Independent Assessment of Public Authority: Problems of Practical Implementation

Ulyanov Alexander ORCID: 0000-0003-3858-2424 PhD in Law Associate Professor of the Department of Constitutional and Administrative Law, South Ural State University 454080, Russia, Chelyabinsk region, Chelyabinsk, Commune str., 149 70ru@bk.ru Other publications by this author

IntroductionIt is quite logical that the result of any managerial activity, especially public, requires analysis and objective assessment.

A judgment on the effectiveness of managerial activity can be made only after analyzing the real state of objects that have changed as a result of managerial influence [G.V. Atamanchuk, p. 97]. In this regard, in democratic societies today, the role of independent assessment of public authorities is increasing, which means options for expert and public assessment of current indicators and final results of the activities of public authorities and organizations performing publicly significant functions.

An independent assessment is primarily associated with the developed public control of the state's activities by civil society institutions [E.V. Berdnikova, p. 470]. The main problem of independent evaluation and, in general, of the institute for evaluating the effectiveness of public authorities is the lack of qualified experts, especially at the municipal level, and therefore their functions are often performed by state or municipal employees. Therefore, independent evaluation is often compensated or replaced by other methods of evaluation, including quasi-evaluation, which, unlike expert evaluation, is reduced to a description of the collected data, and not to an analysis of the causes and consequences of managerial decision-making [G. Vollman, p. 13].

The practice of applying an independent assessmentIn the Russian Federation, an independent assessment of the quality of social services has been carried out since 2014.

The practice of independent evaluation began to take shape with the adoption of Federal Law No. 256-FZ dated July 21, 2014 "On Amendments to Certain Legislative Acts of the Russian Federation on the Issues of Conducting an independent assessment of the quality of services provided by organizations in the field of culture, social services, health and education". The law considers independent assessment as one of the forms of public control, which is carried out in order to provide citizens with information about the quality of socially significant services provided by relevant organizations and institutions, as well as in order to improve the quality of their activities. The assessment is carried out according to such criteria as openness, comfort, availability of services, friendliness and satisfaction. In order to create conditions for the organization of an independent assessment, the Public Chamber of the Russian Federation and regional public chambers, on the basis of appeals from state authorities or local self-government bodies, form appropriate public councils. The composition of the public council is formed from representatives of public organizations created to protect the rights and freedoms of citizens, public organizations of disabled people, consumer associations (their associations, unions), the number of council members may not be less than five people. All of them carry out their activities on a voluntary basis. It should be noted that initially public councils were formed directly by state authorities or local self-government bodies, but in 2017 it was decided to abandon this practice due to the obvious bias of the councils. An independent assessment is carried out by public councils no more than once a year and no less than once every three years on the basis of information on the quality of services provided by operators who collect, summarize and analyze information on the basis of state and municipal contracts concluded by authorized public authorities.Information on the results of an independent assessment of social institutions in the whole country is aggregated on the official website for posting information about state (municipal) institutions on the Internet information and telecommunications network https://bus.gov.ru .

   According to the data of this Internet portal, according to the results of the assessment of the quality of conditions for the provision of services, out of 108234 educational organizations, only 0.4% received a grade below average or unsatisfactory, and 1.2% received a "satisfactory" grade, the rest of the organizations were rated "good" and "excellent". A similar situation is observed according to the results of an independent assessment in healthcare, where out of 7561 medical organizations, only 71 institutions received a rating below average or unsatisfactory^[1]. Summarizing these data, we can say that an independent assessment has turned from a means of improving the efficiency of providing socially significant services into a good tool for executive authorities, with the help of which it is possible to demonstrate a stable and prosperous state of the social sphere.According to the current legislation, the results of an independent assessment of the social sphere should be taken into account when assessing the effectiveness of the heads of the relevant federal executive authorities, senior officials and heads of executive authorities of the subjects of the Russian Federation, heads of local self-government bodies of municipal districts, municipal and urban districts.

