Opening remarks by Prime Minister Vladimir Putin:

Good afternoon, colleagues,

We have just attended the awards ceremony for the winners of the contest to identify the most comfortable city, town or village in Russia. I am pleased to say that Veliky Novgorod, the town where we are now, is among them. I have already said a few words about this: the town is one of Russia’s oldest, and I am pleased that steps are already being taken here, albeit modest ones so far, in the right direction.

However, the reason that we have gathered together is not to compliment each other. Rather, we are here in order to analyse the problems facing us and to discuss ways to address them. We have to face the fact that the appearance of many Russian towns and villages is far from ideal. Efforts to beautify our towns and villages are often erratic and inconsistent, and money for this work is usually doled out from leftover funds. It's no surprise, then, that we often hear people complaining about the way our towns and villages look, about the lack of parks and green spaces in urban areas, about insufficient lighting in the streets, obstacles for people with disabilities, families with children, and senior citizens, let alone the random heaps of garbage or dumps in the most unlikely places. These people are absolutely right: a civilised, livable country begins with clean streets and courtyards, and the reliable functioning of community services, schools and kindergartens – in a word, with routine issues that are part of the direct responsibility of municipal services.

We are well aware of the abundance and the seriousness of existing problems, and we are working together with the municipal authorities in order to solve them. Our help and support includes work performed by the Housing and Utilities Fund, the provision of funds from the federal budget to promote school and pre-school education, municipal health services and the provision of public amenities. However, these federal funds will be used most effectively if combined with the efficient work of local authorities, their ability to prioritise tasks and organise work. The project to upgrade and repair roads in administrative capitals of the Russian regions is very telling in this regard. It is no accident that we focused our attention on this task, since regional capitals are home to more than a third of the Russian people.

We discussed the issue of expanding this programme the last time we met in Pskov, and I hear this question often during all kinds of meetings. We will not be able to resolve all issues with federal funding alone. We would just be scattering these funds, and they would go to waste. What we need to do is concentrate regional funds and funds from local governments on the priorities that exist at each of these levels.

This year we allocated 22.7 billion roubles towards repairs of courtyards in these cities alone. However, this money was put to use for various purposes. In one place, they managed to do a lot for the benefit of people; in another, the money was spent, but there’s not much to show for it. According to preliminary information, in some of the administrative capitals, less than half of the work was accepted. The auctions were delayed in some of them, and in others, contractors failed to meet deadlines (those who signed contracts with them are to blame) or quality standards. Please look into each such case specifically. Colleagues, please take a good look at them.

For reference, I can cite data collected by the Ministry of Regional Development: as of October 24-27, all work under the programme was completed and paid for in just seven cities. In 30 cities, over 90% of work was accepted, which is not bad either.  But in 26 of them, they accepted and paid for just 70% to 90% of work, and in 13, between 50% and 70%. Specifically, in Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, they have accepted around 48%; in Murmansk, slightly over 47% ; in Ulyanovsk, 41%; in Vladivostok, 40.4%; in Tula, 39%; and in Tver, 38.7%. 

Tula, for example, faces a serious problem with ramshackle housing in downtown areas. I was there and was able to see it for myself. Indeed, there is a lot that needs to be done. It's clear that this will require large amounts of capital investment. Is it so difficult to whip the city into good shape? Or does Tver not really need that much work? Why did they accept only 38% of the work?

It's clear that our system of approaches must also be changed. Requirements of the municipal authorities need to be formulated more clearly, and performance evaluation criteria should be introduced. This should be done by the people themselves in the first place. We are introducing these criteria to evaluate the performance of regional authorities and government institutions. These kinds of criteria for municipal authorities should also be in place. It is for this reason that the government has drafted major amendments to the existing legislation. In fact, for the first time ever, we are introducing a clear legal definition of such a concept as urban amenities and accountability of municipal authorities for the quality of work. The provision of urban amenities will include a set of measures ranging from design to placement and maintenance of facilities that beautify our towns and villages and contribute to creating a comfortable living environment. Local authorities will be given additional powers enabling them to address current issues in a prompt manner. Today, putting up even basic amenities, such as benches, fences, playgrounds or sport grounds, requires numerous permits. I would like to ask the United Russia deputies in the State Duma to approve this bill before the end of the autumn session. On their end, local authorities should introduce mandatory regulations for beautification, and they should do so on the basis of standard federal regulations, which will be part of this new law.

The financial resources of the municipal authorities will certainly need to be increased for them to be able to provide urban amenities. I would like to draw the attention of the regions to the need for making broader use of their right to transfer portions of federal and regional taxes and fees to municipalities. On our part, we will think about providing municipalities with additional sources of income as part of our work to delimit terms of reference.

