Authorities and business summed up the results of company control in 2023

The government and entrepreneurs on Friday summed up the results of the reform of control and supervisory activities in 2023 – the maintenance of the number of inspections at a minimum level due to the moratorium was recorded, as well as an increase in their effectiveness through the use of risk indicators while simultaneously significantly increasing the number of “consultation” preventive visits. Businesses are asking the authorities to expand the functionality of pre-trial appeals, as well as the practice of replacing scheduled inspections with preventive measures.

Government and business representatives on Friday summed up the results of control and supervisory activities (CSAs) in 2023. Deputy Prime Minister and head of the government apparatus Dmitry Grigorenko said that last year 350 thousand inspections were carried out (compared to 1.5 million in 2019 and 339 thousand in 2022). Half fell on the private sector, almost a quarter (23%) – on control during the commissioning of buildings, 20% – on social facilities, 7% – on state and municipal unitary enterprises.

Let us remind you that for the last two years there has been a moratorium on inspections in the country – scheduled inspections are carried out only at high- and extremely high-risk facilities (15% of all objects), unscheduled inspections are carried out when so-called risk indicators are triggered. According to the Ministry of Economy, there were 81 thousand scheduled inspections in 2023, 271 thousand unscheduled inspections. In 2024, said First Deputy Prosecutor General of the Russian Federation Anatoly Razinkin, only 47 thousand scheduled inspections were agreed to be carried out. They were partly replaced by preventive visits – last year there were 1.1 million versus 560 thousand in 2022.

As Dmitry Grigorenko explained, the current goal of the CND reform is a complete transition to a risk-based approach, in which inspections are not carried out at facilities that comply with mandatory requirements. Risk indicators are becoming a key tool in this; as noted by the head of the Ministry of Economy, Maxim Reshetnikov, about two hundred have already been approved. The indicators, he said, are defined to distinguish between bona fide and legitimate businesses—for example, “if a pharmacy sells several times more prescription drugs than its neighbors, that always raises questions.” According to information from Dmitry Grigorenko, on average the effectiveness of conventional checks is 52%, with the use of indicators – 89%, that is, “out of ten checks, nine are carried out absolutely on the case.”

Among the priorities for 2024, Maxim Reshetnikov named the expansion of the applied approach through the introduction of additional risk indicators and the introduction of another new mechanism. We are talking about measures to eliminate identified violations – so that the money that could be spent on paying a fine can be invested by business (see “Kommersant” dated May 13, 2023).

As follows from the discussion, business is generally satisfied with the progress of the CND reform – mostly its proposals were of a targeted nature. In particular, they talked about expanding the functionality of the pre-trial appeal mechanism – due to the possibility of using it to change the risk category assigned to an object and challenge decisions to conduct special types of state control, such as raids. Dmitry Grigorenko said that in 2024 it is planned to provide for the possibility of changing the risk category. He explained that the mechanism will expand, but gradually, since the system must be ready for this.

The head of the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs, Alexander Shokhin, spoke in favor of completely replacing scheduled inspections with mandatory preventive visits for all categories of objects – this approach, he recalled, is being discussed in relation to residents of priority development territories in the Far East (see Kommersant on January 12) and could become a pilot project. Now this measure applies to, in particular, schools, kindergartens, and hospitals. In general, the authorities plan to leave routine control only for high-risk facilities, and for the rest to provide preventive measures, which, however, are far from limited to such visits (see Kommersant dated November 11, 2023). According to Dmitry Grigorenko, it is hardly possible to carry out such free consultations for businesses on a large scale for a long time – it will probably be necessary to come to a categorization of objects in respect of which preventive visits will be carried out. In this matter, the Deputy Prime Minister noted, “we need to look for a middle ground,” since there is a demand for such a measure, especially from small businesses.

Evgenia Kryuchkova