Regulatory Impact Assessment as a public expertise of administrative decisions

Abstract

The new technology of social management known as regulatory impact analyses (assessment) (RIA) is described in this article. Its implementation means a qualified change in governance as a transition to regulative technologies; i.e., firstly, the prevailance of horizontal (subject-to-subject) relations, including accountability in interaction between government and the population, secondly, co-ordination of decisions with world practice, thirdly, realization of the permanent evaluation monitoring of government efficiency. The aim of the article is to compare foreign and Russian practices of RIA implementations in governance. This process began 30 years ago abroad. RIA was incarnated there as obligatory, but it adopted various practical forms according to the evaluation of changes in social management prompted by corresponding decisions at different levels of power. Its obligation was envisaged by the system of legislative acts at the highest level and is shown in the creation of corresponding structures in the governments accountable for their realization. In our country the period of its introduction took 10 years. The sphere of evaluation is limited to legislative activity. The control over its implementation is entrusted to Ministry of economic development. The necessity of its comprehension is indisputable for sociologists taking into account direct embodiment in RIA the participation of population (experts, business representatives), and also special, more or less sociological, tools of evaluation. They must assist the formation of new skill sets in civil culture through educating students in methodology and methods of evaluation of public processes. Exactly they, becoming experts, must join the realization of evaluation procedures and forming the system of the social monitoring as objective basis of examinations. Refs 28. Tables 5.