The government adopted a resolution to extend the moratorium on unscheduled business inspections

The government adopted a resolution extending the moratorium on unscheduled business inspections until 2024. Control measures can only be carried out in relation to high-risk objects, which include 15% of those potentially inspected, as well as when established risk indicators are triggered. Experts support the extension of the moratorium. They agree that inspections of high-risk enterprises are necessary, but at the same time they hope to create a transparent mechanism for appealing decisions to transfer an object to a higher risk category. The White House notes that the mechanism is already working, it’s just that business is not yet used to it.

The decision to extend the moratorium on unscheduled inspections of organizations until 2024, made at the end of November at a meeting with Vladimir Putin (see Kommersant on November 22), is normatively enshrined in a government decree. The moratorium applies to all companies – according to the Ministry of Economy, more than 6.2 million enterprises fall under it. The exception will be facilities classified as extremely high and high risk. These are, in particular, some social and industrial facilities, for example chemical enterprises. As the office of Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Grigorenko explained to Kommersant, there are now about 1 million of them, almost 15% of the total number of objects under control.

Inspections can also be carried out in the event of a threat to the life and health of citizens, the security of the country, as well as based on indicators of the risk of violation of mandatory requirements when they are triggered. The Deputy Prime Minister’s office assures that the system of risk indicators is transparent – acts on their approval are published, and control bodies, as part of preventive measures, advise businesses on their application. A system for monitoring the implementation of the moratorium has also been created – entrepreneurs can complain about violations through the government services portal.

Let us remember that the moratorium has been introduced since 2022 – as Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin said on Friday, during its operation the number of inspections decreased almost five times compared to 2019, which allowed businesses to “direct more resources to fulfill their current tasks, as well as to expand projects and develop new markets.” According to the Ministry of Economy, by extending the moratorium, enterprises will be able to save about 60–80 billion rubles. in year. Let us clarify that there is also a moratorium on scheduled inspections until 2030, which also does not apply to high-risk facilities. During January-October, 293 thousand scheduled and unscheduled business inspections were carried out, while the number of unscheduled inspections based on risk indicators increased 10.5 times (to 6.5 thousand). In many cases, inspections are being replaced by preventive visits, which do not carry penalties; estimates at the end of November were triple the number of inspections.

The head of the expert center on criminal legal policy and the execution of judicial acts of Business Russia, Ekaterina Avdeeva, considers the extension of the moratorium expedient – the measure is not a complete abolition of inspections, since they can be carried out in the event of the emergence and increase of various types of risks. “This assumption is important not only to protect the public interest, but also for the entrepreneurs themselves, who can avoid significant consequences that could land them in the dock,” she says.

President of Opora Russia Alexander Kalinin supports the extension of the moratorium. “Given the sharp increase in the key rate and rising prices, business costs have already increased; it is right not to raise administrative barriers, especially since inspections entail non-production costs.” At the same time, he emphasizes that if the relevant authorities believe that “the risk category of an object should be increased so that it can be checked, then they can achieve this – sometimes this is justified, but there are also risks of abuse, and therefore there should be a transparent procedure for challenging such decisions and an arbitration mechanism.”

The government staff, however, notes that the procedure already exists: “The risk system, which allows honest businesses to operate without contact with supervisory authorities, is constantly being improved. For each type of control there is a method for determining the risk category. All methods are public. Each complaint against an established category is considered in accordance with the existing methodology, thus the review system is transparent for business.”

Evgenia Kryuchkova