifics of certain public bodies being identified. The structuring of the sections of the registry of key posts must not be done according to “public authorities”, but according to professional- functional groups.

The paper is aimed at assessing the regulatory impact of the new trade law (2009). A standardized data survey is used for revealing market sellers that may gain from the introduction of the trade law. 512 filled questionnaires were collected from the managers of chain stores and their suppliers in five big cities of Russia in November-December 2010. Federal Anti-Trust Service statistics is used to examine the scale and dynamic of regulatory impact on the trade law enforcement. The author concludes that the initial effects of the trade law do not correspond to the declared goals. At the same time, the market sellers confront with the additional transaction costs of administrative control, prosecutions and fines due to the extended prerogatives of the anti-trust authorities.

The article deals with the questions of reforming the budget sector: an increase in the number of types of state and municipal institutions, and a corresponding change of mechanisms of their budgetary financing. The authors identify the main stages of the reform; analyze the specifics of each of them; examine the current state of the reform: problems, risks occurred in the course of its implementation. One of the risks is a threat of discontinuing the reform.  Its sign is a steady decline in the level of economic independence of the autonomous institutions after making a number of amendments to Federal Law "On autonomous institutions". The decline is primarily associated with the norm of Law № 83-FL (№ 83-ФЗ) for the establishment of the procedure of developing and adopting a plan on financial and economic activity of an autonomous agency by its founder.
Development proposals for the reform:  1) the adoption of the Federal law setting out a new look at the system to be transformed. This Act inevitably contains a lot of poorly defined, obscure notions and reference standards, according to which taking decisions on some relevant questions “is authorized” to the federal, regional and municipal bodies of power. Then while the Law is being implemented some of its statutory concepts and mechanisms are clarified and specified; 2) a preliminary development of a fairly detailed concept or development program of reform. Though there are obvious benefits in it, there is still a danger to drag on discussing methodological problems without passing to a real change. This threat is quite real, yet it can be removed if there is a political will and a careful, clear organization of work on the preparation of the concept.        

The article is devoted to the comparative analysis of the development of two types of institutions that act as intermediaries, or mediators; community advisory boards; institutions of the Commissioner for human rights and for the rights of the child.

The subject of the analysis is the history of creation and development, the regulatory framework of these institutions, the personnel and the results of their activities. The results obtained are correlated with an earlier proposed set of models of interaction between the authorities and society. The article concludes: in the conditions of a mono-centrist political regime, the one which is very close to authoritarian, some of the institutions, in particular, the Community Council and the Commissioner for human rights in 2010-2012 acted within the paternalistic model, others, like the Coordinating Council of Non-Profit Organization and the Commissioner for the rights of the child, promoted the partnership model. The institution of the Commissioner for the rights of man under I.P.Mihaylov was in search of its place and its model, but when there appeared a real prospect to act within the partnership model, he was retired.

Recommendation: different levels of authorities are suggested using the practice to involve into the public advisory boards people from really working public organizations, not representatives of "the public", who have nobody to lean on and who are not responsible for their actions/inactions to their organizations.

Regional expences in Russia on state-related procurements such as delivering goods, doing different work and servises to meet the state needs, are so big, that effective price policy of state contracts, i.e. producing communal goods of high quality and at possibly minimal price, still remains  very important. Thus, it is necessary to understand what the price setting of state contracts depends on, what can affect it. The authors of the article, analyzing the relative prices of state contracts on petrol and diesel fuel, came to the conclusion that the more transparent information about state procurements is, the lower prices of state contracts are going to be. Information transparency infl uences both the number of perspective participants of the auction and their stratigic behaviour during the auction, which,in its turn, impacts the amount of price. Both factors are considered in this article.

The article gives an analysis of the problem of outsourcing in public management of the RF. It clarifies the definition of the term of public services; proposes concepts of public service and public service product; discusses the hypothesis that outsourcing really can help improve the performance of the state structures by attracting external resources.

Results: the resource and contact activities are most promising for outsourcing. However, outsourcing of government activities is associated with certain risks. Among the most important risks are: 1) the risk of leakage of secret information; 2) the abuse of power by an outsourcing company; 3) overpricing the services offered. The author suggests that risks be minimized through the strict regulation of the rights of parties to an outsourcing deal and constant control of the quality of cooperation.

Conclusions: not all types of public management can be outsourced and, in some cases the use of outsourcing is associated with high enough risks. However, in general, outsourcing can be considered as an effective tool for improving the quality of public service, public service products, and for this reason the role of outsourcing in government operations will be enhanced.

