Modern problems of public administration in the Russian Federation. Public administration: problems and new approaches to solving them. Governance crisis

The principles listed above should contribute to the formation in the public administration system of qualities that allow, on the one hand, to ensure the implementation of the will of the majority of citizens who expressed support for a particular political course during the elections, and on the other, to take into account the entire complex of objective circumstances when choosing the optimal one for a particular situation solutions. However, the achievement of such an ideal model of public administration is hampered by a number of circumstances that deform its basic principles.

It is possible to identify several problem areas in the public administration system, in which processes are generated that reduce its efficiency and effectiveness. The first problem area arises where the interaction between the state and its officials and interest groups occurs. In ch. 10 it was noted that in modern society a system of representation of interests is emerging that allows various social groups not only to articulate their interests, but also to participate in the discussion of issues that become the subject of state policy.

In general, the system of representation of interests in a democracy makes it possible to create reliable channels of communication between the state and civil society structures. However, there are a number of circumstances that deform the system of representation of interests, transform it from a system that transmits the preferences of the majority to state structures, into a system where state officials hear the opinions of only certain groups, and not so much numerous, but active, organized, united and with significant resources, primarily financial.

The most serious factor distorting the real picture of interests represented in society is lobbying.

Lobbying is an activity carried out on the order of certain organizations or groups and consists of putting pressure on government officials in order for them to make decisions beneficial to customers.

Lobbying activities, even if we are not talking about outright bribery of officials, require significant financial resources used to persuade government decision-makers, conduct information campaigns, establish contacts, and form public opinion on the issue of interest to the lobbyist. Therefore, lobbying technologies are usually resorted to by interest groups with large amounts of money, primarily financial and industrial groups.

Corporations, resorting to lobbying to push their own interests, can greatly influence the development of government policy. They can push through decisions in the field of financial, tax, and environmental policy that will not meet the preferences of the majority or the national interests of the country as a whole. For example, the active activities of the military-industrial lobby can lead to the redistribution of funds in the state budget to the detriment of expenditure items on policies in the field of education and science.

Thus, the unequal opportunities of interest groups to influence government decision makers, and most importantly, the use of lobbying technologies, lead to the fact that public policy ceases to meet the expectations of the majority of citizens.

The second problem area is related to the functioning of the civil service institution, within which there is a special group of civil servants who are directly involved in the development and implementation of government decisions, but at the same time have their own recruitment channels, which are non-public in nature. In a democratic society, senior leaders in the public administration system receive their positions as a result of winning elections and are therefore more dependent on the opinions of voters, which gives them a willingness to respond to the needs and demands of the population. However, the majority of officials do not depend on the will of voters and focus their activities on their own understanding of public interests, which may diverge from the real expectations of citizens. As a result, politicians who come to power as a result of winning elections inevitably face the stickiness of the bureaucratic apparatus, when proposed initiatives are dampened by bureaucratic inertia, decisions are made slowly and it is not possible to find a quick answer to the problem that has arisen. As the main source of information for politicians, civil servants control information flows and thereby influence political decisions.

The reasons for the ineffectiveness of the state bureaucracy, as shown by the American economist U. Niskanen, also lie in the specific motivation of government officials who strive to maximize the budget of the organization or institution where they work. It does not matter whether they are guided by the best intentions (for example, employees of the Ministry of Health may advocate for increased spending on public health) or group interests. In any case, with the increase in budgetary funds that they can manage, the bureaucracy has more work, career prospects improve, and opportunities for providing patronage increase, including through the redistribution of funds, which is used by officials to increase their own authority, and often personal enrichment . In an effort to obtain maximum funds from the state budget, each department makes great efforts to convince the public of the importance of precisely those state policies that promise certain benefits to the administrative apparatus.

Thus, the objective conditions for the functioning of the state bureaucracy as a special social group are such that, participating in the process of developing, adopting and implementing state policy, it introduces its group ideas into this process, thereby distorting the principles of public administration. The distorting effect becomes stronger the more the bureaucracy is susceptible to corruption and shows a clear tendency to embezzle public funds. Corruption is the main reason for choosing suboptimal options for solving public problems.

The third problem area in the public administration system is intrastate relations between ministries and departments. The state, having assumed responsibility for the development of public policy, is forced, as society and social demands become more complex, to create institutions and departments specializing in the management of various aspects of public life. However, such differentiation led to the emergence of a cumbersome state apparatus with problems inevitable for such a large machine. We are talking, firstly, about competition between departments for state budget funds; secondly, about a kind of autarky, when one department does not know what the other is doing; thirdly, about the difficulties of coordinating actions when solving a common problem; fourthly, about attempts to shift responsibility onto each other.

The complex structure of the modern state leads to the emergence of many decision-making centers. Such discordance cannot but give rise to clashes between departmental, administrative and territorial approaches, creating conflicting grounds in the process of coordinating preferences regarding the prospects for the development of individual spheres of social development.

The emergence of a fourth problem area in the mechanism for developing and implementing state policy is associated with the logic of state power, which allows individuals occupying certain positions in the state hierarchy to receive additional benefits in addition to the income that is the equivalent of their labor. In fact, we are talking about the opportunity emerging in the system of state power to extract rental income from political and public office. Such income includes not only additional funds and material benefits that an official can receive using his official position, but also intangible benefits - satisfying the need for prestige, respect, power over other people, etc.

If the pursuit of political rent, especially in its material terms, becomes the key motive for the activities of a politician or government official, then there is a high probability that, focusing on rental income, he will move further and further away from the principles of public administration. The creation of exceptional benefits (privileges) for government officials requires a corresponding redistribution of resources, and, consequently, a reduction in the funds necessary to solve socially significant problems.

The listed flaws in public administration are caused by objective factors inherent in the very nature of state power. They manifest themselves most forcefully in totalitarian regimes, where the people are deprived of the opportunity to have real influence on decision-making processes, and the bureaucracy, using its predominant position in the system of state power, manages society based on its own vision of the prospects for its development. However, even in representative democracies, the state cannot fully prevent the loss of efficiency and effectiveness of public administration.

The foregoing does not mean that efforts to optimize public administration are not being made - this is reflected, in particular, in the search for new models of public administration.