 At the same time, it has not been determined de jure what legal consequences negative evaluation results may entail for the relevant managers. Moreover, if at the regional level the mechanism of correlation of these data is formally fixed in Article 35 of Federal Law No. 414-FZ of December 21, 2021 "On the General Principles of the Organization of public Power in the Subjects of the Russian Federation" (information on the results of an independent assessment is included in the annual report on the results of the activities of the supreme executive body of the subject of the Russian Federation), then at the federal and municipal levels, such a mechanism has not yet been developed.

Unfortunately, over the eight years of its existence, the institute of independent assessment has not had a proper impact on improving the quality of providing socially significant services to the population. The situation in the field of primary healthcare continues to be unfavorable, the material and technical base and equipment of medical and educational organizations, especially those located in rural areas, do not meet the requirements. Speaking at the United Russia congress in June 2021, the head of state cited data according to which 72 percent of school buildings need current repairs, and 10 percent need capital repairs^[2]. The transfer of powers to form public councils from public authorities to public chambers did not significantly change the situation. In our opinion, this can be caused by several reasons. Firstly, the work of public councils under executive authorities, both at the federal and regional levels, is often of a formal nature. The Institute of Public Councils is not fully focused on improving the objectivity of information on the results of the activities of the executive authorities of the Russian Federation. Secondly, the dependence of operators on customers, who are all the same public authorities. It should be borne in mind that payment for state and municipal contracts, as a rule, is carried out upon completion of work, after they are accepted and "approved" by the customer. Thirdly, not all organizations are subject to independent evaluation, but only those included in the list, which must be approved by the public council in consultation with the customer, since the scope of work and, consequently, the cost of contracts and the amount of funding depend on it. Fourth, the law provides for the frequency of independent evaluation – no more than once a year and no less than once every three years, which clearly does not meet the needs of recipients of services who use them daily.

An assessment of the activities of territorial divisions of federal executive authorities and regional branches of state extra-budgetary funds, multifunctional centers for the provision of state and municipal services has become a kind of independent assessment tool on the part of the population. About the price is carried out by citizens at all stages of the provision of state and municipal services provided, at which direct interaction was carried out with citizens, including when providing services in electronic form^[3]. The evaluation procedure is carried out by means of a questionnaire module on the official websites of federal executive authorities, executive authorities of constituent entities of the Russian Federation, state extra-budgetary funds and official websites of multifunctional centers for the provision of state and municipal services on the Internet. The evaluation operators, as a rule, are the executive authorities. When introducing this assessment tool, it was assumed that in the case of a negative assessment of the quality of the provision of state or municipal services, the question of early termination of the powers of the relevant managers and officials may be raised, but this practice did not eventually spread.Expert assessment as a type of independent assessment

Expert assessment is a type of independent assessment, which is carried out with the involvement of independent experts (expert groups).

Independent appraisers in this case are persons with the necessary professional competencies, or specialized non-profit organizations, consulting companies, research institutes. Recently, the expert community has been making a significant contribution to the development of the institute of global assessment. Experts of international organizations, which include: the United Nations and the Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) created under its auspices, the World Health Organization, take an active part in measuring the quality of life of the population, the effectiveness of measures taken by the state for social, economic and cultural development, The World Bank, the International Labor Organization, the International Monetary Fund and others. They have developed and widely applied several basic approaches to measuring the quality of life of the population, public administration, compliance with the international standard of human rights, political freedoms, and the level of corruption.

In addition, the role of a professional appraiser can be performed by a specially created expert organization. In this regard, it would be appropriate to focus on the practice of developing expert-analytical centers in foreign countries. At the initial stage, foreign centers were often used as instruments of political struggle, which became a serious obstacle to their development (the procedure for financing research and evaluation methodology, the authority of experts, analysis of results, selection of criteria, etc. were criticized). As a result, expert centers began to actively involve representatives of the scientific academic community, and the distribution of government orders became more transparent [Hellstern, P. 275].

The practice of creating and developing domestic analytical centers, unlike Western countries, has taken a different path. Such centers began to develop around the mid-1990s. and due to their small number, they did not experience fierce competition. Since the beginning of the 2000s, expert centers have been actively created by state authorities (mainly on the initiative of the Presidential Administration and the Government of the Russian Federation), and over time, state structures have become part of the founders of a number of independent centers.

Today, the largest Russian expert organizations are: the Analytical Center under the Government of the Russian Federation, the Levada Center^[4], the All-Russian Popular Front, the Support of Russia, the Center for Strategic Research, etc.