The article is devoted to the interdisciplinary analysis of the existing institutions for increasing norm-making efficiency, to the definition of organization and legal mechanisms of their relationship. A number of studies, including the one conducted by the author, substantiated the low efficiency of the realization of the transparency principle in conducting anti-corruption expertise, anti-corruption monitoring, and monitoring of the anti-corruption law enforcement. Legal regulation of anti-corruption monitoring in the legislation of the majority of subjects of the Russian Federation comes down to just declarative rules only defining its goals but not the order of conducting. As a result of the analysis the following conclusions have been made: 1) there are serious terminological and methodological differences between the traditional institutions of expertise for legal science and the implemented socio-economic assessment of regulatory impacts; 2) there have been limited formal-legal methods for conducting anti-corruption expert examination and monitoring law enforcement in comparison with the extensive use of sociological and economic methods in assessing the regulatory impacts, which limits the effectiveness of the first two institutions; 3) the above circumstances make an appropriate expansion of the assessment of the need (or lack) for the State interference in not only economic but also in social and political relations; 4) improving information transparency procedures of anti-corruption expertise, anti-corruption monitoring and law enforcement monitoring, formation of interaction mechanisms between the authorities, independent experts, institutions of civil society and business community when all these procedures are conducted, are very important factors for improving investment attractiveness and socio-economic development of Russia.

The article considers questions of management of public-private partnerships abroad, mainly in the developed countries. It shows the role of the bodies of public management, their status; analyzes functions, powers and results of their activities.

Results:  now there is no system of PPP management in our country, and the   management object itself – public private partnership-has not been defined yet. The subjects of the RF that have passed the PPP Act (there are about 50 such regions) provide definitions of PPP, but they are so vague, unclear and fuzzy that make it impossible to identify the specific character of the partners’ relationship between the State and business. As a rule, Federal ministries, agencies and regional authorities relate to PPP any cooperation or interaction of the State and private companies when they carry out investment projects.

Conclusion: The Ministry of Economic Development has set up a PPP Unit. But because of its small number and the lack of powers, it has not been able to realize itself fully as a PPP body on a national scale yet. The PPP Centre in the structure of the International Economic Bank of Russia cannot also claim the status of the core of the PPP management system as it was conceived while being created. As a structure of the bank this Centre deals with specific matters of financing. Its competence cannot be extended to making decisions, for example, about the PPP methodological and coordination problems in the country. For this purpose it necessary to withdraw the PPP Centre from the subordination to the bank and authorize relevant powers by the Government.

The purpose of the present research is to study and generalize practice of the public financial control (PFC) in countries with more developed economies. The study presented is empirical. Its information base is: analytical materials of the higher public audit institutions of developed countries; data from leading information agencies about prices, government bonds yield of different countries; analyses of leading Western experts on the subject of research. The article reveals the cause-effect connection between the goals the public management systems face and the ones of the PFC at the present stage. It substantiates the necessity to consider the PFC as a part of the overall system of public management; exemplifies actions of the identified trends; shows the ambiguity of their manifestation depending on the conditions of specific countries, and analyzed the possibility of using some of them in the practice of PFC in Russia.

Results: these data demonstrate incorrectness of the migration approach of the described practice to transfer a part of the public financial control functions to private companies on the ground of the emotional judgments, unsupported by quantitative evaluations, that the private sector organizations are more effective than the ones of the public sector. This especially should be taken into account in the current economic conditions of the Russian Federation, where the market institutions cannot be considered effective, particularly in connection with the short-lived period of their activities.

This article gives an analysis of the processes of public participation in the formulation of strategies in various state systems. A key focus will be given to the comparison of several countries to assess their positions on: a) the composition of actors involved in the formulation of strategies; b) the coordination of the participation of actors in the formulation of the strategy provisions; c) the instruments for promoting this participation of actors. The research hypothesis assumes that such indicators as the composition of actors, coordination and the instruments will all vary at the stage of formulating strategies in countries with different political systems.

The task of the study is to contribute to the design and practical application of the principles of strategic management in the public administration in Russia.

Results: the research shows that the systems of strategic management in the RF, South Korea and Norway are different for legal reasons, thrust of the decisions in the power hierarchy. Some gaps of the legal field governing the formulation of the state strategy in Russia have been fixed.

Conclusions: as the research shows, countries with strong and sustainable democratic regimes (Norway, South Korea) ensure a broad public participation in making state strategy provisions. In the country with a less sustainable regime (Russia) public representation in the process of formulating a strategy at its development stage is not similarly implemented: public groups are not included in the strategic regulation at the stage of formulating.

