Issue 2015 no4 contents:

This article reviews approaches to optimize the subject area of regulatory impact assessment in Russia, selected OECD countries, the Eurasian Economic Commission and the European Commission. The authors set the task to systematize the approaches applied at various levels of regulation, identify best practices and provide recommendations to optimize the model of regulatory impact assessment in Russia.

The authors identified three types of «filters» that set the criteria for the selection of draft acts subject to assessment: (a) the «primary» filter that determines the scope of RIA, including types of regulations, and sometimes – certain policy areas subject to RIA, (b) the «secondary» filter aimed at the selection of acts according to their significance, and (c) exclusions from the RIA subject area. The selection of the optimal combination of criteria, providing the selection of acts, in regards to which it is possible and expedient to carry out RIA, largely determines the effectiveness of RIA institute.

Studying experience of the countries, leading in the field of RIA, allowed noting that despite differences in approaches, there is a number of common trends. Specifi cally, draft regulations should be the subject to assessment, first of all, if they have a significant impact on the stakeholders of regulation (excluding draft regulations aimed at the elimination of technical mistakes in the regulations, the adoption of organizational decisions by the authorities, informational documents, etc.), and, secondly, if the regulatory body is authorized to elaborate alternative options of solving regulatory problem (there is no specified directive on a certain decision). A common method of the selection of significant draft acts sets so-called «threshold values» of potential costs (for budget, business entities, or the economy as a whole) which may be caused by the adoption of the draft act.

In Russia, given the development of RIA procedure and clear understanding of the essence of the procedure as a cooperative communication with business and experts by government employees, formal criteria will be reduced, and the selection of draft acts for evaluation will largely depend on the discretion of the officials proceeding from the basic criteria – the degree of impact and the choice of alternatives.

For the past 15 years, a number of attempts have been made to optimize public inspections, reduce associated administrative barriers, and limit excessive interference with economic activities of businesses. However, the results achieved have appeared to be below initial expectations since some reforms have not been finished, some solutions have been compromised, and the classical collision of interests between inspectors and subjects of inspections has remained.

One of the key reasons for insufficient results from the past initiatives to improve control and inspection activities stems from the lack of attention and variation in the understanding of outcomes and outputs of inspection activities. Lack of such understanding leads to developing performance evaluation systems, which were not always outcome oriented.

The article presents a review of inspections performance evaluation practices and various scientific approaches to conducting such evaluations. The key finding of the paper is the need to use a system of performance indicators. Such a system should characterize effectiveness of inspections both in terms of various aspects of control activities (preventing and reducing risk levels, minimizing possible negative effects and repairing the damage done), and with a view to various levels of result (outcomes, intermediate outcomes, outputs). Evaluation of inspections efficiency calls for measuring both government and business administrative costs related to control activities. Implementation of this comprehensive approach would balance the evaluation system and contribute to better orienting inspection bodies’ activities to attain outcomes important to the public.

Employer brand is a set of economic, psychological and functional benefits provided for employees and associated with a particular employer. The problem of efficient employer branding methods and tools for commercial organizations has been actively discussed nowadays, but as for the public civil service it has not been tackled and developed yet. The goal of the article is to reveal the features of the current employer image of the public civil service in Russia in the perception of different youth target groups (state employees at the age of under 35years, students majoring in “Public Administrations” and “Human Resource Management”). In order to evaluate the attractiveness of work in the public civil service in Russia the authors’ questionnaire survey was conducted, and to identify the career preferences the respondents filled in the questionnaire “Career Anchors”, designed by Edgar Schein (1993). The revealed career preferences reflect an ambiguous perception of the employer attractiveness in the public civil service, which enables to conclude that public authorities in Russia make insufficient efforts to attract young employees and build the employer brand. On the basis of our pilot research among state employees and students we provide Russian public civil service organizations with a number of recommendations on how to improve their employer attractiveness. Most of the respondents have a strong motivation to be involved in valid applied projects. Thus, we strongly recommend public civil service organizations to implement different projects with the valuable practiceoriented content during internship programs for students.

The aim of the article is to examine the level of difference between ordinary citizens and representatives of local authorities regarding their assessments of the functioning of the city government and opportunities for citizens’ participation in local governance processes. The article makes use of the data from the sociological survey conducted in the summer of 2014 in 15 cities of Ukraine with respondents among ordinary citizens, city council deputies and civil servants at the city level. The survey results reveal statistically significant differences between opinions of ordinary citizens, city council deputies and department heads of the local administration executive authority. Furthermore, opinions of city council deputies fall between those of the two other categories of respondents. In general, representatives of local authorities assess the functioning of local government as well as opportunities for ordinary citizens to participate in local governance processes much more positively than ordinary citizens do. Strong correlations are found between citizens’ opinion on local governments’ information dissemination activities and their attitudes towards a variety of aspects of local government performance. As means to reduce the discrepancies between local authorities and the population the authors suggest a systematic provision of information from city authorities to citizens and vice versa, and enhancing the level of interaction between them. In addition, broad educational campaigns as well as programmes to improve the image of city authorities in the eyes of citizens are suggested as being necessary.