When writing this paragraph, materials were used from the chapter “Economic foundations of the political mechanism in the public sector” prepared by the author in the textbook “Economics of the Public Sector” (Edited by P. V. Savchenko, I. A. Pogosov, E. N. Zhiltsov. M.: IPFRA -M, 2009).
Niskanen W. Bureaucracy and Public Economics. Aldershot (Hants, England); Brookfield(Vermont, USA): Edward Elgar, 1994.

KL. Pashkovsky*

CURRENT PROBLEMS OF EFFECTIVENESS OF PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION IN MODERN RUSSIA

The article examines the main problems of the effectiveness of the central executive power of modern Russia. The prerequisites for the insufficient organization of the system, as well as the main problems faced at this stage by the administrative reform, are analyzed. In addition, possible prospects for reform and increasing the efficiency of public administration in Russia are considered. It is concluded that the greatest effect of public administration reform can be achieved only within the framework of a large-scale reorganization of the entire political system.

Key words: public administration, administrative reform, “new public management”, political culture of Russia, information society.

At the beginning of 2008, actually summing up the results of his eight years of leadership of the country, V.V. Putin, at the annual “big” press conference, said: “As for the effectiveness of the Government, yes, I really think that the structure that was created in the previous four years did not work as planned by some of our colleagues.”

It is obvious that the problem of the effectiveness of public administration in general and the executive branch of government in particular in Russia at the present stage is extremely relevant. According to many researchers and practical politicians, to date, Russia has not been able to build a system of public administration that is adequate to modern world realities and similar to that created in developed Western countries. This circumstance determines the relevance of theoretical consideration of the problems of reforming the above-mentioned system. The purpose of our article is to study the effectiveness of the functional activities of the public administration system in Russia at the present time and to analyze possible prospects for administrative reform in the context of increasing management efficiency. To do this, modern principles of administrative reform will be considered, as well as factors influencing the effectiveness of government in Russia.

In the 70s of the 20th century, the old, hierarchical system of public administration entered a pathological crisis. This happened for both economic and political reasons. On the one hand, the costly nature of the welfare state, the rapidly growing volume of the public sector, as well as the emergence of competition from the private sector, which began to provide services in the sphere of

Pashkovsky Evgeniy Alexandrovich ( [email protected]), Department of Political Science, Russian State Pedagogical University. A.I. Herzen, 194017, Russian Federation, St. Petersburg, Universitetskaya embankment, 7-9.

social security, education and others. On the other hand, rigidly centralized and clumsy bureaucratic institutions, oversaturated with officials, not only plunged into crisis themselves, but also ceased to cope with new tasks.

The solution to all problems was found in the systemic reform of public administration apparatuses and their transfer to functioning according to market principles according to the model of “new public management”. In particular, the system included the transfer of part of government functions to the private sector, the introduction of financial incentives for the activities of managers based on their results, a reduction in the total number of the bureaucratic apparatus, and much more. Similar reforms in the 1970-1990s were carried out with a fairly high degree of success in almost all developed Western countries. Thus, there has been a transition from public administration to public management, which is generally characterized by two main points: increasing the independence of the lower floors of hierarchical government organizations and shifting emphasis from the actual construction of the organization to its relationship with the environment.

In Russia, the need for such reforms was discussed, for obvious reasons, a little later. In 1993, the Constitution was adopted, and some time was spent adapting its simplest fundamental principles in practice, as well as bringing the political situation into a stable state. Already in 1997, the first concept of administrative reform appeared. It should be noted that, although the problems existing in the Russian public administration system are generally similar to those in Western countries in the 1970s, there are many nuances associated with the political culture of Russia. To understand them, you need to delve a little deeper into history.

It is possible to talk about a certain prototype of administrative reforms in Russia only from the time of Peter the Great, when an independent administrative function of management began to stand out in the state. An integral part of these transformations was not only the establishment of the Russian Empire and the highest imperial post in the state, but also the creation of new European institutions and legal acts. In particular, a collegial system of ministries was introduced. The principle of collegiality, that is, discussion “from the bottom up,” was to form the basis of the work of the Senate established in 1711 - the prototype of a modern representative body of power, which was staffed not on the principles of localism, but according to the real competencies of the candidate.

However, despite the transfer of Western European institutions, in Russia, due to the traditions of feudal political culture (weak horizontal ties, paternalistic mentality of society, etc.), in the absence of local self-government and traditions of respect for law, the management system remained uncontrolled. Lack of control increased due to the traditional inseparability of administrative power and judicial power, as well as power and property. If in the countries of Western Europe a desire gradually appeared to limit state power on the part of the emerging institutions of civil society, then in Russia the trends towards the further strengthening of the autocratic state and the absence of civil society persisted. Many principles written down on paper were simply not observed in fact, and then the old order of things was legitimized and counter-reforms took place. Suffice it to say that when in 1802 the collegial system was replaced by a system of ministries,

An order was introduced according to which the principle of collegiality was replaced by the principle of unity of command.

It is obvious that a similar type of relationship between the state and society took place during the Soviet period, when all administrative changes were aimed exclusively at strengthening the role of the state. With the collapse of the USSR, a new system of government was established, hastily built and enshrined in the 1993 Constitution. It was an extremely confusing conglomeration of bodies and institutions, which often competed with each other, not quite clearly understanding their functions. The executive branch was forced to engage in targeted regulation of socio-economic processes rather than directly administering the state.

We can draw a general conclusion that in Russia, at the stage of formation of its new administrative apparatus, although there was no civilized competition with the private sector in the provision of public services, but other, much larger problems arose: extreme bureaucratization and the hierarchization of the state apparatus in the absence of a general system, aggravated by the traditions of political culture and the increased role of the human factor; emphasis on specific individuals and their connections, rather than on the functions they must perform according to their position; as a consequence - a huge scale of corruption. When appointing government positions, what was often taken into account was not so much the official’s competence as his connections with certain groups of people. Obviously, in such a system the quality of public services also left much to be desired.

