Vladimir Putin's opening remarks:
Good afternoon, colleagues.
We have gathered here today to deal with some rather mundane things. The problems that we will discuss do not attract worldwide attention, are not part of major current events, but they nevertheless concern millions of our citizens.
The social well-being of millions of people depends on how we deal with such issues, so they are obviously very sensitive and very important. This work is not heroic, but it requires professionalism, perseverance and consistency.
I am talking about providing public and municipal services to the public. Our main task here is to structure the work of staff and officials at every level so that they are attuned to the interests of society. We need to free our people from the queuing that is tiring and sometimes humiliating, from the endless run-around with inquiries and papers, from the demands of the various middlemen so that visits to the so-called, as we always say in Russia, office benches, do not turn into a struggle and a hassle every time.
We have optimised the procedure for providing many of the so-called mass services. This means simplifying the vehicle registration process, passing inspections and obtaining a driver's license. Fewer formalities are required for obtaining an internal or foreign passport. We have decided on these, and we only need to ensure that they function so that all of this is done in practice and that people can see it for themselves.
A unified portal of the state and municipal services has been running on the Internet for more than a year on the website Gosuslugi.ru. Here, among other things, you can obtain a certificate of your account status in the Pension Fund, send an application for a tax identification number, as well as many other services.
Finally, the legal framework has been radically updated – in 2010, a law was passed on the provision of state and municipal services. It sets stringent requirements for departments and authorities in the field. I want to stress that our efforts to implement the law will be effective only if systematic and coordinated work is structured at every level – federal, regional and municipal.
And in this regard, I would like to remind you that every region and municipality should adopt its own plan to streamline procedures and improve the quality of these services, and managers are required to report regularly on its implementation. Today, let's see how work is progressing at the local government level and find the problems that require our joint effort and decisions.
What I want you to concentrate on today: First, the municipalities need to fully complete the development of new administrative regulations by July 2012 in order to bring them in line with the requirements of Federal Law No. 210, and these regulations must be openly discussed by the public and by experts. The regulations should clarify and outline all the details from beginning to end, so that there are no more loopholes for red tape or arbitrary decisions and rules from officials in various departments.
Providing a time period required to render each service and an exhaustive list of documents that the citizen must provide is mandatory, so that officials cannot invent anything on the spot beyond what is specified and spelled out in these fundamental documents. In addition, a registry of municipal services needs to be formed, streamlining and unifying them in order to provide information to citizens on a single portal of public services in a convenient and accessible way.
We must also plan for the transfer of municipal services to electronic form, making any necessary changes in municipal legislative acts and removing all restrictions on the use of documents on data carriers. We are doing this kind of work at the federal level. Accordingly, we need to accelerate the adoption of the law On Electronic Signatures.
I’d like to ask the Ministry of Communications to resolve all technical issues related to the usage and confirmation of digital signatures. The electronic document must be fully equivalent to the paper one. In addition, all systems of inter-agency electronic interaction must be adapted by April 1.
We have already spoken about this. Let me remind you why this is important, why it should be done by April 1. Because as of July 1, 2011, the authorities will be obligated to carry out all the necessary approvals and requests on their own – I want to stress this: all the necessary approvals and requests, and they will not be able to, as before, push away people with inquiries to neighbouring offices and agencies. A citizen is there to, as we say, visit a “single window,” ask for some help, get high-quality and comprehensive service, and not act as a courier.
I repeat: officials will be prohibited from requiring people to submit documents that can be found on the databases of other agencies. These databases must be comprehensive and accessible; we need to make sure that agencies do share all information amongst themselves. I have raised this issue with Orenburg Region Governor Yury Berg today. There is one serious problem: some agencies are reluctant to provide other agencies with access to all data they have. This may compromise the effectiveness of the system we are creating.
Third, people may decide for themselves whether they would like to take advantage of this system. We will phase in innovations in the most careful manner, and I would like everyone, primarily senior citizens, to understand that they do not have to use the new system if they don’t want to.
Still, the government should be in close contact with ordinary people, explaining the advantages of e-services to them. But we should not force them on anyone. People should have the opportunity to go to the office of a federal or municipal agency and consult with a specialist in person, if they want to. But such procedures must not be burdensome. To simplify them, we are expanding the network of so-called one-window offices, or one-door offices, as the governor puts it, where various government agencies have their employees working in the same building, preferably on the same floor. In such centres, people can apply for services or request all kind of documents, like the documents necessary to receive social benefits or register ownership rights to land, without having to wait long in line.
