Issue 2015 no2 contents:

There are results of a legal comparative analysis of legal regulation of the civil service types related to state guaranties (social protection) for civil servants in the article (namely: remuneration of labor and remunerative incentives, discharge of an administrative contract and re-engagement due to attainment of the maximum service age, provision of housing, pension protection). The article makes it clear that the legal regulation of civil servants’ status, state guaranties, rights and duties, restrictions are not enough to comply with the Civil Service Consistency Principle. The main reason for the misbalances and discrepancies of the social protection regulation, depending on civil service types, is redundant powers of different state authorities, starting with the top of the vertical of power- the President of Russia. These powers are implemented in a random way and disorder civil service management.
Perspectives of the legal regulation unification of civil service in the area of social protection are under consideration in the article – reception and extrapolation (unification) of legal instruments for the civil service types and levels (federal and regional). The argument for the necessity to set up a Federal Civil Service Body is the need of an organizational provision of reception and unification of legal instruments. The need of redundant powers handover to the Civil Service Body is proved. The respective offers are presented: the centrally managed Civil Service Body, its immediate subordination to the RF president, different forms of civil society participation in its management (e.g. personnel matters).

The article is devoted to social innovations as new solutions and approaches to solving problems in the social sphere. Core features of social innovation are introduced on the theoretical level. Due to certain characteristics of the third sector organizations they have better opportunities to introduce innovative changes and improve efficiency of decisions than private or governmental sectors. Third sector organizations are considered to be most promising actors as they create feasibility and subsequent diffusion of new ideas and approaches initiated by citizens. The empirical base of the analysis includes surveys of Russian federal elites in 2008 (n = 303), 2011 (n = 300), 2013 (n = 300), 2014 (n = 300) years; the all-Russia population survey (18+) in 2014 (n = 1500). The results received demonstrate the presence of a pronounced social demand for increasing the role of non-profits in providing social services. Both the population and elite groups expressed such a demand. However, the current impact of non-profit organizations’ participation in providing social services was evaluated below average by all groups of respondents. The article concludes that there are growing expectations of non-profits’ contribution in providing social services and evidences of a legitimate request from the government for outsource social services to non-profit organizations.

Efficiency of the public sector production is a key issue for the public administration. One of the most popular ways to reach it is a competitive bidding. As far as infrastructure objects are concerned, governments around the world have increasingly used private firms in developing, financing, constructing, and maintaining them. Over the last two decades traditional procurement in this field evolved in public-private partnerships (PPPs) of Design-Build-Finance-Operate type, or life-cycle contracts. These contracts help to solve some problems attributed to traditional procurement. In the first section of the article we focus on the characteristics of PPPs and evaluate benefits and costs for all the participants. The main gain for the government and consumers is in using the competition mechanism and getting the public good of high quality. Since the private firm will not only construct but maintain the object during its life cycle, it is motivated to use new technologies and innovations to decrease future operational costs. The firm in its turn is secured against the risk of insufficient demand and of not getting regular payments from the government. The next section is devoted to the developed countries experience of applying life-cycle contracts and literature review. Despite obvious advantages some EC countries suggest that not all PPPs are well-managed, and therefore may not deliver expected benefits. These contacts can be inflexible in respect to changing needs of the public sector, lengthy, complex, and costly for the participants. One of the subsections deals with the transition economies that demonstrate the lack of an appropriate legal framework, economic and political instability, higher risks, etc. In conclusion we discuss the perspectives for the Russian government to implement life-cycle contracts in public projects.

The paper addresses the issues of organization of medical care in the Russian Federation and explores the case of specialized medical care restructuring. The new approach towards specialized medical care povision is suggested as an alternative to the prevalent understanding of the restructuring such as reduction of hospital beds, hospitals and their staff for financial reasons. The new approach includes (1) a four-level system of medical aid, (2) the expansion of disease prevention, (3) the introduction of standardized approaches in routine work, (4) a thorough quality control at all levels of medical care.

The pilot project of the restructuring of urologic medical care started in 2010 in Voronezh region. The empirical data were provided by the Institute of Urology (Moscow) and Voronezh Regional Health Department.

The implimentation of a new approach revealed poor performance of the primary medical care provision. The outcomes of the pilot project were an increase in detecting diseases and in the availability of specialized outpatient and inpatient care. The overcoming of the previous system’s flaws caused the need to increase health care costs. However, the introduction of new organizational technologies, providing urological care, resulted in lower unit costs by 21.7% over four years.

Experience of the structural reform presented in the article shows that in cases where inefficiency of the health care system is associated not only with unreasonably high costs for treatment of diseases, but also with insufficient or delayed detectability of diseases, introduction of new approaches to the organization of health care does not lead to saving costs, but to increasing effectiveness and efficiency of health care provision.