Thus, Russia needed an administrative reform that was based on the principles of “new public management”, but adjusted for the above-mentioned factors and traditions of political culture. It began in 2004, when V.V. Putin signed Decree No. 314 “On the system and structure of federal executive bodies.” According to this decree, all central executive authorities were divided into three parts - federal ministries, services and agencies. The ministries were supposed to be responsible specifically for policy formation and consist of an extremely small number of senior officials, “creative minds.” Services and agencies were conceived as independent and more numerous bodies, responsible: the former for the implementation of policy, and the latter for control over its implementation. It was assumed that services and agencies would be independent of ministries and the latter would not influence them in any way: in particular, indicate exactly how to distribute the budget and how necessary it is to check the work of any body. It was also expected that agencies would gradually switch to performance-based budgeting.

However, some problems have arisen in implementing this concept in practice. In particular, similar agencies and services were subordinated to the ministries, which immediately threatened the independence of the latter. In addition, the agencies never achieved self-sufficiency as originally planned. As one of the developers of the reform, Y. Kuzminov, writes, “they remained small ministries “for budget distribution.” Senior ministries and junior ministries appeared, subordinate to them, and given that the junior ones had all the money, the senior ministries wanted to take over all the decisions. This resulted in protracted bureaucratic wars...” About the fact that “ministers began to pull the administrative blanket over themselves,” V.V. Putin stated repeatedly, but the situation practically did not change until 2009.

Before the new president D.A. Medvedev was immediately faced with the task of once again restructuring the system and eliminating its shortcomings. However, this issue has even ceased to be mentioned in the official speeches of the head of state. It cannot be said that the reform has been suspended. It was continued, but in completely different aspects - those that are traditionally considered secondary. Small reductions in the overall number of bureaucrats were carried out, as well as actions aimed at creating an information society in its political aspect: increasing transparency in the activities of executive authorities and creating an “electronic government”. The term in its broadest sense refers to the use of information and communication technologies as a tool to achieve better governance. First of all, this refers to the provision of public services using modern technologies. The formation of “electronic government” is an important component of modern administrative reforms, but it can only be effective if the main part of the reform—optimizing the structure and functions of the executive branch—works. However, since 2009, this area has become the only direction for administrative reform. We are talking, first of all, about the opening at the end of 2009 of a single portal for access to government services http://gosuslugi.ru, similar to the British UK Online and the American Firstgov.gov.

However, there are still many problems in this direction. Due to the already mentioned traditions of political culture, as well as the weakness of the infrastructure, these innovations are still very poorly accepted by both society and bureaucrats. As noted by President D.A. Medvedev in his Address to the Federal Assembly in November 2010, people have complaints about how this system works. We need to improve it further.

Thus, there have been clear differences in the content of administrative reform at the Putin and Medvedev stages. If in the first case attempts were made at systemic reforms, which ended rather unsuccessfully, then in the second, systemic reform was suspended and emphasis was placed on the formation of an information society, the success of which is also very ambiguous. If we assume that these actions are temporary and are only part of the image of D.A. Medvedva as an independent political figure with the positioning of his differences from V.V. Putin on every fundamental issue, then after the election of V.V. Putin in 2012 as President of Russia can be expected to return to the systemic nature of administrative reform.

However, even here certain doubts arise. Firstly, the system showed its inadequacy much faster than by 2008. At the same time, no global measures to correct it V.V. Putin did not undertake this. Secondly, it can be assumed that the current system as a whole suits the majority of representatives of the power vertical and the bureaucratic apparatus itself. For example, back in 2008, the head of the Presidential Administration and the head of the commission on administrative reform S.E. Naryshkin said that only targeted adjustments will continue in the administrative management system, and no radical changes should be expected. He also expressed the idea that “the ministry-agency link does not always work well,” so “adjustments are possible in the form of merging agencies with ministries.” That is, in fact, we are talking not just about the lack of further reform, but about tendencies to return to the old system.

Taking into account the above, if we talk about possible prospects for reform, it is appropriate to assume that any global changes here are possible only in the event of a thorough reform of the entire political system and the emergence of political competition, the need for which has been openly stated more than once by D.A. Medvedev. But the solution to this issue largely depends on the political situation.

If we talk mainly about the “technical” side of the issue, then we can draw a conclusion about what specific changes are currently necessary. Before implementing the “new public management” model in Russia, taking into account the traditions of political culture described above, it is necessary to generally change the ideology of the organization of public service and management. Essentially, we need to move from the idea of serving society to the idea of delivering services for it, from the idea of the dominance of hierarchy to the idea of public administration as a market in which you have to constantly prove the high consumer value and cost-effectiveness of what you do. This requires a revision of the concept of training civil servants in higher educational institutions, the introduction of permanent certification of employees and the gradual removal from the apparatus of experienced officials who cannot adapt to the new system.

There is also a need for a global revision of the entire system of providing public services in order to best meet the needs of their recipients and transfer the ability to provide most services to the private sector. Then it will be possible to determine which services are not received on an adequate scale by all citizens, and which, on the contrary, do not find their recipients. It will be possible to determine the economic efficiency of services. And only at this stage can we begin administrative reform in its narrow sense, that is, the distribution of powers between executive authorities that are different in their specifics - policy-making, executing and monitoring. As a result, a clear picture should emerge that will allow every official, from the smallest functionary to top-level managers, to understand where his powers begin and end.

So, in order to increase the efficiency of public administration, Russia currently needs a new round of large-scale administrative reforms, including the reduction of the bureaucracy, improving the quality of public services, the transition to an “information” society and a new revision of the structure and functionality of central executive authorities.

However, it is obvious that if the reform is not started with the preparatory measures outlined above, the reform will not solve the problem of corruption and the human factor, which in fact has happened in Russia over the past few years. What is needed here is the evolution of the entire management model from the dominance of informal practices to more regulated activities. And only then will administrative reform be able to lead to a significant increase in the efficiency of public administration and the quality of public services, which, among other things, should help reduce corruption at all levels of government.

Bibliography

1. Annual big press conference by V.V. Putin. 2008. URL: http:// www.polit.westsib.ru/text/read/2577.

2. Miletsky V.P. Russian modernization: prerequisites and prospects for the evolution of the social state. St. Petersburg, 1997.