We toured one such centre today. People have said that they are happy with it: they don’t have to spend as much time waiting because all the offices are located in one building.
I hope at least some of you have visited this centre. If you haven’t, I recommend that you do. Everything is organised very well there. Another significant benefit of the centres: they require less funding from local budgets since they employ fewer staff members.
Many of these centres have proved very effective. I just mentioned the centre in Orenburg as an example, but as you know, the first centres were created back in 2007. There are almost 170 of them, in 49 regions. Twenty of these centres are located in St Petersburg alone. Many of them have performed really well, and people are very satisfied with the quality of services they receive at the centres. Over 3.5 million people have benefited from services provided at these centres since the beginning of 2010. According to the results of a survey conducted by the Ministry of Economic Development, over 90% of the people who have made use of such centres approve of them. This system reduces waiting times by up to 70%, and the amount of time spent dealing with officials to 75%.
At the same time, only 15% of Russians can currently take advantage of such centres. Clearly, this is a very small number. We need to expedite the creation of such centres. In the next two years, we must set up 800 new centres, and there should be 2,500 by 2015. In the future – in the near future, I hope – one-window offices, or one-door offices, as some call them, will be created in each municipality. This is our common goal.
We should create all the necessary conditions for such centres, ensuring that they are managed properly, receive enough funding and have access to new technology. What does the federal government plan to do to this end? First, we will soon adopt a resolution obliging federal and local executive bodies to enter into agreements with government services centres and provide them with all necessary information upon request.
Second, we have prepared amendments to 47 federal laws, including the laws on Land, Tax, Forestry, Urban Development, Housing and Civil Codes. These amendments eliminate the obstacles to sustaining interaction between executive bodies and government services centres.
In addition to this, we will soon adopt a list of the 80 most demanded services that these centres will need to provide. These services include registering ownership rights to real estate and dachas, issuing regular passports, foreign travel passports and registration certificates, filing tax returns, and so on.
Municipal and regional authorities should provide everything necessary for these centres, including land, office buildings and equipment. They should also train personnel for them. Clearly, this will put an additional burden on local budgets, but I believe it is absolutely necessary to invest funds in these centres in order to improve the quality of government services. I would like each regional leader to provide the necessary assistance to the municipalities that set up such centres. Regions do have the resources for this.
Regions and municipalities must eliminate unnecessary expenses and shrink their bulky and inefficient bureaucratic machinery. If we see that they do their best to deal with these problems and need additional support, we will provide it. The Ministry of Economic Development and the Ministry of Finance will help.
There is one more issue I’d like to touch on. It is not on our agenda today, but since there are many heads of municipalities, cities and regions here, I’d like to address them and say that they must control the growth of utilities prices. We have set the maximum rate of growth in utilities prices at 15% for this year. I expect it will be even lower, anywhere between 13% and 14%. At any rate, it must not exceed 15%.
I’d like local authorities to remember that they should keep an eye on utilities prices and monitor the situation in the utilities sector in general. They should review the performance of managing companies. This should be a major priority for municipalities.
Now let’s get down to work.
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Vladimir Putin's closing remarks:
Ladies and gentleman, once again I would like to stress the importance of the issue we’ve been discussing. Relations between citizens and their government and the quality of services the government provides are extremely important for ensuring cooperation between citizens and government as well as for the social sphere and the economy. We must make this work modern and efficient, not just so that people are content; this will also be beneficial to the government. What I mean is that by introducing these mechanisms we will accelerate all government processes.
We have talked with two visitors at this municipal centre. One is a small business owner, and the other, a woman, is the head of a gardening association. Can you imagine the importance of the mechanisms we have discussed for these kinds of activities? If you just look at how productive these gardening associations are, especially in the field of horticulture, everything becomes clear immediately. There is both a moral and an economic imperative to solve this problem.
We can and we must turn Russia into a modern country, into a modern state, by introducing modern technology. We have both the financial and technical resources to do this. All we need is the desire to treat this issue like the absolute priority. The job of every level of government (the municipal, regional and federal levels working together) is to ensure that all agencies function normally, which in turn improves the lives of our citizens. Only in that case can we say that we are performing our duty to our people. We must not treat this work as a mere formality.
I plan to closely monitor the progress made in our joint work both in the regions and municipalities.
Thank you very much.