The paper argues that the existing model of civil service anticorruption reform by importing “best practice” of conflict of interest regulation in the public service does not help to tackle or minimize corruption, but creates a vicious circle both in theory and practice. Corruption studies artificially segment corruption onto independent macro- and micro-levels, and research contributing to one of the levels does not improve our understanding of corruption of other ones. Failed long-lasting or, having unexpected results, administrative reforms clearly demonstrate insufficiency of “importing the model” as an anti-corruption measure. The model of corruption markets, presented in the article, explains the insufficiency of importing best practice, and demonstrates that the “good enough governance” tactic is able to minimize national corruption market. “good enough governance” has a good implication for unsolved problems of the Russian public service: one could never become Singapore by importing Singapore’s “best practice” regulations. Russian “good enough governance” of conflict of interest regulation in the public service is adapting experience of Brazil’s anti-corruption reform of the civil service (as the one that solved the same problems with the similar lack of resources). The paper presents a thorough analysis of the anti-corruption reform in Brazil, based on the study of regulations introduced by Cardoso and his successors (mid. 1990s-2015) and structured according to the aims of the reform. Three mutually reinforcing groups of measures were introduced: decreasing politicization of the Brazil civil service, regulating conflict of interests in the most “sensitive” areas (such as public procurement) and ethic regulations. The research conducted has practical implications for the Russian public service – incremental mechanism for reforming the national public service and, consequently, minimizing the national corruption market. First part of the paper explains why Brazilian experience of anticorruption reform is relevant for Russian public service, analyzes Brazilian style of “new public management” and key measures in reforming electoral campaigns.

The article reviews the results of the first monitoring of web pages of the federal executive authorities in social networks. We used as our hypothesis a theoretical conclusion of I. Mergel that the official government’s accounts in social networks are new channels of engagement and a tool to obtain additional knowledge from interested stakeholders. The aim of the research was to give expert evaluation of the implementation of principles and mechanisms of openness by the federal agencies. We developed special indicators according to three criteria: transparency of the implementation mechanisms, quality of feedback, involvement of citizens and accountability.

The article summarized the results of expert assessment of the quality of the federal agencies’ accounts in Twitter, Facebook, VKontakte, Odnoklassniki, Instagram, YouTube, LiveJournal. Additionally, we analyzed official pages in Twitter by using Twitonomy soft ware service. In conclusion, we formulated several recommendations to the public authorities on the improvement of offi cial accounts in social networks.

The article aims to fill the existing contradictions between the primary importance of reforming the state apparatus, on the one hand, the prospect of modern methodology of quantitative analysis, on the other hand, and the observed deficit in domestic practice trials in which the above trends are reflected.

The author introduces previously unpublished in Russian works of foreign authors on the application of quantitative methods for analysis of the transformation of the public service.

The research is based on a combination of an induction method for generating a sequence of operations; a comparative method for selecting control points of studies; a structural-functional method for allocating government functions; statistical methods to identify the size and level of remuneration of civil servants; methods of mathematical analysis (regression and correlation) to identify links between the studied parameters. The chronological framework of the study includes civil service reform in Russia over 1994–2014.

The analyzed public authority includes all federal executive bodies.

The total number of government functions, calculated by the author on his own methodology, is based on studying texts of the instructions for the state bodies.

The size of government employees and average salaries of civil servants are considered in dynamics on the basis of the statistical data and analysis of the regulations.

As a result, the primary study detected a number of trends in the development of public service. In particular, they revealed the existence of a reverse relationship between the total number of public bodies and the number of functions they perform. As a result of the correlation analysis there was revealed non-trivial, but a statistically significant relationship between the number of functions of the state body and the number of functions per employee, as well as between the amount of salaries in the central office of the public authority and its territorial subdivisions.

The application of a regression analysis revealed the existence of a negative relationship between the volume of the functions performed by a public authority, and the size of salaries for its civil servants. These findings can be used in the preparation of legal acts in the development of a public service reform program for the foreseeable future.

The theoretical significance of the research is in the testing of a number of methodological assumptions and in the developing of a coherent program for further researches.

The article substantiates importance of the constitutionally recognized institution of correspondence from citizens for state and local government bodies. This institution can function, as in one of its ways, through Receptions of the RF President. In this article we give a description of the 4-level system of Receptions of the President in Kurgan region, and the mobile reception. We held an organizational and managerial analysis of its activities and identified existing problems of its functioning by means of the «decision tree» technique. The algorithm for addressing identified problems and improving the work with correspondence from citizens in the regional Reception of the RF President in Kurgan region was proposed by using the 12-step scheme of making management decisions on the basis of multi-criteria expert evaluation and the logical framework matrix. The timing of the implementation of the proposed management decisions is presented by using Gantt calendar chart where a list of developed procedures and deadlines for their implementation is defined, and a description of the resulting organizational and social effects of the measures is given. Thus, the degree of influence of this authority in the hierarchy of power will increase significantly and will promote a more active participation in solving problems of the state and the local community.

Population aging is a fundamental demographic process determining changes of the age groups structure in all developed countries. Russia is no exception in witnessing this process. Fostering physical activity of elderly people is one of the key areas of the public policy in the majority of countries. At the same time, little attention is paid to the promotion of a healthy lifestyle among the Russian elderly. Measures taken are sporadic and nonsystematic. The article analyses the benefits of physical activity programs and discusses the factors motivating elderly people to get engaged in fitness training and sports. The authors also focus on methods and instruments of the public policy of developed countries aimed at encouraging a healthy lifestyle of the elderly on both federal and local levels. The article offers a typology of measures outside Russia and highlights the most efficient of them. In conclusion the authors emphasize the peculiarities of tailoring foreign practices to the contemporary Russian reality.