3. Volkova A.V. Political culture and administrative and political reforms in Russia: abstract. dis. ...cand. sociol. Sci. St. Petersburg, 2000.

4. Dead ends and prospects for administrative reform // Nezavisimaya Gazeta. 04/07/2006. No. 70(3750).

5. Annual Address of the President of the Russian Federation to the Federal Assembly. 2008 // Russian newspaper. A week. 06.11.2008. No. 4787.

6. Smorgunov L.V. Electronic government in the context of modern administrative reforms in the West // Technologies of the information society - Internet and modern society: proceedings of the VI All-Russian. ed. conf. St. Petersburg, November 3-6, 2003. St. Petersburg: Publishing House of the Philological Faculty of St. Petersburg State University, 2003. P. 133-135.

7. Annual Address of the President of the Russian Federation to the Federal Assembly. 2010 // Russian newspaper. 2010. No. 47.

8. For now I am non-partisan. Deputy Prime Minister S.E. Naryshkin - about the Russian presence in Spitsbergen, administrative reform and party government // Rossiyskaya Gazeta. 10/17/2007. No. 4493.

9. Materials from the official blog of the President of the Russian Federation D.A. Medvedev. URL: http://kremlin.ru/news/9599 11/23/2010.

10. Knyaginin V.A. From the “administrative” state to the “market” one // Russian Expert Review. 2006. No. 5.

E.A. Pashkovskiy*

ACTUAL PROBLEMS OF EFFICIENCY OF STATE ADMINISTRATION IN MODERN RUSSIA

The article considers basic problems of efficiency of central executive power in modern Russia. Author examines a prerequisite of insufficient organization of the system, as well as the main problems arise at this stage of administrative reform; the possible prospects of this reform and improving state administration in Russia are also analyzed. The author concludes that state administration reform can achieve the greatest effect only within a major reorganization of the political system.

Key words: governance, administrative reform, “new public management”, the political culture of Russia, the information society.

* Pashkovskiy Evgeniy Alexandrovich ( [email protected]), the Dept. of Political Science, Herzen State Pedagogical University of Russia, Saint Petersburg, 194017, Russian Federation.

Characteristics of public administration problems

When characterizing public administration, one cannot help but pay special attention to the exceptional breadth and scale of the type of activity under consideration. Individual manifestations of government regulation are found in almost all spheres of public life. This, in particular, is related to the heterogeneity of the definitions of public administration proposed by domestic researchers of legal science.

Thus, one of the most optimal ways to consider the category of public administration seems to be its disclosure through the following definition.

Definition 1

Public administration is state influence on spheres of public life, which has signs of organization, regulation, control and use of the power of state coercion, the purpose of which is to streamline, preserve or change existing processes in society.

The key aspect of the proposed definition and the institution of public administration as a whole is the sociality of the category under consideration, that is, the need to give priority in the process of public administration to public expectations and needs, taking into account the real life situation of people, etc.

Note 1

In addition to problems of a theoretical nature, research at the Institute of Public Administration, including in the Russian Federation, reveals a number of shortcomings in applied content

Types of public administration problems in the Russian Federation

The main group of problems of modern public administration in the Russian Federation is of an organizational nature; an analysis of practical activities in the area under consideration allows us to identify the following of them:

The imperfection of existing sources of legal regulation of activities in the field of public administration, in particular, in the sphere of powers of specific officials, the procedure and features of interdepartmental interaction, as well as interaction between authorities and citizens.
Preservation of management methods that have become outdated in the last century in a command-administrative economy. In turn, modern problems of public administration often cannot be solved by such outdated methods.
The presence of controversial issues of distribution of jurisdiction and powers between central government bodies and local government bodies, at the level of constituent entities of the Russian Federation and municipalities. This situation has a number of negative consequences, ultimately affecting the interests of citizens and society as a whole, since authorities have the opportunity to evade responsibility for their actions by shifting the blame for shortcomings in their activities to authorities at other levels.
Insufficient level of education and qualifications of civil servants. This situation occurs, first of all, due to the fact that a large percentage of civil servants do not have high-quality professional education in their job profile, although, obviously, the degree of importance, responsibility and other requirements for the civil service require high level of professionalism of government officials
Corruption, which is most generally defined as the abuse of government power for the purpose of obtaining personal gain. In our country, among government officials and officials, this phenomenon has become almost widespread. Of course, this situation is not normal for social development, and therefore anti-corruption programs are being developed at the state level, in which, in addition to tightening existing penalties, for corruption crimes, a number of preventive measures are proposed aimed at changing the public’s attitude towards corruption by creating an atmosphere of rejection of corruption in all its manifestations and creating conditions that prevent it.

Note 2

The result of such activities, in the long term, should be strengthening the population's trust in the government structures of the state.

However, in addition to problems of an organizational nature, in public administration there are, in part, the above-mentioned shortcomings of a psychological nature associated with the loss of trust and mutual understanding between citizens and government agencies, insufficient honesty and openness of the activities of government officials, etc.

Characteristics of public administration problems

Thus, one of the most optimal ways to consider the category of public administration seems to be its disclosure through the following definition.

Definition 1

Note 1

In addition to problems of a theoretical nature, research at the Institute of Public Administration, including in the Russian Federation, reveals a number of shortcomings in applied content

Types of public administration problems in the Russian Federation

The imperfection of existing sources of legal regulation of activities in the field of public administration, in particular, in the sphere of powers of specific officials, the procedure and features of interdepartmental interaction, as well as interaction between authorities and citizens.
Preservation of management methods that have become outdated in the last century in a command-administrative economy. In turn, modern problems of public administration often cannot be solved by such outdated methods.
The presence of controversial issues of distribution of jurisdiction and powers between central government bodies and local government bodies, at the level of constituent entities of the Russian Federation and municipalities. This situation has a number of negative consequences, ultimately affecting the interests of citizens and society as a whole, since authorities have the opportunity to evade responsibility for their actions by shifting the blame for shortcomings in their activities to authorities at other levels.
Insufficient level of education and qualifications of civil servants. This situation occurs, first of all, due to the fact that a large percentage of civil servants do not have high-quality professional education in their job profile, although, obviously, the degree of importance, responsibility and other requirements for the civil service require high level of professionalism of government officials
Corruption, which is most generally defined as the abuse of government power for the purpose of obtaining personal gain. In our country, among government officials and officials, this phenomenon has become almost widespread. Of course, this situation is not normal for social development, and therefore anti-corruption programs are being developed at the state level, in which, in addition to tightening existing penalties, for corruption crimes, a number of preventive measures are proposed aimed at changing the public’s attitude towards corruption by creating an atmosphere of rejection of corruption in all its manifestations and creating conditions that prevent it.

