The government will continue to work to simplify the issuance of licenses and permits in 2024

The White House plans to continue working in 2024 to simplify the issuance of licenses and permits. According to the curator of the reform, Deputy Prime Minister and Chief of Staff of the Government Dmitry Grigorenko, according to the new criteria, the average time for obtaining licenses is expected to be reduced threefold – to five days from fifteen, and the number of documents required for this – to an average of three (from five). For permits, the issuance time will be 10 days versus the current 23, based on three documents versus five. Ideally, the authorities are counting on the possibility of a proactive mode of receiving services; it will be tested on certain types of documents.

On Monday, Dmitry Grigorenko held a meeting dedicated to optimizing the receipt of licenses and permits by businesses; they discussed the results of the project and plans for 2024. The experiment in issuing licenses and permits in a simplified format is being implemented as part of the reform of licensing and permitting activities, launched in the summer of 2021 following the results of the “regulatory guillotine”. Its implementation is regulated by government decree No. 1279 of July 30, 2021, the experiment ended on September 1, 2023. The second stage of the project has now begun.

At the moment, the procedure for obtaining 423 permits, including 51 licenses, has been optimized. Businesses can obtain permits through a special service on the government services portal. According to the Ministry of Economy, companies’ savings from the project amounted to 70 billion rubles. in 2022. “Our task was to simplify the procedure, make it friendly and digital. As for the results, the period for obtaining licenses has been reduced three times over two years: from 45 days to 15 days, for permits – almost two times: from 43 days to 23 days,” listed Mr. Grigorenko. The number of documents has also decreased: if on average ten documents were required for licenses, now five are required, for permits – eight and five, respectively.

In 2024, when providing services, ministries and departments must focus on average targets, which involve reducing the time required to obtain licenses by another three times – to five days, and the number of required documents – to three. For permits, the same parameters should be reduced to ten days and three documents. To reduce the time frame, it will be necessary to complete the creation and filling of data marts (tax information, data on real estate, education, labor activity, vehicles) and ensure the possibility of interaction and access of departments to them. Ideally, optimization of service delivery in the government’s vision is a transition to a proactive regime for issuing documents. “Next year, for certain types of permits and licenses, we want to switch to automatic renewal, a proactive mode,” the official noted.

Mr. Grigorenko also recalled that in August of this year, a service for pre-trial appeal of the actions of the licensing authority was launched on the government services portal (see “Kommersant” dated July 31). Currently, it is possible to appeal against violations when issuing 300 types of permits; in total, more than 200 complaints have been filed. The Kommersant official’s office clarified that the share of decisions in favor of business is constantly growing and amounted to 25% in December. According to State Secretary and Deputy Head of the Ministry of Economy Alexei Khersontsev, who is in charge of the issue in the department, these complaints are analyzed on a monthly basis by the interdepartmental working group of the project to optimize and automate processes in the field of licensing and permitting activities. Also at the meeting, the results of the preliminary rating of ministries and departments were summed up in terms of reducing the time and number of required documents, timely execution of orders and increasing the demand for filing electronic applications, as well as the satisfaction index. The best were Rosprirodnadzor, Rostransnadzor, Rosaviation and the Ministry of Emergency Situations.

Venera Petrova