“We proceed from the current tariffs and do not plan to raise them”

A draft law has been submitted to the State Duma on the transfer to the Federal Accreditation Service (Rosakkreditatsiya) of the authority to control inspection operators (TO). How the accreditation mechanism will be arranged, what will happen to the tariffs and what methods of combating fraudsters in the field of maintenance are planned to be introduced, in an interview with Kommersant, the deputy head of Rosakkreditatsiya told Alexander Solovyov.

– Tell us how you see the new mechanics of the process of accreditation of operators within the framework of the submitted bill. Who will do it and how?

“We have a well-established process for a long time, we would like to apply it in the field of maintenance, if the bill is adopted. The assessment itself will be carried out by an independent expert organization, it is subject to certain, rather high requirements. The final decision on accreditation, based on the assessment, is made by a civil servant – an employee of Rosaccreditation.

– Experts who are currently working with the Russian Union of Motor Insurers, can they be involved in this work?

– If they pass our certification, there is no problem.

— How many additional employees will the Federal Accreditation Service need?

– Support of processes, including for making a decision on the accreditation of operators, will require an additional ten employees, this will require an additional 20 million rubles. per year from the budget for wages.

– Any additional budgetary expenses may arise?

— The work of experts and the creation of digital systems for control and accreditation by operators are expected at the expense of fees for accreditation and confirmation of competencies.

— Tariffs for accreditation will increase?

– Now we proceed from the current tariffs and do not plan to raise them. However, we want to discuss with the market new ways to deal with scammers who sell fake diagnostic cards for cars that did not come for inspection. One of the ways can be, for example, the use of video cameras at maintenance points and artificial intelligence to process the video sequence and identify fraudulent schemes. We have a strong IT team capable of creating such software. Moreover, video cameras are now already at many points.

– But there are points where there are no cameras, and the obligation to install them is not spelled out anywhere. Moreover, such a scenario was discussed several years ago – it was abandoned so as not to burden the business once again.

Cameras are much cheaper now, technology has changed. Sophisticated software for monitoring maintenance is not needed – it is important to determine that the car has driven to the point, whether the license plate has been determined, etc. All this is fixed quite simply. But, again, any decisions about new requirements will first be discussed with the business. If operators say that they are not ready to increase the requirements for entering the market and exclusion of fraudsters, then we will not do this. We will look for other ways.

– Can we expect an increase in tariffs for maintenance for car owners as a result of the adoption of the bill?

– The transfer of powers will not affect the tariffs. Moreover, not so long ago, the FAS methodology for setting tariffs in the regions was adopted.

– One of the main problems of the maintenance industry is the falsification of diagnostic cards using photomontage and uploading them to the Unified Information System for Technical Inspection of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. Can Rosakkreditatsiya affect this within the framework of the new bill?

— Today, there is a wide variety of different software and open source solutions for detecting counterfeit traces. I don’t see any problems using them as part of the control of accredited operators.

– Operators complain that the authorities in the current configuration of the legislation cannot actually remove scammers selling fake diagnostic cards from the market. They are deprived of accreditation, but firms receive a new certificate a few days later and continue to trade, issuing hundreds of cards a day. Does the Federal Accreditation Service have any ideas on how to deal with this?

— Here we are counting on the use of our digital system and risk-based model. We will immediately see when, for example, a company with equipment that was in a company that was recently deprived of accreditation is trying to get accreditation. Another example: an operator issued a huge, anomalous number of diagnostic cards in a day – this will also be a reason to pay special attention to him and make sure that he is not a scammer. We want to create a system where the same firm that repeatedly violated the rules and traded cards could not enter this market again.

– Are there any specifics on the entry into force of the bill, if it is adopted?

– I think that this will happen no earlier than 2024 – March 1 or September 1, according to the established rules. It must be understood that after the adoption of the amendments by the State Duma, it will be necessary to transfer cases from the RSA and develop new by-laws. In addition, we want all this to happen as comfortably as possible for business.

Interviewed by Ivan Buranov