Note 2

The result of such activities, in the long term, should be strengthening the population's trust in the government structures of the state.

The public opinion that has recently developed around the state and its institutions is very contradictory. However, regardless of whether society supports the strengthening of the vertical of power or is indignant at the latest facts of corruption in the state apparatus, its attitude towards the public administration system remains unchanged as a certain phenomenon that arises and lives at the will of the political elite or any social groups. Unfortunately, what is often overlooked is that state institutions develop according to their own logic, within the framework of objective laws, and because of this they can and should be the subject of scientific analysis, including from the standpoint of the theory of public administration.

A scientific, objective analysis of the activities of the state apparatus and its effectiveness is extremely important for our country. However, the obvious need for the widespread use of modern achievements of administrative science collides, on the one hand, with ignorance of its capabilities (and sometimes even its existence!), and, secondly, with the fact that the scientific analysis of public administration, in principle corresponding to the objective interests of the political elite, does not always adequately perceived by her. Geography and physics in this sense are much simpler; they do not directly affect political power. All the more important are the requirements for the maturity of the political class, its ability to soberly and objectively understand the problems of public administration and ways to solve them. In modern conditions, when the political evolution of Russia is guided by the standards of Western democracy, the return of the state to an active role in the life of society should mean not only an increase in the power, regulatory powers of the state apparatus, but also a corresponding increase in the professionalism and responsibility of both political leaders and bureaucracy as a whole.

For Russia, this problem is of a global and historical nature. For the first time in its entire thousand-year history, the Russian state is being reorganized during the next turmoil not as a traditional type of monarchical or totalitarian regime, but as a truly democratic system that meets modern international requirements in this area. In the Republic of Bashkortostan, this turn is more complex not only due to fairly pronounced Eastern traditions, but also due to the fact that the democratization of public administration must be carried out in parallel with the development of statehood of the Republic of Bashkortostan.

The ongoing public administration reform has many different aspects (social, national, historical, spiritual, economic, organizational, personnel, etc.) and an unpredictable final result. However, it seems fundamental that in a new way – for Russia – it poses the problem of the state apparatus, state bureaucracy as a whole. The place and role of the state in the life of society, the effectiveness of the state machine directly depend on civil servants. It can be said without exaggeration that the latter are both an indispensable condition and the most important means of transforming the state, for they are the human, subjective, decisive component of the state as a subject of social development.

In Russia and in the Republic of Bashkortostan, a generally new state civil service has been formed. Its most important features compared to the Soviet civil service is, on the one hand, its reliance on the historical traditions of Russian state construction (a single table of ranks, taking into account local and regional specifics, the autonomy of local authorities (zemstvos) while maintaining state guarantees and benefits for municipal employees, etc. .d.). On the other hand, there is widespread use of the experience of organizing public administration and civil service in Western countries, especially in the USA, France, and Germany. The scope and depth of the transformations, as well as the degree of use of foreign experience, will probably not be inferior to the reforms of the Peter the Great era.

However, the positive result of the modern reform of both the civil service and the public administration system as a whole leaves much to be desired. The sluggishness, corruption of the state machine, its isolation from the needs of citizens, and general inefficiency have become a stable dominant of public opinion in recent years. Our state bureaucracy, whose regulatory framework, as well as the proclaimed principles of organization and functioning, are fully consistent with modern Western standards, is sometimes less effective than even during the collapse of the Soviet Union. At first glance, this is incomprehensible, since the same reforms and the corresponding state systems that arise as a consequence provide a more or less acceptable level of governance in other countries. What is stopping us: mental, essential, systemic problems (“Western democracy is not for us”); or tactical mistakes, inept implementation of a fundamentally correct course?

It seems that both things are happening, but the main thing is an incorrectly organized reform, which has been going on in the country for 15 years, but has led to only minor tactical results. Let's try to figure this out.

Thus, one of the important steps of administrative reform was Decree of the President of the Russian Federation dated March 10, 2009 N 261, which approved the federal program "Reform and development of the civil service system of the Russian Federation (2009-2013)" The Administration of the President of the Russian Federation was identified as the state customer - coordinator of the Program. State authorities of the constituent entities of the Russian Federation (including the Republic of Belarus) and local governments, within the limits of their budgetary funds, were recommended to take part in the implementation of the activities provided for by the Program, as well as to develop and approve programs for the development of the state civil service of the constituent entities of the Russian Federation and municipal service. The Republic of Bashkortostan adopted a targeted republican program “Development of the system of state civil service of the Republic of Bashkortostan and municipal service (2009 - 2013).” Unfortunately, the main goals of the program have not been realized; for example, there is still no civil service management system. Why is this happening?

The main problems of modern administrative reform. At least, three major miscalculations in the implementation of administrative reform can be identified. The first is that this kind of complex, systemic and deep transformation can only be implemented on a professional basis. So, in order to carry out a serious reorganization of his enterprise, the manager invites specialists - management consultants. This is especially true for a much more complex system of public administration. However, in Russia there is still no government body that would professionally assess the effectiveness of state and municipal government and prepare its transformation accordingly. The commission approach that we currently practice does not allow us to solve these problems professionally and responsibly. Numerous and, in principle, irresponsible commissions, which do not have a special apparatus, are advisory in nature and meet 4 times a year, demonstrate this quite clearly.

