Algorithms and feedback – Newspaper Kommersant No. 233 (7434) dated 12/15/2022

Yesterday, at a meeting between the president and the government, the head of the White House staff, Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Grigorenko, for the first time in a long time, spoke about the plans of the authorities to develop control and supervision (CND) and licensing activities. The White House will improve the risk-based approach to inspections even during the moratorium on them, with the expectation to algorithmize the system for selecting control objects by the time it is cancelled. In turn, the government hopes to expand the online issuance of permits by the state to “all types demanded by business” in 2023 – but for this the White House itself needs permission from the Kremlin. Mr. Grigorenko’s proposals were approved yesterday.

The reforms of the CPV and the licensing activities of the state have come to a fork in which political decisions are required, followed from the speech of their curator, Deputy Prime Minister and White House Chief of Staff Dmitry Grigorenko yesterday at a video conference between the president and the government. The official recalled that the main goal of the reforms was “reducing the administrative burden on business while respecting the interests of the state and society.” After the launch of the “regulatory guillotine”, the annual savings of companies amounted to about 200 billion rubles, in the process, all records of inspections themselves were digitized and integrated with the Prosecutor General’s Office (from 1.5 million in 2019 by 2021 their number decreased to 882 thousand, in 11 months of 2022, only 328 thousand inspections were carried out under the moratorium). Nevertheless, disputes about their results are “possible”, and “the way to resolve them should be simple, convenient and transparent. For this purpose, a service for appealing against decisions of control bodies was launched on the public services portal,” said Mr. Grigorenko, explaining that automated monitoring of the processing of such complaints is underway (3.7 thousand in total, a third are satisfied).

Since the introduction of a moratorium on inspections since March 10 to support the economy (except for cases of risk of harm to the life and health of citizens and monitoring compliance with sanitary and fire requirements at social facilities), about 240 thousand events have been canceled, and compliance with the moratorium is “strictly controlled,” the head of the government apparatus noted ( 91 complaints, satisfied 7). It followed from the report that officials were tired of the moratorium itself: “its long application introduces a certain imbalance between the interests of business and the state.” However, the government apparatus is not counting on its early abolition – instead, Mr. Grigorenko asked the president, when extending the moratorium for 2023, to allow the White House to improve the risk-based approach to the selection of control objects based on the remaining inspections (93 thousand, four times less than in 2022). The idea is to conduct them “only where there is a risk of violation of the law and it cannot be prevented in any other way,” the official explained, the selection of targets should be based solely on a risk-based approach, and risk indicators (data that agencies can rely on when requesting permits for checks) should be algorithmized and published so that the business can minimize its risks.

The government apparatus intends to use similar methods in permitting activities – the need for its reform was recognized as a result of the CND reform. In the Russian Federation, 54 types of activities are licensed and more than 500 types require permits – in total, more than 1 million of them are issued per year. In 2021, the White House has already launched a “pilot” to streamline these procedures by organizing the issuance of 49 types of licenses and hundreds of types of permits through the public services portal (see Kommersant on December 9). For further progress, the business needed a “reliable feedback channel” – by analogy with pre-trial appeals against decisions of control bodies. “I ask for your consent to carry out in 2023 the transfer to electronic form of all permits required by business and to introduce a mechanism for pre-trial appeal,” Dmitry Grigorenko addressed Vladimir Putin. At this, the broadcast stopped – however, later it became known that with the approval of the head of government Mikhail Mishustin, consent was received. “Kommersant” will follow the development of events.

Oleg Sapozhkov