Transcript of the beginning of the meeting:

Dmitry Medvedev: Colleagues, good afternoon to you all. Yesterday, we finally formed the government and it has started its work. I have gathered you for a meeting today to promptly discuss the prospect of forming the government’s expert council (which I mentioned several months ago) so that it can begin working as soon as possible.

Yesterday I also met with the ministers (this was our first conference, rather than a session, with the participation of ministers). I spoke about the most important national development tasks so that the government could present its programme to our people, foreign companies, and last but not least, our analytical community – our experts.

These seven goals will be highly revealing, and not even so much the goals themselves, as the speed with which we attain them. This is why I hope that the prospective expert council will become a key element of the Open Government, thereby helping the cabinet of ministers to carry out their duties effectively.

Much has been done to implement the initiatives that I have presented over the last few months. It seems symbolic to me that the government includes several members of the working group. Some of the expert proposals on the structure of the new government that we discussed have also been translated into reality. You’ve probably noticed that this structure has not undergone any radical changes. I deliberately avoided changes, and presented this structure for the president’s approval for one simple reason: any structure, even the most perfect one, will require a year before it starts working, if it is to provide for serious changes – but our government does not have a year to spare. We must start working at once; we must resolve our current, everyday problems, but we must also implement the necessary reforms in the economy and the social sphere. This is why I have presented this structure “as is.” I think it is good enough for the tasks we must resolve.

We will also establish a government commission to coordinate the entire system of the Open Government. Minister Mikhail Abyzov, who was appointed to the relevant position yesterday, will be in charge of this task. I will establish a relevant department in the Government Executive Office with this aim in view.

I have invited experts, members of the working group and representatives of the business community to attend our meeting because I believe your opinion will be decisive for the formation of the expert council. I discussed the prospective council with some entrepreneurs who are present here.  In short, the idea has been supported. I would like to say once again that I don’t need an ornamental expert council to legalise pre-drafted government decisions – that would be completely useless. I would like the expert council to directly influence the key decisions that will be made by the government, which is why the expert council should prepare conclusions on the draft decisions of the Russian Government. Not all decisions, though, but only the key ones that concern the investment climate, business, the social sphere and a number of other issues.

Also, I have spoken about this before but would like this issue to be addressed today too: I believe that members of the expert council should hold regular consultations with the prime minister and forward their proposals to me as often as necessary, but at least once a month. I have said before that these should not be standard meetings between the prime minister and business representatives or members of a public organisation, or meetings between the President and representatives of a company, which I have held in the past. The idea is for the leaders of a business or a public organisation to propose general solutions in the interests of their corporation or their group, such as business people, teachers, doctors or any other group.

I also expect the new expert council to cooperate directly with deputy prime ministers and ministers and to engage in updating the format of work of the public councils operating at ministries and agencies. I have already mentioned this: unfortunately, public councils at most of the ministries – not all of them but many still – were established as a mere formality, a pretence of legitimacy in the decisions they make. They need to be revamped, and more active people should join them.

There have been various proposals on organising the work and structure of the expert council. Let us discuss them now. My opinion, which I have already expressed, is that the meetings – no, not just meetings – the council as a whole may include a large number of experts, say 150, but it will work in focus groups, which will make up an expert core. So I actually plan to meet with focus groups, because meeting with 150 people at a time is senseless. It makes sense to meet with five or ten people, or 15 at the most. In this setting they can maintain a dialogue where they have a chance to convey their message which, in turn, will have an opportunity to be reflected in a government decision.

These are my thoughts about organising the expert council’s work. Now I would like to hear your ideas. Let's start with Mikhail Abyzov who coordinates the Open Government, and then I will give the floor to my colleagues.

Go ahead please.

Mikhail Abyzov (Minister of the Russian Federation): Thank you Mr Medvedev. Colleagues, according to the experts of the Open Government working group, the expert council should become one of the key tools in the Open Government system. Its goals, authority and main areas of application have been outlined in the working group’s report. All proposals that are included in the final report have been initially presented to you and then reworked in compliance with your comments. The final report was submitted for consideration by the expert community, public associations as well as the business community.

 On the one hand, these tasks, which the report has defined to be the domain of the Expert Council, provide for its participation in the government’s decision-making. On the other hand, and this is no less important, the Expert Council will analyse the performance of specific ministries and departments to establish whether they reach the declared goals. 

We, along with experts, consider it very important to have an independent view on the efficiency of this performance. The goals will be announced in separate reports that will accompany the reports of ministries and departments for a certain period of time, for a year – in accordance with the established reporting practice at ministerial boards and the government. In cooperation with the public councils of the relevant ministries and departments, the Expert Council could express its independent opinion on these reports, which would become a subject for discussion and for reporting to you on their performance.

Of course, experts suggest that the Expert Council should take part in determining the efficiency of performance and in forming public councils, as you’ve already noted. It is also important to make sure that the Expert Council is unbiased, independent and that it is made up of professionals.

