The Ministry of Finance published new amendments on the reform of financing the interests of the state through the mechanism of subsidies

The Ministry of Finance published new draft documents on the reform of financing the interests of the state through the mechanism of subsidies – this is a draft government decree on the rules by which the main managers of budget funds will act as state customers of the results of the provision of subsidies, and a bill on what the government will require in exchange for subsidies from state-owned companies and state corporations. The logic of innovations is clear: the state wants to know how and with what results financial benefits are provided to economic entities, and in particular, to monitor the progress of state-owned companies towards national goals, for the achievement of which subsidies are allocated.

To the government’s amendments to the Budget Code on the unification of previously disparate state approaches to the distribution of budget funds for subsidies totaling about 2 trillion rubles. per year and turning them into a single instrument of state policy (FZ-521 dated December 19, 2022, see Kommersant dated May 11, 2022) and to a draft government decree developed as a follow-up to the law on uniform rules for the competition of individuals and legal entities for access to subsidies (see Kommersant dated May 24, 2023), two new documents have been added.

The first is a draft resolution of the White House on the procedure for providing the subsidies themselves (including grants). It is also a by-law to the amendments to the Budget Code, which describes the general conditions and procedure for making decisions on the provision of subsidies by the main budget funds holders (GRBS). Structurally, this new approach to the distribution of subsidies approaches the one already implemented in the state order. So, for the GRBS to make a decision to provide a subsidy, it must be agreed with the Ministry of Finance or its regional counterpart (depending on the source of funds) and include indications of the purpose of the provision (in the system of national goals, national projects and state programs) and the expected (specific and measurable) results of spending , as well as draft agreements on the provision of subsidies, possible areas of spending, a list of recipients to whom money is allocated without selection, and the procedure for returning unused funds to the treasury. At the same time, companies can become recipients of subsidies “without selection” (an analogue of “single suppliers” in the state order) if there is an appropriate international treaty, law, decision of the president, governor or head of the municipality, federal or regional government – and the same the same rules as for all subsidized persons (ban on offshore participation, transfer of money abroad, pre-bankruptcy, etc.).

The second document – amendments to Articles 78.3 and 78.5 of the Budget Code – the Ministry of Finance regulates the allocation of subsidies to state-owned companies and state corporations – earlier, we recall, the ministry strengthened the directive management of state-owned companies in order to “connect” them to the fulfillment of national goals (in the face of uncertainty after the start of the Russian military operation in Ukraine state-owned companies became one of the main instruments of economic stabilization and a conductor of state investments, which were supposed to compensate for the decline in private investment). The amendments directly link the provision of subsidies to state JSCs and state corporations with the goals of state programs – such goals are included in the strategy of their activities, and their achievement is monitored. So, “if subsidies are provided for the implementation of state programs, the indicated results must correspond to the results of the relevant programs.” Moreover, if a state-owned company or a PPC – the recipient of subsidies acts as a subcontractor, they must select the final contractors according to general rules – on a competitive basis and using the GIS “Electronic Budget”.

In an explanatory note, the Ministry of Finance states that the inclusion of budget expenditures on subsidies to state-owned companies in state programs will ensure the relationship between results and indicators that reflect the final socially significant socio-economic effects, and will make it possible to set control points when monitoring the achievement of the result of granting subsidies. As a result, the Ministry of Finance will be able to “make managerial decisions on the effectiveness of resource management” transferred to the state JSC and the PIC. “We are talking about the fact that the state wants to know what it receives in exchange for the allocated funds, there is nothing else here,” an interlocutor in the government apparatus explained to Kommersant.

Oleg Sapozhkov, Diana Galieva