This paper focuses on the opportunities which the electronic toll collection gives to the public administration in Russia. Currently the manual tall collection is in operation in Russia, which means stop-and-go traffic at toll plazas, quite a long transaction time, a lot of vehicles stuck in congestion at the peak time and a decrease of consumer satisfaction. The present study deals with the adoption of the electronic toll collection technology which is widely used in industrial countries. At the beginning of the paper the idea of the electronic toll collection is explained and a review of foreign studies is given. After that economic, social and ecological effects of the electronic toll collection implementation in Russia are evaluated and compared to ones of the manual tall collection. Finally, the recommendations about electronic toll collection implementation in Russia are made and appropriate legislation changes are proposed. The conclusion of the electronic toll collection effectiveness is made by using the modeling method and the sociological research data. The electronic toll collection is found to be more effective in terms of costs of the system itself, motorists’ time saving, accidents avoiding, consumer satisfaction, fuel consumption and emissions. Potential benefits of the electronic toll collection implementation are considered as being very promising. In order to set the electronic toll collection in operation in Russia a change of the administrative law is proposed.

The article focuses on the problem of discrepancy of the current working documents of municipal strategic planning to the powers of bodies of local self-government, and presents it on the example of a selective analysis of the strategic plans of Khabarovsk and Vladivostok municipal formations. The sources of research are the strategy and strategic plans of development of municipalities in Russia. The methods of research are a legal and structurally functional analysis of the documents of strategic planning of municipalities and also the current legal acts regulating the sphere of state and municipal management and strategic planning. It marks, that the majority of the strategic documents of municipalities of Russia have no legal bases for their realization; the budgeting system is not stipulated, besides they have structurally functional infringements (absence of interrelation of problems, purposes, tasks, measures and indicators of their efficiency). The municipal strategy and the strategic plans of socio-economic development show a weak interconnection and coordination of the declared measures and projects in the time of their realization, resources and executors, which, in the long run, brings about their low execution. The author infers that inefficiency and impossibility of the realization of strategy and strategic plans of development of municipalities depend on discrepancy of the documents to the powers of bodies of local self-government. The local authority does not operate the realization of the strategic documents. The conclusion is made, that for an effective development of strategic planning in Russia, it is necessary to decide questions of its legal regulation and methodical maintenance.

Creative industries are considered as the phenomenon that addresses a number of economic and sociocultural issues in many countries and cities. In Russia, despite the fact that creative industries show significant potential for development in major cities, its state sup port is still “dotty” and non-systemic. In the official document “Principles of the State Cultural Policy” creative industries are defined as activities that combine capitalization of cultural products and their market positioning. Furthermore, certain business activities were outlined in the sector of creative industries. However, no managerial decisions in this direction of the “Principles” implementation have followed yet. The purpose of the article is to analyze the prospects for the development of creative industries state regulation in Russia. In order to achieve this goal we provided an overview of approaches to the definition of the creative industries as an economic sector, analyzed the concept of the life cycle of emerging industry with regard to creative industries, using examples from the international experience, and also we evaluated trends of the creative goods and services market in Russia. The article concludes that the scheme of the life cycle of emerging industry with state regulation measures distributed in time is the most adequate managerial technology for Russia’s creative industries, which allows them to move to the stage of a sustainable growth. The analysis has shown that, on the one hand, Russia’s creative goods and services have a low competitiveness level in the international market but, on the other hand, they generate a growing domestic demand. Entering the creative industries global market requires comprehensive state supported measures, relevant to the stages of the life cycle specific for the creative industries in the cities and regions of Russia. In conclusion, we propose some essential directions of state regulation to address the most pressing issues at this stage.

The paper focuses on the evolution of government policies for disabled people in Russia from 1991 onwards and development periodization, based on changes in the pension legislation. Analysis of government policies is essential due to the ratification by the Russian Federation of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. The paper covers compensation policies (benefits) and integration measures. We focus on three dimensions of regulation and social policy: disability benefits, employment protection and non-cash benefits. Our analysis reveals that the employment rate of disabled people is shaped by institutional factors. Disability policy in Russia is developed in the context of international law. Since the 1990s employment assistance for people with disabilities has advanced from supporting sheltered employment towards encouraging the integration into the open labour market. The choice of government policies was greatly influenced by the economic situation in the country. Weak enforcement of employment quotas and of requirements concerning the creation of specialized working places, as well as a limited use of tax deductions lowers the efficiency of employment policies for disabled people. The use of “remaining earning capacity” as the key criterion for the assignment of disability benefits negatively influenced disabled people’s labour supply in the 2000s.

The article considers relationship between the institutions of state control (supervision) and people who are interested in the performance of the control-supervision activity. The rights of citizens, for whom this activity is formally carried out, must be protected, in the event that authorized officials act (or do not act) in such a way that do harm to the life, health of people, their property, and the environment. According to the control-supervision relationship personsbenefi ciaries of the control-supervision activity are to take the legitimate place of third parties (persons) claiming independent requirements. The goal of the research was to find legal prerequisites and barriers for protecting the rights of third persons (parties) by pre-trial appealing, and also to raise the question on the expedience of developing the institute of pretrial appeal against decisions and actions (inaction) of the control-supervision institutions and of their officials by third parties (persons). Currently in cases of resonance extraordinary occurrences at the supervised objects, those officials of the state control, who are accused of their duties negligence, are liable to criminal persecution at the initiative of the public prosecutor’s office. Development of the pre-trial appeal institute will promote the quality rise, effectiveness of the control-supervision activity and will prevent the status qua of the organization and holding inspections from being offended and disturbed.