I’d like to say a few words about the proposals on mechanisms that the working group suggested in forming the Expert Council. Indeed, a big pool of experts may consist of 150-200 people and we have already had this kind of experience in the working group. But it will also be important to form a coordinating group to prepare expert conclusions in line with the government’s agenda and the tasks you set forth as the Prime Minister. It would involve experts from a big community in this work. In this case we will be objective and our position will reflect professionally the various areas of the expert council’s activity. The working group has proposed a new format for creating an initiative group of the expert council, and this proposal has been included in the final report. The goal is to ensure that the experts’ proposals take into account the interests of the concerned parties as much as possible.

The quality of examination of government decisions depends mainly on the people who have gathered here. Their proposals regarding the analysis of government decisions will be incorporated in the expert council’s work. We propose working with the expert venues that are respected by the public to prepare a long list of expert group members, which could consist of up to 30 people. A commission, which you said will be created in the near future, will select 15-20 people for the core of the expert council in an open procedure.

These mechanisms and this procedure for selecting experts based on the criteria I mentioned before – professionalism, objectivity and transparency – should be reflected in the regulations on the expert council and on the commission, which are being drafted. We hope, in fact we are sure that we will submit them for consideration very soon.

I would like our colleagues who are present here to share their views on the formation of the expert council, and possibly their proposals on the expert council’s tasks and powers. Thank you.

Dmitry Medvedev: Thank you. Colleagues, who is ready to take the floor?

 Please, Mr Kuzminov, go ahead.

Yaroslav Kuzminov (Rector, Higher School of Economics National Research University): Mr Medvedev, colleagues, in the last year and a half we have seen that when some interested groups in civil society see a specific task and realise that they can change something, expert communities (and not just) quickly overcome their differences and begin productive work themselves. The expert groups 2020 and the Open Government group already represent a nucleus of these groups, and most importantly each group organised its work mostly on their own.   

In fact, the purely expert stage of our work was concluded in September. Since September we have been working jointly with the government and the administration, and in recent months with your direct participation. Now it is necessary to determine the task: what should the expert council do in our view? First, following the proposal of the expert groups, jointly with departments we should form roadmaps for government actions with accurate budget calculations, because all of us know that ultimately these budget calculations determine both the scale of transformations that we can afford and whether the action has a practical impact. State programmes are most important. They are a very comprehensive instrument that will stay at the centre of policy control in the short term, in our view.    

However, participation in designing policy is probably not everything. I think that many of those present here have participated in designing policy and have seen that the results are quite different. The major challenge to every reform is how the bureaucracy interprets the reform. There is no headquarters for countering reforms, but there is the logic of the executives who drain the essence from a deed, as we all know too well, so the major task of the public contour of the government is not to allow the essence of the reforms to be lost during implementation. What is of primary importance for this?   

First, the expert council and other agencies of the Open Government should participate in the work on documents not at the final stage but beginning at the development stage. Everybody knows the peculiar practice of many of our departments to introduce a 100-page draft document for discussion one day before or even on the morning of the day of discussion. I have enough experience working in government commissions, and I think that some 70 percent of such documents are discussed in this dubious manner. There is a simple solution: the expert council should be included in the mandatory agreement of all draft documents whose composition will be determined by the prime minister. As for internal documents, technical documents…. The expert council should not be loaded up with the latter. The expert council should have the right to choose from the flow of documents of interdepartmental agreements, the documents or drafts that it will work on.

Next, the expert council should have the right to initiate governmental review of the expert council’s issues and to introduce draft programmes and documents. The expert council should have the ability to assess the efficiency of state investment not only in respect of branches but in some cases in respect of certain facilities. To this end, it is probably necessary to form a special working group of experts under the expert council. Such experts are to be found in the business community. They can provide a great deal of assistance.

Finally, the expert council could periodically review the work of Russian regions both from the point of view of experience and assessing the efficiency of their federal support.

Second, a comment on the design of the expert council. I agree that it should not be very large, probably 20, or better yet 15 people. This is the number that can participate in the discussion, not just sit there. It makes no sense to hold pro forma meetings with half of the members being absent. Otherwise the expert council will become just another formal body; it should be a body for collective discussion. To tell the truth, such a body has never existed in this country, and perhaps this is a new proposal from us – a body of 10-15 people for a collective discussion. helping the chairman to simply focus on some subjects. 

Second, it should include some people who publicly oppose the current authorities. Of course, these should be professionals who will join the council to work and not just spout slogans. I’d propose Yevgeny Yasin, Yevgeny Gontmakher, Igor Yurgens, Gennady Gudkov of the Levada Centre, and Natalya Zubarevich from the Lomonosov Moscow State University. We should think about inviting them to join the council, if they agree. The expert council should include not only economists, but also leading lawyers, sociologists, political scientists, and, no less important,  scientists and experts in innovative technologies. I would suggest, for example, Academician Alexander Kuleshov of the Institute for Information Transmission Problems at the Russian Academy of Sciences, Academician Konstantin Skryabin, and Vice President of Skolkovo Institute of Science and Technology Alexei Ponomaryov who has just left the Ministry of Education and Science.

And third, all leading experts and members of the bodies of the public government are ready to work without pay. This is how we worked on Strategy 2020 and Open Government, this is our professional self-realization. But the minister responsible for the work of the Open Government should have resources – resources for one-time payments to hired experts – if we want to create an alternative version of a legal act. Otherwise in some cases the expert council will not have a basis to support its position when confronting a department possessing such options. Thank you.