The Analytical Center under the Government of the Russian Federation is engaged in operational information and analytical support and expert support of the activities of the Government of the Russian Federation on the main issues of socio-economic development of the country. Since the beginning of 2021, the Analytical Center has also been providing organizational and technical support for the activities of the Coordination Center of the Government of the Russian Federation. This is a new structure that ensures the interaction of federal ministries and departments, regions and organizations in the process of resolving regular and emergency situations, implementing priority tasks and projects. Its activities are based on modern digital technologies – a special project management system, a risk management system for socio-economic development, a multimodal system for collecting feedback from citizens, a data analysis system, etc.^[5]

The expert and analytical activities of Opora Russia have been reflected in a number of government decisions: a government commission for the development of small and medium-sized businesses has been established, a regulatory impact assessment procedure has been introduced, a Strategy for the Development of small and medium-sized businesses until 2030 has been adopted, and small business development has been recognized as a national project. The organization has a Center for Expertise and Analysis of Entrepreneurship Problems, which is engaged in operational information and analytical support and expert support of the organization's activities on major issues in the areas of taxes, finance, industrial policy, antimonopoly regulation, bankruptcy, labor relations, agriculture and other issues^[6].

The Center for Regional Economics was formed in the Center for Strategic Developments in 2019. The priority areas of activity of this direction include issues of improving state policy, strategic development of the country, sustainable socio-economic development of the subjects of the Russian Federation, the development of concepts and strategies for the development of regions and macro-regions, issues of cluster, technological and innovative development of territories. The Center provides methodological and consulting support for the achievement of national goals and strategic objectives of Russia's development, performance indicators of senior officials and executive authorities of the regions^[7].

The All-Russian public movement "People's Front for Russia" (All-Russian People's Front) is a mass public association created on the initiative of citizens united in the interests of realizing the goals of the movement. According to the charter of the public association, its goals are to support and ensure a direct and permanent dialogue between citizens and the President of the country, public monitoring and civil control of the implementation of laws, presidential initiatives and other priority state decisions and programs; involvement of citizens, organizations and civil society institutions in constant joint work to determine priorities for the development of Russia, promotion of opportunities democracy, the real participation of all active and caring citizens in the development of decisions of state authorities and local self-government bodies, etc.^[8]

Public assessment and public opinionPublic assessment as a type of independent assessment is aimed at identifying the actual public opinion regarding the results of the activities of a public authority or an organization performing publicly significant functions.

Public assessment is carried out with the help of sociological and other research methods (population surveys, including those conducted using information technologies, etc.), as well as with the participation of civil society institutions. Most often, expert analytical centers are engaged in conducting such sociological research.

The sociological concept of "public opinion" in the constitutional and legal field is considered relatively recently. In line with the constitutional and legal theory, "public opinion" is considered by scientists as "a special type of public judgment expressing an assessment of certain phenomena, issues that are, at the time of discussion, topical debatable issues affecting public interest, in respect of which the public is objectively able to make judgments" [Yu.N. Velichinskaya, p. 14].

The increasing role of public opinion in assessing the effectiveness of the activities of public authorities has had a significant impact on the formation of the category "freedom of public opinion" in the science of constitutional law, which currently needs additional reflection. Thus, Professor S.A. Avakian identifies the following democratic institutions associated with the free expression of public opinion: elections, referendums, mass media, political parties and other public associations, public events (meetings, rallies, processions, demonstrations and picketing), consultative institutions of direct democracy (national discussion of bills, law-making initiative, Russian public initiative, public hearings, petitions of citizens) [S.A. Avakian, pp. 17-19].

It seems that an independent public assessment in the modern constitutional and legal doctrine can and should be considered as a possible model of lawful behavior based on solidarity and interaction of the individual, society and the state [E.V. Titova, pp. 110-114]. The practical implementation of this model mainly depends on the state of society itself, its willingness to interact with the state on a parity basis, the degree of penetration of democratic principles into the legal consciousness, the political culture of society, in such social institutions as the family, school, general culture. However, society consists of many individuals and the main socio-political integrator is the state [V.V. Grib, pp. 24-27]. Therefore, a lot depends on the individual legal and political culture of citizens, how it is formed, whether active citizenship is encouraged, whether law-abiding behavior is set as an example, what legal policy the state implements, how much law and the law are valued and respected in society, whether there is faith in justice.

