The reform of inspection and regulatory enforcement activities aims at improving public safety, i.e. life, health, property, lawful rights and interests, against a variety of risks. The key reform indicators include radical reduction in both frequency and scale of damage-related accidents. Despite the fact that the reform has been ongoing for a number of years, yet no systematic independent evaluation of its efficiency and impact on the level of public safety risks has been implemented.
This article presents the outcomes of representative sociological public surveys of the efficiency of inspection and regulatory enforcement activities undertaken in 2018 and 2019. The survey data suggests that despite some positive dynamics only 34.3 percent of respondents rate their safety against major types of risks as adequate. Most citizens note no changes in the public safety against major types of risks in the past two years. At the same time the percentage of citizens noting that state control and supervision are an important factor for ensuring public safety has dropped. The number of respondents applying to state control and supervision authorities for protection against risks to life, health, property and the like has also declined.
Overall, from the public viewpoint, inspection and regulatory enforcement reform has not yet resulted in significant reduction of risks to public safety. The article concludes with the recommendations on improving the reform implementation based on citizen perceptions.