Issue 2017 no2 contents:

How do businesses perceive the impact of state supervision and inspection on business activities? Do business inspections help to minimize risks arising from business operations (i.e. risks of damage to public safety, health, etc.)? What are the administrative costs which businesses have to bear because of the business inspections?
To address these issues, in 2017 RANEPA conducted a representative sociological survey of private businesses (mostly SMEs, including individual entrepreneurs) in 28 Russian regions. The survey results are presented in the article. The sample included 1000 respondents; the statistical error accounts for 3.1 percent.
The survey results demonstrate that overall perception of business inspections on the part of the business community is neutral. However, in most cases the respondents reported that the latest inspection had not resulted in any improvements in safety and quality of the products or safety of business processes.
Administrative costs of business inspections are allocated unevenly among businesses of different sizes and from different sectors. Over 40 percent of respondents bear administrative costs related to access to legislative norms which are the subject of the business inspections. In addition, the survey revealed significant frequency of informal payments related to business inspections.
The survey data suggest that currently the effectiveness of business inspections is insufficient. The control and oversight activities are not oriented at minimizing risks to the public. Therefore, the business inspections reform is needed.

One of the key goals of modern government’s social policy is to increase the quality of social services provision and, accordingly, the satisfaction level of citizens as social services consumers. The choice of methods and tools in order to solve this challenge is restricted to existing resources of government agencies: budget, personnel, information technologies, etc.
Our research demonstrates that independent evaluation mechanism for social sphere organizations’ (SSO) work quality remains of a high demand in the worldwide context. In this paper the authors provide the methodology and results of the independent quality evaluation mechanism for social sphere organizations in Russia. We used secondary analysis of the sociological data arrays and Russian Statistics Service microdata
as well as citizens’ opinions expressed in the Internet, in order to develop our methodology about citizens’ preferences for making choice among SSO. We used a comparative study to outline international experience in SSO independent evaluation process. We outlined key citizens’ satisfaction factors with social services provision by applying Kano model. We prove the multysubjective and multifactor nature of SSO independent quality evaluation.

The Administrative permit system is an important tool to protect the constitutional order, the rights and legitimate interests of citizens, public health and morals, national security in any national legal regime.
Earlier researches on the Russian permitting system didn’t include the issues related to the assessment of the number of permit types and the quality of regulatory of permitting activities. The article aims to fill up this gap. It presents a study of the Russian permitting system using both the legal and statistical methods of research.
The authors identifi ed 22 forms of permitting activity, which are divided into two groups. The first group includes 9 typical (the most abundant) forms of permitting activity. The second group includes atypical forms, which are numerically small permits. 541 permits have been revealed during the inventory, including 465 standard and 76 atypical.
The authors investigated the quality of regulatory in this area. A proper regulatory basis does not exist in respect of 5% of permits, detailed legal regulation – in respect of 10% of the permits. Administrative regulations have not been approved in respect of 35% of permits.
The article describes the shortcomings of the Russian system of permits. Systemic problems are related to the lack of codified law on permitting activity. The most significant problems are: lack of the legislative definition of permits, policies and performance standards; the absence of legislation establishing closed lists of permits; lack of a unified accounting system of permits. The authors provide methods of solving these problems.

Reorganizing the social services market to allow for its access non-state providers is a major innovation in Russia. Welfare mix concepts give a theoretical justification to this innovation. The key element of justification is the demonstration of advantages NPOs have as services providers compared to state-owned or private organizations fulfilling similar functions. However, a more careful assessment of the outlook of Russian NPOs on the emerging social services market requires an analysis of their comparative disadvantages as well. This paper aims at investigating organizational weaknesses of Russian nonprofit providers of social services funded by the state drawing on foreign and Russian experience of practices in cross-sectoral cooperation. The paper first addresses some key comparative disadvantages rooted in the economic and financial foundations of NPOs. The authors then investigate weaknesses related to the level of professionalism in social services delivery by NPOs to suggest some recommendations on measures the government and the nonprofit sector respectively could contempl ate to compensate for NPOs’ comparative disadvantages, so that the potential capacity of NPOs to generate innovative solutions is best utilized in the interests of a more efficient social policy. For the verification of theory and for international comparisons of practices of cross-sectoral cooperation Russian sociological data gathered in the course of a long-term NRU HSE project on Monitoring Russian Civil Society are used.

