The Problems of Assessing Effectiveness of Strategic Planning in the Russian Federation

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

Strategic planning is a type of state activity aimed at setting goals, forecasting, planning and programming sustainable socio-economic development of territories, economic sectors and spheres of state and municipal administration, ensuring national security.

An analysis of the provisions of Federal Law No. 172-FZ dated June 28, 2014 "On Strategic Planning in the Russian Federation" (hereinafter – Law No. 172-FZ) indicates the presence of a number of legislative gaps, internal contradictions, terminological distortions and inaccuracies.  Firstly, the term "strategic planning" itself, on the one hand, includes the concept of "planning", on the other hand, implies the implementation of strategic planning documents. It seems that it is more correct from the point of view of legal terminology in this context to use the phrase "strategic development".  Secondly, Chapter 13 of Law No. 172-FZ deals with the implementation of strategic planning documents at the federal and regional levels (Articles 43 and 44); the procedure for the implementation of strategic planning documents at the municipal level is not regulated in the law, which is an omission. Thirdly, the definition of some terms contains logical contradictions. For example, "planning" is defined as the activity of developing and implementing activities, activity plans aimed at achieving the goals and priorities contained in strategic planning documents developed within the framework of goal setting. Even if we do not take into account the obvious tautology, the correlation of the concept of "planning" with the implementation of activities, on the one hand, and goal-setting, on the other hand, raises questions. That is, according to the meaning of the law, planning as such does not cover goal-setting, but at the same time includes the development and implementation of documents at the same time, which initially introduces a contradiction in the understanding of these terms.

In addition, it should be noted that the current legislation on strategic planning does not take into account a number of amendments to the Constitution of the Russian Federation in 2020. In particular, we are talking about federal territories that are not part of any constituent entities of the Russian Federation^[1]. At the same time, the provisions of Law No. 172-FZ do not regulate the specifics of strategic planning in federal territories, as well as in other territories where a special preferential regime applies (closed administrative-territorial entities, territories of advanced socio-economic development, science towns, innovative scientific and technological centers, territories belonging to the Arctic zone, free the port of Vladivostok, the Skolkovo Innovation Center, the territory of the military innovation technopolis Era).

During the analysis of legal regulation in the field of evaluating the effectiveness of strategic planning, it was found that public authorities implement strategic planning documents within the framework of goal setting, forecasting, planning and programming, but this part of management activities is not actually covered by the current evaluation mechanism. This, in particular, is facilitated by the inaccuracy of a number of legislative formulations.

Thus, Law No. 172-FZ defines the goals and objectives of monitoring the implementation of strategic planning documents (Article 40) and the tasks of monitoring the implementation of strategic planning documents (Article 41). Despite the fact that in these articles the legislator separates the concepts of monitoring and control, however, if we turn to the general provisions of the law, where the basic concepts are given, these two concepts are mixed (paragraph 8 of Article 3).

Based on the legal definition, monitoring and control of the implementation of strategic planning documents is the activity of strategic planning participants to comprehensively assess the progress and results of the implementation of strategic planning documents, as well as to assess the interaction of strategic planning participants in terms of compliance with the principles of strategic planning and the exercise of their powers in the field of socio-economic development and ensuring national security of the Russian Federation.

The purpose of monitoring the implementation of strategic planning documents is to increase the efficiency of the strategic planning system, carried out on the basis of a comprehensive assessment of the main socio-economic and financial indicators contained in strategic planning documents, as well as to increase the effectiveness of the strategic planning participants in achieving the planned indicators of socio-economic development of the country, subjects of the Russian Federation and municipalities in a timely manner and ensuring the national security of the Russian Federation.

The tasks of monitoring the implementation of strategic planning documents, in particular, include:

collection, systematization and generalization of information on the socio-economic development of the Russian Federation, subjects of the Russian Federation and municipalities and on ensuring the national security of the Russian Federation;

assessment of the degree of achievement of the planned goals of socio-economic development and national security of the Russian Federation;

evaluation of the effectiveness and efficiency of strategic planning documents developed within the framework of planning and programming of economic sectors and spheres of public and municipal administration;

assessment of the impact of internal and external conditions on the planned and actual levels of achieving the goals of socio-economic development and ensuring national security of the Russian Federation;

assessment of the compliance of planned and actual deadlines, the results of the implementation of strategic planning documents and the resources necessary for their implementation;

assessment of the level of socio-economic development of the Russian Federation, subjects of the Russian Federation and municipalities and the state of national security of the Russian Federation, analysis, identification of possible risks and threats and timely measures to prevent them;

development of proposals to improve the efficiency of the strategic planning system.

The results of monitoring the implementation of strategic planning documents in the field of socio-economic development should be reflected in public reports of executive authorities and local governments and relevant summary reports on the implementation and evaluation of the effectiveness of state and municipal programs. Thus, at the federal level, such a document is the annual report of the Government of the Russian Federation on the results of its activities, a consolidated annual report on the implementation and evaluation of the effectiveness of state programs of the Russian Federation and reports on the implementation of plans for the activities of federal executive authorities. At the regional level, these are annual reports of senior officials of the constituent entities of the Russian Federation on the results of the activities of executive authorities and consolidated annual reports on the implementation and evaluation of the effectiveness of state programs of the constituent entity of the Russian Federation. And at the municipal level, these are annual reports of the heads of municipalities (heads of local administration) and consolidated annual reports on the progress of implementation and on the assessment of the effectiveness of the implementation of municipal programs.

