The Ministry of Economy has prepared updated methods for assessing the regulatory impact

The Ministry of Economy, as part of the regulatory impact assessment (RIA) reform, has prepared updated methodologies for conducting the procedure for departments and the form of a consolidated report. The agency expects that the documents will allow developers to improve the quality of reports and concentrate on the monetary assessment of the regulation being developed. The criterion will be the cost of business to comply with the relevant standards within six years from the expected date of entry into force of the documents, however, the methodology for their assessment is still being developed. Experts have criticized the RIA procedure for its often formal approach to assessment, and the government is systematically trying to solve the problem.

The Ministry of Economy continues to develop documents for the restructuring of the RIA mechanism. In April, the department de facto proposed to introduce a financial criterion to determine the degree of regulatory impact of draft acts containing mandatory requirements – the cost of business to comply with the relevant standards within six years from the expected date of entry into force of the documents (for more details, see “Kommersant” dated April 13) , and at the end of May, the corresponding government decree was signed by Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin. Now, the ministry has prepared and posted on the regulation.gov.ru portal a draft order approving the RIA methodology, the composition and content of the summary report for draft acts with an average and low degree of regulatory impact, as well as the very form of such a report.

The purpose of this work is to improve the quality of reports, which until now were often filled out formally. This is supposed to be achieved, among other things, by prioritizing sections related to the allocation of groups of mandatory requirements, the range of subjects of regulation and the assessment of costs arising as a result of the introduced regulation. Recall that a high level of costs is provided for projects containing norms, for compliance with which within six years from the date of the expected date of entry into force of the document, business costs will amount to more than 3 billion rubles, medium and low levels – for projects from 0.3 billion to 3 billion rubles and less than 300 million rubles. respectively.

Experts criticized the RIA procedure for its often formal approach to assessment (see “Kommersant” dated September 28, 2021): public administration analysts noted that if the developers are to be believed, in 99% of cases the new regulation does not threaten new costs for the state and business, although in reality 70% of projects involve an increase in business costs. The formalism in the approach to RIA was then explained by its inability to block the adoption of an act that could cost companies dearly by the government (or a bill by the State Duma), but analysts pointed out that such an attitude casts doubt on the success of the control and supervisory reform and evidence-based state regulation. Subsequently, the “loopholes” for projects that did not pass the RIA were consistently closed by the White House.

“The new rules will allow developers to focus on the monetary assessment of the regulation being developed. The document also fixes the algorithm for determining by developers the presence of mandatory requirements in the acts being prepared. The ODS procedure itself is now an algorithm for the developer’s step-by-step actions,” notes i. O. Andrey Starikov, Director of the Department for Regulatory Policy and Regulatory Impact Assessment. The order will come into force on February 1, 2024.

The developer, among other things, is recommended to determine quantitative indicators for each goal of the proposed regulation, characterizing the degree of its achievement, or justify the impossibility of this. In addition, for each group of participants in relations directly or indirectly affected by the new regulation, it is necessary to estimate the expected additional costs and income. The calculation of costs should be carried out according to the methodology developed by the Ministry of Economy – now the department is working on preparing a document.

Venera Petrova