Involving non-profit organizations (NPOs) in providing state and municipal services in the social sphere (including education, healthcare, culture and social policy, physical culture and sport, mass media) has been a priority of Russia’s social policy for the past several years. However, there has been no significant progress achieved in dealing with this issue, as evidenced by the fact that the need for such involvement has been repeatedly underlined in the speech of the President of the Russian Federation addressed to the Federal Assembly (2013–2015). According to statistics, the volume of subsidiaries allocated to private organizations in the social sphere amounted to only 40 billion rubles in 2015 or 1.6% of the total funds allocated to this area in the federal budget. In comparison with 2013, it decreased by almost 15%.
The article presents the results of a research of socio-economic mechanisms of involving NPOs in providing services in the social sphere. This article considers more specifically the level of real functioning of these mechanisms in the subjects of the Russian Federation, through analyzing the indicators of amount and structure of the budget allocations to NPOs. These mechanisms are analyzed on the federal and regional levels
through the scope of: a) the rights (and the duties) of the state (municipal) authorities to involve NPOs in providing social services at the expenses of budget funds; b) the procedures of service providers selection; c) the method (tool) of NPOs budgeting.
The article specifies deficiencies of these mechanisms that determine obstacles to a wider involvement of NPOs in providing social services. One of these obstacles is the low «status» of the services provided by NPOs. Today, they are often not formally related to the state (municipal) services ensuring the realization of social guarantees.

In 2016 new rounds of initiatives aimed at increasing efficiency have been launched: the introduction of so-called «priority projects». The subject of research is the methodology of the project management which is implemented in Russian federal authorities. The goal is to assess the key features and possible consequences of applying project management both at the federal level and when reproducing the methodology by regional authorities. We consider the origins and the prerequisites for a «priority projects», compare the new project tool with the existing target and state programs from the point of management, decision-making procedures, legal status. The conclusions we made include the similarity of the priority projects and target programs and the likelihood of duplication of control mechanisms. We also may predict a dangerous increase in civil service workload due to the expansion of project activities. The practice of developing and implementing priority projects by now has been considered. Given that the methods and practices of the federal level are expected to be replicated at other levels, recommendations and considerations on the organization of project activities in the regions have been provided.

The article presents the results of a series of sociological research on public services portals’ popularity among the residents of St. Petersburg, organized in 2014–2015. The research aim was oriented on obtaining reliable and timely data on the city residents’ availability and adaptation to the use of electronic state and municipal services. The authors present a research technique for determining the demand for e-government services among the population, as well as measuring the satisfaction with online services.
The research methodology was based on diffusion of innovations concept. The study was conducted using two types of questionnaires: online and offline. Overall, 285 respondents participate in the poll (unrepeated stratified sample, with 95.4% of reliability level).
The survey revealed a high demand for e-government and municipal services among the residents of St. Petersburg related to the daily use of the Internet and the need to apply for government services at least once a year. The study recorded the growing popularity of the federal and regional public services portals among the citizens, as well as a demand for multifunctional centers providing services. According to the sociological poll results, 36% of the respondents have already used the federal portal, and 24% were among the regional portal users. The study detected a high frequency of re-using the regional portal among those residents who used it once.
The study was carried out in groups of online services’ consumers, per E. Rogers adopter categories: innovators, early adopters, early majority, late majority, laggards.
Taking into account the indicators of a high-level satisfaction with the portal operation, the authors proposed a number of recommendations to increase the portal’s popularity among those groups of residents who currently have not been active in its usage or even have not been informed about such opportunities (the elderly and people close to the retirement age).

The article is devoted to the legal and organizational framework of electronic participation of citizens in public affairs through social media. The author analyzes foreign and Belarusian experience in the use of the Internet technology. The case in point is the activities of central government bodies and other state organizations subordinate to the G overnment of the Republic of Belarus. There are legal gaps identified in this area, as well as the need to increase the up-take of this channel of communication between the government and Belarusian citizens. It is proposed to develop a set of legal arrangements such as the social media policy, the digital registry regulation and amendments to the staffing chart of governmental agen cies and the job descriptions of civil servants.

The article deals with the branding issues of federal subjects of Russia. The regional branding is in the active phase of development but the lack of a methodological framework restrains overcoming existing difficulties. The problems of regional branding could be treated as the problem of forming regional development tools in the transition to the knowledge economy.
The aim of the paper is the development of methodological framework of regional branding on basis of the concept of intellectual capital. For this purpose the following problems have been solved. First, is justified the interpretation of the territory brand as a part of the regional intellectual capital. Secondly, identified the issues of regional branding which need of development of methodological base. Third, are proposed the regional
brand management tools on basis of the intellectual capital management techniques.
Justification of a regional brand as a part of the intellectual capital of region carried out based on the analysis of regional brand accordance to intangible resources properties and of the structural analysis of intellectual capital. To identify the areas of regional brand management which need further development, a model of regional brand management is proposed treating it as a project with a subsequent transition to the functional activity. The proposed regional brand management tools are formed on the basis of the adaptation of intellectual capital management tools to the tasks of regional branding.
The results of the study could be used to improve regional branding activities of regional administrations of the federal subjects of Russia.