The Ministry of Economy proposes to ban the editing of state programs in the fourth quarter

The Ministry of Economy proposes to ban the editing of state programs in the fourth quarter

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The government may prohibit editing the indicators of state programs and national projects at the end of the year. The latest reform of state program management to link them with national projects and national goals allowed the ministries responsible for their implementation to propose changes to the programs “to the last” – sometimes it was possible to achieve goals by the end of the year only by bringing plans into line with reality. With the general preservation of flexible targets, the proposed restrictions on adjusting state programs in the fourth quarter are explained by the difficulties that amendments at the end of the year create for the Ministry of Finance, which carries out budget planning, as well as ministries, whose goals for national projects and state programs are often linked to the tasks of those who did not have time to implement the planned .

The Ministry of Economy proposes to prohibit changes to the list or values ​​of indicators of the state program in the fourth quarter of the year for which they are set, follows from the draft government decree published on regulation.gov.ru. Recall that state programs actually describe the relationship between budget expenditures and the strategic goals of the authorities. Since 2022, in order to improve the quality of implementation, they have been reformatted according to new rules: each state program has been supervised by a deputy prime minister, the programs themselves have been synchronized with national goals, and officials have been held liable for non-fulfillment of indicators (for more details, see Kommersant dated May 27, 2021). State programs are linked not only to each other, but also to national projects and federal projects that describe general long-term development plans – if the resolution is adopted, it will also be prohibited to make changes to their indicators in the fourth quarter.

It should be noted that in general, the adjustment of the indicators of state programs and national projects is not forbidden, since it allows us to correlate the plans described on paper with reality and increase the efficiency of planning. However, sometimes changes are refused, even despite detailed justifications. So, for example, in August 2022, due to a shortage of equipment, the Ministry of Digital Development proposed to adjust the federal project “Information Infrastructure” of the national program “Digital Economy”, reducing, in particular, the number of remote sparsely populated areas that should have been equipped in 2022 with broadband Internet access , but the program has not been adjusted (see Kommersant dated September 5, 2022).

Some of the proposals for amending state programs and national projects traditionally appear by the end of the year, when it becomes clear that the planned plans have not been fulfilled: in such cases, the adjustment actually means adjusting the “goals” to the already existing results – an example of such an amendment is the initiative of the Ministry of Construction to reduce plans housing construction in 2018 (see Kommersant dated December 19, 2018).

In this mode, it is problematic to assess the real effectiveness of the implementation of state programs and national projects. At the same time, difficulties arise not only for the departments directly responsible for the implementation, but also for their colleagues, whose state programs and national projects are linked to the first in the strategic planning system, and for the deputy prime ministers in charge of state programs and national projects. For the Ministry of Finance, late amendments create difficulties due to the unused funds remaining in its jurisdiction at the end of the year (which is especially important when the budget is in deficit). The resolution prepared by the Ministry of Economy should solve these problems. Those responsible for the implementation of national projects and state programs, if adopted, will have to engage in more accurate forecasting in order to make changes to state programs earlier than the fourth quarter or mobilize efforts to achieve the declared indicators without amendments.

Christina Borovikova

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