The article summarizes the first results of using outsourcing by the educational institution of the town of Perm as a means of improving effectiveness of their activities. The transfer of non-core educational functions to external specialized organizations cannot only save budget money of the institutions and guide it to a salary increase of the personnel or the acquisition of new equipment, but also allows the head of the institution to focus his attention on the organization of the educational process. One of the features of the article is a description of the technology of transferring works and services to the external contractor. This technology was developed by the Department of Education in the administration of Perm and used in practice of schools, day-care centre, and institutions of additional/further education.

The analysis of the transfer of the non-core functions by the educational institutions of Perm to external actors allows the following conclusions to be drawn: outsourcing can really be considered a way to improve the efficiency of spending resources, primarily, the time and financial resources, with the quality of the functions performing being increased. Outsourcing companies are interested in working with the budget sector and qualitative performing their obligations (last year only six cases of termination of the contract with an outsourcing company were recorded). Freed resources (personnel, funds, facilities etc.) are directed at improving the quality of educational services: development of methodological software; renewal of the park of computers at schools; improving the developing environment in kindergartens; enhancing the incentive part of the salary of basic employees-teachers and educators. 

The subject of the research is to assess the investment policy of Russia in the sphere of attraction of foreign investments from the perspective of regional economy. The article analyzes the experience of attracting foreign investors to the territory of the RF subjects by the example of Ulyanovsk region. It   presents the characteristics of investment projects with the participation of foreign investors in the region. It shows the prospects and challenges of their implementation.

Results: currently there are projects on the creation of three industrial zones that are being implemented in Ulyanovsk region. When the projects were substantiated, it was the ability to attract foreign capital that emphasis was made on. Searching new investors to the most promising sectors for Ulyanovsk region continues. The database of potential investors in these sectors is being replenished. The data include about 1,000 domestic and foreign companies, with relative commercial quotations produced and directed to each of the companies.

Conclusion: under such circumstances the regions are left to fight for their “place in the sun”,  and, to  ensure their further development, it is necessary to create conditions for attracting investments and to cease considering foreign investments unreliable, threatening the integrity of the country’s economy. Today any financial resources attracted to the territory of the country are very important. The sooner regions stop to rely on the resources base and to begin creating infrastructure, so that their investment attractiveness should increase, the faster they start the mechanism of production modernization and thereby form a mechanism for a sustainable development of Russia as a whole. 

The article considers the basic methodological and practical problems of forming requirements to the quality of public services. To address the problems identified, the article attaches a step by step methodology for forming a science-based system of indicators of the quality of public services. The first step is the division of quality indicators into two groups in accordance with the normative acts in which they should be reflected. The second step relates to the use of the “integral quality of public services” categories. The third, and the final step, is to use a problem-based approach to the forming of a quality   evaluation indicators system of each definite public service or a number of services.

Conclusions: 1) A high degree of heterogeneity of the practice regulation and re-registration of public and municipal services in Russia’s regions testify to the absence of unified methodological approaches to the definition of the quality of public services. 2) Unification of requirements to the quality of public services is hampered by the ambiguity of the interpretation of the notion of public and municipal services in the Russian legislation. 3) The proposed method of forming indicators of the quality of public services is set up on the stepwise application of the basic approaches to the determination of the quality of services:  focus on the customer (supplier); “integral quality”; problem-oriented approach. 4) Results of the approbation of the method on the materials of Tomsk region indicate to the broad applicability of this approach that may become one of the main elements of managing (systematizing) public services and improving the quality of reform-oriented services to the population. 

This article examines problems of road and transport infrastructure of Moscow. It considers analytical models of large cities, and the transport problems of Moscow are investigated with the help of these models. A model, describing cause-effect connections between various problems of the road and transport structure of the city, is presented in the article. The study results in the definition of the priorities for the transport infrastructure development: the monopolicentric model suits more large cities such as Moscow, than the pure monocentric model. Policentric models, particularly ones with developed district centers, could become optimal for Moscow in terms of load on the road network. At such an arrangement of migration flows, employees would not have to move every day from their area to the center to work and back. The development of regional centers would create new jobs there.

Conclusions: the analysis of the road and transport infrastructure of the city of Moscow has shown that in order to solve the problems in the short and medium term, the following measures may be taken: the priority for public transport; the establishment of new car parks in the area of the final metro stations; the creation of a more coherent road network in the surrounding towns; the   denial of benefits for drivers by the status indication; the elimination of temporary and semi-permanent structures impeding traffic; the introduction of tightly regulated and “sensitively” paid parking in the city. In the long term measures to reduce the monocentricity and multi-functionality of the city are necessary to be taken.