Secondly, serious reform of public administration is a long, multifaceted and consistent process that is simply impossible without systemic and conceptual support. So far, all actions in this area are eclectic and poorly coordinated. The lack of a systematic and conceptual basis for transformations often leads only to disorganization of the state apparatus and to organizational and personnel instability of state structures. Management analysis shows that a concept and corresponding strategy for carrying out administrative reform in Russia has long been urgently needed, which would determine the main directions, priorities, mechanism and sequence for improving the system of executive bodies in particular, and the entire system of public administration as a whole, including not only the regional level state power, but also local government.

The third miscalculation lies in the substantive focus of the reform. It must be borne in mind that real reform of the work of the state apparatus cannot be reduced only to organizational or procedural changes; a set of measures is needed to adjust the status and conditions of activity of a civil servant. The meaning of the reform is the creation of such organizational, economic, moral conditions, such a corporate culture that would objectively force an official to serve with maximum efficiency, honestly and creatively. Only such measures can radically change the attitude of officials to their work, change the quality characteristics of civil servants, cope with corruption, etc. This is a purely management task, which, by the way, was quite successfully solved in the West and could be implemented here without serious problems. However, the ideologists of our administrative reform, apparently due to the lack of sufficient managerial competence, in principle do not set the goal of transformation as a systemic change in the conditions of an official’s activity in order to increase motivation for effective work.

Unfortunately, the Draft Decree of the President of the Russian Federation “On the main directions of development of the state civil service of the Russian Federation for 2016–2018”, as well as the draft “Action Plan for the implementation of the main directions of development of the state civil service of the Russian Federation for 2016–2018” again confirm this . It’s good that a lot of attention is paid here to the introduction of modern personnel management technologies into the civil service system, but this activity is not supported organizationally in any way, since the Commission under The President of the Russian Federation on issues of civil service and the reserve of managerial personnel, which does not have real opportunities for this.

Thus, administrative reform in Russia is still only taking its first steps and its results are, at best, tactical in nature.

The analysis must begin by identifying problems.

Translated from Greek, problem is translated as an unsolved problem. Subjectively, people perceive the problem as some obstacle, a difficulty that prevents them from achieving their goals. In our understanding The problem in managing an organization is the deviation of the organization from objective logic, from the natural laws of its development, which threatens its existence. This is a kind of disease (pathology) of the organization or its subsystems. The reasons for such problems can be either objective or related to the human factor (errors, underestimation, etc.). Solving a problem means minimizing or eliminating the organization’s deviation from the objective logic of its development.

For professional analysis and problem solving it is necessary problematic diagnostics. It assumes:

· Analysis of the organization and its subsystems, processes and relationships

· Identification of problem fields (areas) of the organization (as a rule, these are organizational structure, personnel, legal norms, technologies, material and financial base, management)

· Formulation of problems, separation of problems from causes and symptoms

· Measuring the problem, determining dynamics and consequences

· Ranking and systematization of problems, at least into urgent and important problems

· Making appropriate management decisions.

Just a few years ago the main organizational problems We reduced public administration in modern Russia to the following:

1. Authoritarian methods of management. The managerial spirit and atmosphere developed under the conditions of a command-planned economy - and even earlier - and essentially remain the same now. New organizational forms do not correspond to the old content of managerial relations in the state apparatus, which is accustomed to working in the traditions of the Eastern bureaucracy. Superficial democratization not only did not weaken the costs of the bureaucratic style, but in a number of cases strengthened them.

2. The regulatory and legal support for public administration still remains insufficient, especially with regard to the powers, specifics of government bodies, and relationships both between themselves and with citizens and the population.

3. The so-called vertical of power in the country has not been worked out; many issues of interaction between federal and republican (subjects of the Russian Federation) government bodies remain controversial. As always, in such cases, citizens and society as a whole lose, and federal and regional (republican) bodies get the opportunity to blame each other for their mistakes and evade responsibility.

4. Corruption and protectionism are literally corroding the public administration system, which is expressed today not only in the traditional bribery of officials or combining positions in government bodies with business activities, but also in the direct merging of part of the government elite with organized crime. Periodic campaigns against corruption and abuses in the public service have not yet had serious success.

However, this topic requires serious scientific analysis; not everything is clear here. Often public opinion simply demonizes officials, initially and without exception classifying them as parasites, embezzlers, etc. As our research and inspections by control bodies show, in the Republic of Bashkortostan corruption in the classical sense is insignificant; rather, we can talk about protectionism, abuse of official position and lack of official ethics.

5. Insufficient level of education and qualifications of civil servants. Today, however, the significance of this problem is relatively small: almost all civil servants meet the qualification criteria in terms of education.

6. The growth in the number of public administration employees is often cited as a problem of public administration. Rather, we should talk not so much about the simple, physical swelling of the state apparatus (there has been virtually no growth recently), but about the unfortunate correlation of elements of the management vertical, expressed primarily in the growth of the middle management. The latter occurs not only at the regional and local levels, which is partly justified by the need to strengthen the independence of these management units and expand their functions; but also at the level of central and territorial offices of federal authorities.

However, there is no need to exaggerate this problem: in Russia there are only about 1 million 200 thousand employees of state power and local government (excluding employees of law enforcement agencies), including more than 26 thousand in the Republic of Bashkortostan. On average, there are 8 state and local government employees per thousand residents of Russia (in the Republic of Belarus – slightly more than 6), which is significantly lower than similar European indicators. There are about 7 thousand civil servants in the Republic of Bashkortostan, which is only 1.7 officials per thousand residents of the republic.

7. The structure of government bodies remains insufficiently effective: there is no consistency, there is no conceptual nature of numerous transformations, which often only lead to disorganization of the state apparatus and organizational instability of government structures.

8. A decrease in the prestige of government bodies in the eyes of ordinary citizens, and the scale of people’s alienation from the state apparatus, according to some estimates, even exceeds the corresponding level of mistrust recorded by experts in the last years of the USSR.

Today this analysis needs serious adjustment. Authoritarian methods in the field of public administration act rather as a symptom, an external expression of the problem, and in some cases these methods are quite necessary and effective. The insufficiency of regulatory and legal support for public administration, especially with regard to the powers and specifics of state bodies, has also been generally resolved today, and it was only a problem of the transition period. The same can be said about the so-called vertical of power in the country: there will always be controversial issues of interaction between federal and republican (subjects of the Russian Federation) government bodies, but today they are at the level of the usual norm. The level of experience, education and qualifications of civil servants, as already noted, also fully corresponds to modern world standards; moreover, their number, already relatively low, is not growing, but decreasing.

