Leading Russian universities will receive subsidies for the creation of a “State for the People”

The Ministry of Education and Science is preparing to allocate subsidies for Moscow State University, RANEPA, the Russian Academy of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture Ilya Glazunov and St. Petersburg State University for a program to train civil servants to introduce and apply the principles and standards of client-centricity. The training will be implemented within the framework of the federal project “The State for the People” of the state program “Economic Development and Innovative Economy”. The document was published on the portal of draft regulatory legal acts.

As reported on the website of the Ministry of Economic Development, the curator of the federal project “A State for the People” is Deputy Prime Minister – Chief of Staff Dmitry Grigorenko, its head – Secretary of State – Deputy Minister of Economic Development Alexei Khersontsev. One of the goals of the project is “a client-centric approach in organizations associated by citizens with the state, [который] will ensure that the real needs of citizens and businesses are met without the need to search for the “right office” or service.” On September 22, 2022, the press service of the Ministry of Economic Development, citing Khersontsev, reported that all government agencies should introduce a client-centric approach by 2024.

The pilot project was launched in late 2021 – early 2022, it involved eight federal authorities – the Ministry of Economic Development, the Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Digital Development, the Ministry of Labor, the Federal Tax Service, the Federal Property Management Agency, Rospatent and Rosakkreditatsiya, as well as five regions – Moscow, Lipetsk, Tula, Samara and Nizhny Novgorod region. On March 9, 2023, the press service of the ministry reported that the government had created an interdepartmental working group to introduce client-centricity into public administration. In total, 24 life situations were approved, which include about 800 public services, the government reported. They noted that in 2022 all ministries and departments adopted the “fundamental documents of the project”, and three modules of the strategy session were held for the leadership of government agencies. In 2023, it is planned to train at least 6,000 employees of federal and regional authorities.

“Implementation of the initiative will help reduce administrative and time costs in doing business, as well as increase the level of confidence of citizens, business and expert communities in public authorities,” said a representative of the press service of the Ministry of Economic Development.

As Yekaterina Kharchenko, deputy chairman of the State Duma Committee on Science and Higher Education, told Vedomosti, “The State for the People” has been implemented since 2012. “For more than 10 years, universities have been improving the skills of civil servants,” the deputy noted. According to her, the content of the programs is developed by the universities themselves in cooperation with the Ministry of Economic Development – in particular, in the RANEPA it is supervised by the Higher School of Public Administration.

This program is designed for ordinary civil servants who do not aspire to leading positions, unlike the participants in the Leaders of Russia, says Alexei Makarkin, First Vice President of the Center for Political Technologies. “Customer centricity is needed at all levels that communicate with the population, and this is a wider audience of civil servants,” he notes.

The need for training civil servants is high, since they must be able to work with all emerging services, but the quality of these programs varies from Moscow to regions, says Irina Abankina, professor at the HSE Institute of Education. “Changes at a very high pace is the possession of modern information systems. Civil servants should be able to work for them,” Abankina pointed out. “You need to invest in their qualifications all the time.” At the same time, the expert stressed that the existing programs are barely enough to maintain the qualifications of civil servants, and there is not enough strength to act ahead of the curve.

Vedomosti sent inquiries to the Ministry of Education and Science, Moscow State University, RANEPA and St. Petersburg State University.