Now, on to some other issues that also fall under the responsibility of the municipal executives. We have limited the increase in tariffs for 2012 in most so-called natural, or more precisely, infrastructural monopolies, including heat and power supply, to the rate of inflation. This time, tariffs will be adjusted not in January as previously, but on July 1. This means that there will no longer be any economic grounds for raising the amounts that appear on utilities bills. Therefore, please deal directly with managing and utilities companies, track the situation closely in the housing and utilities sector and stop any and all attempts by these companies to get into customers’ pockets.

I would like to bring up another important subject that has to do with improving schools and pre-school education. Please note that this also falls under the responsibility of municipal authorities. We have allocated 120 billion roubles for the modernisation of Russian schools over the next two years. What we need to do now is make all the necessary arrangements in conjunction with the regions and purchase equipment, outfit labs, gyms, medical offices and cafeterias. There is certainly the need to follow through on the implementation of the main purpose for the allocation of federal funds, which is to raise the salaries of school teachers. It’s not enough to report about the situation in general in a region or a municipality. Please make sure that each and every teacher sees an increase in his or her salary, without any glitches.

Of course, we cannot leave out pre-school employees. It would be putting it mildly to say that their salaries are far from being high. As a rule, they receive about 40% of the average salary in any given region. However, pre-school teachers in the Nenets Autonomous Area, Kabardino-Balkaria (not a wealthy republic) and the Leningrad Region (also a region with average financial resources) receive salaries that are over 60% of the average salary in each respective region. Overall, they are heading in the right direction, and their possibilities are not better than in other regions.

I believe that regions and municipalities should work together to raise the social status of kindergarten employees, all the more so since additional funds for promoting pre-school education are becoming available. We will allocate an additional 10 billion roubles of federal funds to this end over the next two years. We are proceeding based on the fact that there is a major shortage of kindergartens (as you are well aware) in almost all regions, and worst of all, the situation is not getting any better. I have cited this figure recently: 1.7 million children were on a waiting list to get into a kindergarten. Today, this number is up to 1.9 million.  Either the numbers were a bit off last time, or the situation has gotten worse over the past six months. Let me make it clear: The 10 billion roubles that I mentioned will go to the regions that are working to address this issue, namely, supporting modern pre-school education or building new kindergartens. We need to straighten things out in this area as well.

I mentioned earlier that the construction cost per child at a kindergarten varies widely among regions, when, in fact, these regions share the same climate and other conditions that affect the final price. I have already provided these numbers, but I’ll mention them again: in the Samara and Ulyanovsk Regions the final figure is 1.3 million roubles, whereas in the Smolensk Region it’s three times lower, at 376,000 roubles. How is this possible? I would like to ask Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Kozak to complete the formation of an open databank for standard kindergarten projects in order to stop customers or contractors from pulling prices out of the blue. At the same time, we cannot try to save money while creating proper conditions for child development and the promotion of child health. It goes without saying that kindergartens should comply with the most stringent sanitary and hygienic requirements.

Let’s move on to discussing our issues.

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Vladimir Putin's closing remarks:

In conclusion, I would like to say this, which is in fact a reiteration of what I said at the last meeting.

You are facing great tasks, even though the funding is insufficient and the tasks are very complex. But there is a very positive component of the work you are doing, and that is that you can always see the result. This is a great responsibility, because you are very close to the people, and they come to you with their problems. But if you accomplish even the smallest thing, the result can be seen, as is the case in some villages, towns and even in large cities such as Novosibirsk, with its population of 1.5 million – the mayor can see the result of his efforts. When he instructs you to do something, he then goes to see for himself, and he does see the result with his own eyes. In this sense you are very fortunate, as it is always gratifying to see the results of your efforts, and moreover, to feel people responding to it.

Yet there are still many problems on the municipal level. I want to say that we are very closely linked with you despite the fact that legally, the municipal level of administration is not regarded as the state level. However, a man in the street sees every level of authority as the state. Everything that takes place on the federal level, any problems that arise, affect you one way or another. Everything that you fail to accomplish inevitably has its impact on the highest level, including the federal level of power. In this way we are all in the same boat, and we should learn to synchronise our rowing, our work in order for our state ship to advance steadily in the right direction, so that all passengers, the Russian people, feel involved, feel that they are members of our common team and feel positive changes themselves. Without this there will be no progress.

At every stage, no matter how complicated, it is necessary to advance bit by bit and to improve the life of every individual person. Then we will feel the response from our people: not only will they sympathise with us, but together with us, they will carry out the tasks that stand before the country. I wish you success. Thank you very much! And congratulations once again to those who won the competition. Thank you.