Yes, despite active opposition, a high level of corruption persists, and a negative attitude towards officials and the authorities in general on the part of many citizens persists. However, today this is perceived not so much as problems that reduce the effectiveness of public administration, but as the historical inertia of the Russian mentality or as a natural consequence, symptoms of some other problems.

Russia is a country with rich historical traditions, including in the field of state building. The most notable reforms in this area were those of Ivan the Terrible, Peter I, V.I. Lenina, I.V. Stalin. The construction of a new Russia in the 90s of the last century was quite comparable in scale to the above transformations.

To summarize historical experience reorganization of public administration in our country, the following features can be noted:

1. The transformations were initiated by the top officials of the state, and their initiatives were not always immediately understood and supported by society.

2. Successful (i.e., completed) were only those reforms where the resistance of officials to change was suppressed harshly and uncompromisingly, often in the form of repression.

3. As a rule, transformations did not have a serious scientific basis and were carried out on a whim, based on intuition or simple common sense.

4. The national-historical characteristics of Russian society were very rarely taken into account; more often there was organizational or ideological borrowing of foreign experience.

5. The positive experience accumulated within the previous system of public administration was practically not taken into account.

6. Even long-term and systemic reforms came at a very high price, often leading to unrest or civil war.

7. The population has never been involved either in the search for ways to improve the efficiency of the state apparatus, or in the implementation and evaluation of these transformations.

Thus, we see that historical experience, “the son of difficult mistakes,” requires us to take a more serious, careful and responsible approach to characterizing and assessing modern administrative reform. Russia, as a complex state entity, requires a careful and, as the President of the Russian Federation V.V. Putin emphasized, professional attitude.

So, let's look at the problems and ways to solve them in our country.

Levels and types of problems in the Republic of Bashkortostan structurally the same as in Russia or in the world:

1. Problems of the Republic of Belarus as a whole, as a social system (subject of the Russian Federation)

2. Problems of social subsystems of the Republic of Belarus:

· Problems of public administration

· Problems of the social sphere

· Economic problems

· Problems of spiritual life

The problems of public administration at this stage are key; without solving them, it is difficult to count on a full and effective solution to the remaining subsystems. Other problems at some stages of social development may also come to the fore, however, they are not considered within the framework of this section.

The following can be distinguished problem areas of public administration in RB:

1 Management problems (problems of those who manage the public administration system)

2 Organizational problems of public administration

3 Personnel problems of public administration

4 Technological problems of public administration

5 Legal problems of public administration

6. Social problems of public administration

7. Logistical problems

8. Financial problems

Within these problem areas of the public administration system, the main problem at this stage is the problem of ineffective organization of public administration.

1. Management problems. What are management problems and ways to solve them?

Problem formulation: Insufficient professional and technological support for the public administration system (primarily in the organizational and personnel spheres) on the part of those who head the public administration system.

Reason: relatively low level of professional (managerial) competence both at the political level and at the managerial (middle management) level.

Solutions:

A) Political level:

Ø conduct correct and professional problem diagnostics in the State Medical University system with the participation of experts,

Ø make fundamental decisions on the formation of the necessary resource support for public administration reform, primarily managerial and organizational support for the reform (creation of a full-fledged administrative reform management body)

B) Managerial level:

Ø creating conditions and motivation to increase the real managerial competence of the leadership of the state apparatus

In terms of content, for a professional, this block of problems is simple and the solutions are obvious. However, these are decisions of the highest government leadership and only it can make them. Unfortunately, the expert environment and the competent lobby are still too weak and do not always understand the essence and directions of the necessary actions. Meanwhile, without such decisions, systematic, consistent and professional work to improve the efficiency of public administration is simply impossible. At best, these will be only one-time, unsystematic steps that can only lead to tactical success. At worst, it is a waste of time and other resources of society. In the field of public administration, any serious reform is impossible without the political will of the ruling class and the leader who stands behind them, but it is equally important that this leader defines the right reform strategy.

2. Organizational problems. This is exactly the problem that the first leader can and should solve.

Statement of problems: 1. The structure of government bodies does not fully correspond to the functional structure of government administration.

2. The level of organizational culture in OSU does not ensure effective public administration.

Reasons: There is no necessary resource (organizational) support to solve these problems

Solutions: Formation of a civil service management body (administrative reform) in order to:

* A) build modern work with civil service personnel:

Ø Formation of human resources

Ø Motivation of civil servants

* B) organize the effective work of the state apparatus:

Ø Evaluating the effectiveness of government agencies

Ø Optimization of activities and structures of government bodies

Ø Formation of modern organizational culture of the state apparatus

* B) develop and conduct administrative reform: identifying public administration problems, justifying and providing ways to solve them.

Let's take a closer look at this group of problems.

The most important condition for the formation of a modern corps of civil servants, the development and realization of their potential is the professional management of the public service. The latter today leaves much to be desired, primarily because there is no necessary organizational support for this extremely important internal function of public administration. Paradoxically, the civil service that runs society is run by no one. Modern management theory and analysis of the practice of organizing civil service in Russia and abroad convincingly show that the main immediate cause of problems in organizing the work of the state apparatus in the Russian Federation and the Republic of Belarus is the lack of a special and responsible public administration body, specializing in both public service management and carrying out administrative reform in general, including in the civil service system. In fact, there is no organizational, administrative, personnel and technological support for the professional management and development of government bodies.

Today it is necessary to form a management body for the state civil and municipal service of the Republic of Bashkortostan as a unit that will be responsible not only for the organization and quality of work of the state apparatus, but also to carry out administrative reform in this direction. There is also legal support for this proposal, since the current legislation provides for the formation of a body to manage the public service. Proposals for the preparation and implementation of measures to form a modern state apparatus are given in the Road Map.

Today we have a paradoxical situation: society is in dire need of an effective system of public administration, a lot is being done in this area, and at the same time, neither in the republic nor at the level of the Russian Federation, there is essentially not a single body professionally engaged in administrative reform. But even in countries with an established state system, for decades there have been corresponding special departments - administrative reform committees, ministries for civil service and public administration, commissions for studying the effectiveness of the civil service, etc.