As E.A. Kravtsova rightly states, "despite the efforts being made to involve the population in a dialogue with the authorities, the interaction does not take place to such an extent that would allow us to talk about an established and really working mechanism of interaction between the population and the authorities" [E.A. Kravtsova, p. 27]. Among the possible reasons for the contradiction that has arisen, the author names the traditionally low level of public confidence in the authorities, ignoring solutions to urgent problems facing the authorities, the predominance of economic interests over public interests.

The mass media can act as an instrument of public assessment. The 1970 Declaration on Mass Media and Human Rights^[9], in particular, proclaims that the official authorities are obliged to provide information on issues of public interest within reasonable limits, and the mass media are obliged to provide complete and exhaustive information about State affairs. In accordance with the Law of the Russian Federation of 27.12.1991 No. 2124-1 "On Mass Media", the editorial board has the right to request information on the activities of state bodies, local self-government bodies, organizations, public associations, and their officials. At the same time, the law does not specify for what purposes information can be requested, it follows from the general meaning of this norm that the received information can be used for the purpose of evaluating certain areas of activity of authorities and informing the public.

It seems that the potential of public assessment in the domestic practice of evaluating public authorities can be expanded by actively involving regional public chambers in this process, which are still far from exercising real public control over the activities of public authorities. The main reason is the imperfection of the procedure for the formation of public chambers, the composition of which is approved by two–thirds by public authorities. The problem of the independence of regional public chambers from the authorities in terms of ensuring the activities of the apparatus is quite obvious, since the legislator has fixed two options for its organizational and legal status (as a state institution and as a subdivision of a state institution), which in a certain sense deprives them of organizational and financial independence [T.N. Mikheeva, p. 52]. In modern conditions, the relative independence of public chambers from the state administration can be ensured through the approval procedure of the new composition of the public chamber not by public authorities, but by the current composition of the public chamber in full, with subsequent periodic rotation.

ConclusionsIn general, an analysis of the independent evaluation practices in Russia shows that the results of the independent evaluation of public authorities obtained today can be described as "quasi-evaluation".

This is primarily due to the fact that the regulation of evaluation mechanisms does not provide a comprehensive methodological approach, which leads to the lack of a real assessment of their impact on the state of social development. The way out of the current situation of "quasi-evaluation" is seen in the development of a conceptual framework for the institute for evaluating the effectiveness of public power, which will undoubtedly require further modernization of federal legislation.

^[1] URL: https://bus.gov.ru/top-organizations-second (accessed 27.11.2022).^[2] URL: https://rg.ru/2021/06/19/putin-poruchil-podgotovit-programmu-kapitalnogo-remonta-shkol.html (accessed 27.11.2022).

^[3] 

Resolution of the Government of the Russian Federation of 12.12.2012 No. 1284 "On the Assessment by Citizens of the Effectiveness of the Heads of Territorial Bodies of Federal Executive Authorities (Their Structural Divisions) and Territorial Bodies of State Extra-budgetary Funds (Their Regional Branches), taking into account the Quality of their Provision of Public Services, as well as on the application of the results of this assessment as a basis for making decisions on early termination execution of their official duties by the relevant managers" // SPS "Garant" (accessed 27.11.2022).^[4] In 2016, the organization was included by the Ministry of Justice of the Russian Federation in the register of NGOs – foreign agents.

^[5] URL: https://ac.gov.ru/about (accessed 30.10.2022).

^[6] URL: https://opora.ru/analytics (accessed 30.10.2022).

^[7] URL: https://csr.ru/ru/direction/tsentr-ekonomiki-regionov (accessed 30.10.2022).

^[8] URL: https://onf.ru/structure/documents/ustav / (accessed 20.11.2022)^[9] Declaration on Mass Media and Human Rights : Adopted at the Twenty-first regular session of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe on January 23, 1970 // The document was not published.

Access from the SPS "Garant" (accessed 20.11.2022).