Thus, according to the norms of the law, at all levels (federal, regional and municipal), the effectiveness of the implementation of state and municipal programs is evaluated, rather than the effectiveness of strategic planning as a whole.

An important component of evaluating government activities, including evaluating the effectiveness of strategic planning, is the information openness of public authorities. Public authorities, in accordance with the legislation of the Russian Federation, provide citizens with information about their activities, including through their official printed publications, official websites on the Internet information and telecommunications network and other network resources^[2]. The principle of information openness of public authorities, in particular, is expressed in the availability of information on the results of evaluating the effectiveness of government agencies and possible ways for citizens to participate in the public assessment of public authority. It is worth recognizing that today in the field of strategic planning there remains a significant space for improving information openness. In the absence of complete, reliable and up-to-date information about the activities of the executive branch, the possibility of conducting a constructive dialogue to improve the effectiveness of this activity is reduced. At the same time, the number of requests to the websites of local governments for this information remains insignificant, which indicates their low informativeness. A definite way out of this situation may be the creation of a unified information and analytical portal for monitoring and evaluating the effectiveness of the implementation of strategic planning documents in the Russian Federation.

Regarding the control of the implementation of strategic planning documents, it should be noted that the purpose of control is not defined in the law. In addition, when comparing monitoring tasks in detail with the tasks of monitoring the implementation of strategic planning documents, it is clear that they either coincide or strongly overlap due to the use of formulations similar in meaning. For example, monitoring tasks include "assessment of the effectiveness and efficiency of strategic planning documents", "assessment of the degree of achievement of planned socio-economic development goals", and control tasks include "assessment of the quality of strategic planning documents", "assessment of the achievement of socio–economic development goals".

In addition, Law No. 172-FZ does not explicitly define the procedure for monitoring the implementation of strategic planning documents, which reduces the level of their legal effectiveness. The law mentions a certain, unspecified body that must analyze the results of the implementation of strategic planning documents and send relevant information to the state authority of the Russian Federation or the head of the organization responsible for carrying out activities or achieving the indicators planned in the strategic planning document. Such ambiguity of wording clearly limits the possibilities of evaluating the effectiveness of strategic planning and reduces "control" to the activities of the participants in strategic planning themselves.

As a follow-up to the provisions of Law No. 179-FZ, the Government of the Russian Federation adopted Resolution No. 1449 dated December 26, 2015 "On the procedure for Developing, Adjusting, monitoring and controlling the implementation of plans for the activities of federal executive authorities, whose activities are managed by the Government of the Russian Federation." An essential feature of this document is the establishment of a mechanism and procedure for developing plans for the activities of federal executive authorities for six years, taking into account the main areas of government activity. However, according to the current federal legislation, the Government does not coordinate and control the work related to the strategic planning of federal executive authorities. At the same time, the regulations establish that the six-year and annual work plans of federal executive authorities must be approved by the Government of the Russian Federation, but they are not actually approved ^[3], which is a consequence of a gap in legislation.

In essence, the assessment of the effectiveness of strategic planning is a broader concept in terms of content than monitoring and control of the implementation of strategic planning documents, since it includes an assessment of the quality of strategic planning documents; an assessment of the effectiveness and efficiency of the implementation of decisions taken in the process of strategic planning; an assessment of the level of socio-economic development, etc. In other words, evaluating the effectiveness of strategic planning involves evaluating all components of the system, including goal setting, forecasting, planning, and programming ^[2]. As can be seen, the concept of "evaluating the effectiveness of strategic planning" fits more precisely into the strategic planning system, since it meets not only the needs of implementing strategic documents, but also the needs of goal setting, forecasting and planning in full. Accordingly, for balanced socio-economic development and ensuring national security, it is necessary to improve the regulatory framework of strategic planning in terms of determining the content of all stages of the strategic planning life cycle (goal setting, forecasting, planning and programming), developing a common algorithm and sequence of actions of strategic planning participants ^[1].

In order to improve legislation, it is proposed to amend Federal Law No. 172-FZ dated June 28, 2014 "On Strategic Planning in the Russian Federation", aimed at eliminating existing contradictions and identified shortcomings of legal regulation, namely:

— to bring into logical correspondence the basic concepts enshrined in Article 3 of Law No. 172-FZ;

— to consolidate in the law the concept of "assessment of the effectiveness of strategic planning", which should be considered as the activity of participants in strategic planning and other entities for a comprehensive assessment of strategic planning documents at the stage of their development and implementation, as well as for assessing the interaction of participants in strategic planning in terms of compliance with the principles of strategic planning and the exercise of their powers in the field of socio-economic development and ensuring the national security of the Russian Federation;

— define the concept of "implementation of strategic planning documents" in the law;

— to supplement Chapter 13 of the Law, Article 44.1 "Implementation of strategic planning documents at the municipal level";

— to set out chapter 12 of the law in a new version, fixing in it the goals and objectives of evaluating the effectiveness of strategic planning, as well as the procedure for public discussion of the results of evaluating the effectiveness of strategic planning.

^[1] In particular, one of these territories was established on the basis of Federal Law No. 437-FZ dated December 22, 2020 "On the Federal Territory of Sirius".

^[2] The principle of information openness of public authorities, in particular, is disclosed in Article 17 of Federal Law No. 394-FZ dated December 8, 2020 "On the State Council of the Russian Federation".  2020. No. 50 (Part III). Article 8039.