Foreign experience. Thus, in the United States, the special federal bodies for managing the public service are the Office of Personnel Management and the Merit System Protection Board, which are responsible for the personnel services of ministries and departments, inspectors general and commissioners for official ethics issues. .

In France, there are two main government bodies dealing with the management of the public service: the Directorate General (Superior Council of the Public Service) and the General Council. The General Directorate of Public Administration and Civil Service, acting as a ministry, has the following rights:

1) regulates the number of personnel in the civil service and the salary of employees;

2) implements legal norms and principles of public service management;

3) carries out inter-ministerial management of the corps of civil servants;

4) coordinates and coordinates appointments to public positions, organizing competitions in this regard;

5) is engaged in professional training, retraining and internship of civil servants.

The General Council of the Civil Service is a legislative and arbitration body, which consists of an equal number of representatives from the state and three trade unions of civil servants (32 people each). The Council discusses draft laws on the civil service, resolves issues of legal regulation of the civil service, issues of training and retraining of personnel, considers appeals of civil servants, conducts pre-trial investigations of disputes related to the civil service, etc.

In Japan, a special body has been created, the Chamber of Personnel Affairs under the Cabinet of Ministers, with offices on the periphery, separated from other ministries. This is a specialized body, external to the ministries,

In Kazakhstan, back in 1998, the Agency of the Republic of Kazakhstan for Civil Service Issues was created. The agency consists of two departments and a government agency. The functions of these divisions are quite easy to deduce from their names. The first department - the Department of Legal Support of the Civil Service - includes two departments: the Department for Monitoring Compliance with Legislation in the Civil Service and the Department for the Improvement of the Civil Service. The Civil Service Personnel Department also consists of two departments: the Personnel Training Department and the Civil Service Progression Department. A government agency that is part of the Agency is developing tests and teaching materials on civil service issues. Each region has a territorial agency of the Agency.

Table 8

Some examples of organizational support for the work of the state apparatus from the experience of other countries:

There is a certain practice among the constituent entities of the Russian Federation.

The experience of Russian regions allows us to identify four models of civil service management in the constituent entities of the Russian Federation:

1) the governing body operates under the head of the executive branch (for example, the Council under the Head of the Administration of the Ryazan Region on civil service issues);

2) the governing body is included in the structure of the executive authorities of a constituent entity of the Russian Federation (for example, the Committee for Civil Service Affairs of the Omsk Region, the Department for Managing the State Civil Service of the Rostov Region);

3) the governing body is a structural unit of the apparatus of the highest official of a constituent entity of the Russian Federation (for example, the Department for Civil Servant Affairs under the President of the Republic of Tatarstan, the Civil Service and Personnel Department of the Moscow Government);

4) the governing body is formed by all branches of government on a parity basis (for example, the Civil Service Council of the Republic of Khakassia).

How is the management of the civil service in the Republic of Belarus organized now? In the Republic of Bashkortostan, the governing body is a structural subdivision of the apparatus of the Head of the Republic of Belarus: (See Fig. 1).

As a result, not only is such a Department unable to deal with personnel policy, it is not even capable of registering civil servants and compiling a register of civil servants of the Republic of Belarus. There is no need to talk about public administration reform.

Therefore, in the near future, on the basis of this unit, it is necessary to provide for the formation of a special government body to manage both the state civil and municipal service and administrative reform in the Republic of Bashkortostan (Fig. 2).

The most typical scheme for organizing personnel management bodies is when the main personnel issues are in the hands of either the Prime Minister himself, or in departments under him, or under the head of state.

In our opinion, such a body should be created under the Head of the Republic of Belarus and report directly to him. This will allow the special public service management body to receive the highest possible status, which will significantly strengthen its position.

The name is not so important; it may not be a state committee, it may be an agency. Real status is important.

The structure of the Committee is generally typical for such bodies: current work, control; change management and legal registration of these reforms (Fig. 3).

Structurally, this body could consist of three key departments:

1) Department for the Development of Public Administration in the Republic of Belarus, which would deal with issues of analyzing and improving the efficiency of public service management, assessing and solving existing problems in the public service system, ensuring its constant and consistent development, etc. First of all, specialists in the field of management, including public administration, should be represented here.

2) Department for the organization of state (and municipal) service in the Republic of Belarus, whose competence would include the functions of ensuring high-quality selection, accounting, promotion, rotation, training and motivation of state and municipal employees. The range of professional competencies of employees of this department should be determined by knowledge and skills in the field of personnel management.

3) Department of regulatory support for administrative reform. The main function of this division is reduced to the appropriate regulatory design of those management and personnel technologies that are developed and initiated by the two previous departments. Of course, the main staff should be represented by specialists in the field of administrative and constitutional law.

The main tasks of this body:

· analysis of the public administration and civil service system, assessment of the effectiveness of all government bodies from the point of view of compliance with the long-term interests of the state and society;

· development and coordination of programs and projects to streamline, reduce the cost, and optimize the management activities of the state;

· accounting, selection, assessment, development, placement and motivation of personnel of government bodies, primarily civil servants;

· development and implementation of anti-corruption programs, programs aimed at improving the image of government bodies in the eyes of the population, etc.

This is how, for example, the Department for Managing the State Civil Service of the Rostov Region is organized. The department is a permanent state body of the Rostov region. A state body is a legal entity, has a seal, and has organizational and functional independence.

Department goals:

a) coordination of the activities of government bodies of the Rostov region. on the organization of the civil service (entry, reserve, passing the register, training, etc.);

b) implementation of non-departmental control over compliance in government bodies of the Rostov region. legislation on civil service.

The specificity of the agency we propose, in particular, lies in the combination of scientific-analytical, executive and regulatory functions with a relatively high level of authority. It is preferable to define the status of such a body at a higher level than a regular executive body, perhaps at the level of the Chamber of Control and Accounts of the Republic of Belarus. Only then will it be able to obtain the extremely important powers of an analytical and executive body, as well as the necessary independence from