OREANDA-NEWS. January 21, 2013. Transcript of the beginning of the meeting: Dmitry Medvedev: Colleagues,

Today we will discuss the progress of a project aimed at providing Government and municipal services to the population based on the “one stop shop” principle, and what we need to do to implement the decisions contained in the respective Presidential executive orders and Government resolutions.

This issue is so important that we have been joined today by all Russian regions. We do not do this every day, but this issue really requires discussion in this format, primarily because it concerns everyone. The state administration system does not just affect the people – it is actually designed for people, something we keep repeating at high-profile meetings but fail always to apply in practice. The Integrated Government Service Centres we will discuss today are actually the link between the state and the people. Many Russians have had personal experience in dealing with state authorities; that experience is not always encouraging. People often encounter a lack of concern and even rudeness on the part of state officials. In some cases, unfortunately, they face extortion and a lack of professionalism. Therefore, state agencies need to work to be friendlier, more open, efficient and helpful. This in fact is why we are setting up these centres. The quality of Government services and people’s attitude to their Government will largely depend on how well they work. I have just visited the Lefortovo Centre and observed its operation. I am actually calling from a room equipped for this conference inside this centre now. Lefortovo is the first such centre which opened in August 2011 and is visited daily by around 1,000 people. People come to obtain various certificates and other documents or to receive consultations. They get what they need very quickly and efficiently, without queues or stress. They are served directly, through open contact, which is especially important for Moscow, as well as for other big cities. People no longer have to travel around town to collect the required documents from various state agencies. They receive a wide range of services at the same centre, including tax and pension issues, passports and property registration. In Moscow, the registration of private property has already been delegated to integrated centres, and this is a very complicated issue which takes a lot of time and requires a lot of work. Here this service can be received from a one stop shop as well.

We started pushing for this idea a decade ago, but tangible results appeared only recently. A person comes to an Integrated Government Service Centre and requests the required service or services. The centre’s operators identify the required documents and collect them from the relevant agencies and obtain the required approvals without the applicant, who only needs to show up a second time to get what he or she requested. This is the idea behind the one-stop shop service.

We all know that things are very different in many other regions in Russia. A person needs to visit dozens of agencies to collect the required documents and waste time waiting in lines. I admit that sometimes they go so far as to offer bribes to officials to get their request processed more quickly. Things are complicated enough in big cities, but they are even worse in rural areas where people have to travel a long way to the nearest Government agency that can issue the document they need. This is very inconvenient and downright unacceptable. If I am not mistaken, in early 2011, there were less than 200 integrated centres in Russia. Now their numbers exceed 600. They are being established fairly quickly, although not evenly across different regions.