Goals And Objectives Of Monitoring National Projects In Russia

Abstract

Monitoring of various economic phenomena and processes requires preliminary systematizing and formalizing the data with indicators and ratios. The same applies to regulating monetary assets. Monitoring simplifies allocation and use of the money assigned while increasing their transparency. It also increases options of timely reaction and prevention of possible negative effects and accumulating and storing the data of the research. The paper examines the principles of monitoring of applied to national projects, offers stages of monitoring process: introductory and analytical stage; stage of grouping by project nature and character; stage of detailed monitoring of budget funds allocation in each national project; stage of justifying inclusion of a particular project into the national program; stage of controlling and regulating project implementation based on the analytical data of the Accounts Chamber of the Russian Federation. Preliminary stage is exemplified using the ‘Digital Economy of the Russian Federation’ National Program with analysis of state funds allocation among federal projects within the Program. The paper also provides preliminary analysis of subsidies distribution as of 2019 among stakeholders, with the biggest stakeholder of the Ministry of Digital Development, Communications and Mass Media of the Russian Federation, and among recipients, stating the purposes of both projects and allocation of funds.

Keywords: National projectsmonitoringstages of monitoringsubsidies

Introduction

National projects in such areas as science and education, healthcare, construction of housing, objects of social infrastructure, motorways are aimed at stimulating further economic growth and social development (Kalinin, 2017; Malyshkin & Halimon, 2018). Among the projects of primary importance are those designed to further increase the levels of digitization in the national economy (Mau, 2019). The term set by the Russian government for projects implementation is between January 1, 2018 and December, 31, 2024. With funds to support the projects being allocated beginning with 2018, financial data reveal that of the money already received as much as 148 billion RUB remained unspent as of late 2019 (Ilyin & Morev, 2019). Such condition arising makes it necessary to develop and introduce a complex of monitoring, analysis and control for every stage of project implementation starting with allocation and receipt of funds, research and developments, to construction of facilities and their commissioning in strict accordance with the plans developed by government agencies (Milkina & Kosarin, 2019).

Problem Statement

System of monitoring is assumed to have similar structure applicable to any project while being capable of accounting for the project specific properties and features. The results of monitoring are to be disclosed (Kudelich, 2019). The purposes for which monitoring is used are:

• clarification and specification of the essence and purposes of projects chosen for implementation;

• identification of funding sources and timely receipt of funding allocated in required amounts;

• achievement of target technical, technological, social and economic indicators;

• compliance with scheduling of the project stages;

• responsible commissioning of facilities constructed as projected;

• regulation of money inflows and outflows within the project, comparison of actual flows with projected ones.

Research Questions

The preliminary stage of national projects monitoring is the procedures of formalization and analytical study of input information of the project budget allocation. The Digital Economy of Russian Federation national program (The program ‘Digital Economy of the Russian Federation’, n.d.) has been used to illustrate the analysis performed in the study. The program comprises a number of federal projects, namely legal regulation of digital environment, information infrastructure, human resources for digitized economy, information security, digital technologies, digital public administration. Allocation of funds from federal budget in the form of subsidies to support these projects is examined in the study (Vasilyev et al., 2019).

Purpose of the Study

The study aims to develop methodological foundations for monitoring funding of national projects and national projects implementation (Khakhonova et al., 2018).

Research Methods

We assume methodology for monitoring national projects implementation to be based on the below principles and include the following stages (‘On approval of methods for calculating indicators for monitoring targets of the national project ‘Digital economy’; ‘On approval of methods for calculating indicators for monitoring targets of the national program’ Digital economy of the Russian Federation’).

Main methodological principles used to establish the system of monitoring national projects implementation are:

• Ability and transparency of each project in satisfying national needs.

• A set of justified and relevant indicators to evaluate the significance of the project in terms of scientific, social and economic development.

• Relevance of the project for certain industries and territories.

• A system of indicators to determine the term of the project implementation and to evaluate its benefits in terms of economic and environmental effects.

• Justification of sources for funding the project.

The methodology for monitoring national projects implementation is to consist of the following stages:

Stage 1. Receiving the data of initially planned funding for national projects including subsidies from the federal budget of the Russian Federation and contracts. Preparing analytical tables showing distribution of funds allocated within the national program in total, divided by subsidies and contracts, by bodies and organizations holding and receiving the funding.

Stage 2. Categorization of bodies and organizations receiving the funding within the program by the nature and character of projects and by the goals set for the project.

Stage 3. Details of funds distribution by bodies and organizations receiving the funding, by the nature of project, its scientific contribution, its significance for social development determined for each project within the national program.

Stage 4. Evaluation of expediency in terms of justified managerial decision-making on inclusion of a particular project into the bigger framework of national project.

Stage 5. Quarterly collection of information from the analytical database of the Accounts Chamber of the Russian Federation for monitoring the processes of R&D, and further integration and spread of innovative product, solutions and technologies, for prevention of non-compliance with the project schedule, unauthorized changes in the project nature and implementation, inability to achieve the target indicators set for the project.

The preliminary stage of national projects monitoring for the Digital Economy of Russian Federation national program provides for the analysis of the following data showing initial distribution of funds allocated within the program (Borisova, 2019).

The whole period of implementing the projects planned within the federal program is allocated contract-based investments totaling to 1,018 billion RUB and subsidies in the amount of 480 billion RUB which brings the total of the projects budget to 1,498 billion RUB. In terms of relevant shares, 68% are contract-based investments and remaining 32% are subsidies (Passport of the program ‘Digital Economy of the Russian Federation’, n.d.).

Of contract-based investment funds a major share of 473 billion RUB, or 46.5%, were planned to be allocated to Digital Public Administration project and Information Infrastructure project with 340 billion RUB, or 33.4%, of the total funding. Most subsidies were channeled to Human Resources for Digitized Economy project with 237 billion RUB, or 49.4%, Digital Public Administration project with 102 billion RUB, or 21.2%, and Digital Technologies project with 91 billion RUB, or 19.0%.

Contract-based investment funds allocated for Digital Technologies project made up 13 billion RUB, or 1.3%, of the total spending. The analysis relies on the official data as of January 2020, the data are given in the Table 1 .

For the whole period of implementing the projects planned within the federal program the federal funding was allocated primarily to Digital Public Administration project with 575 billion RUB, or 38.4%, Information Infrastructure project with 363 billion RUB, or 24.2%, and Human Resources for Digitized Economy project with 281 billion RUB, or 18.8%, of the total spending.

The total of subsidies from the federal budget on projects in digitization in 2019 amounted to 191,702,516,416 RUB, with details of distribution by subsidy holders as of 2019 given in the Table 2 .

Table 2 shows most of subsidies channeled to the Ministry of Digital Development, Communications and Mass Media of the Russian Federation with 98.4 billion RUB, or 51.4%, of the total of subsidies.

Further step is the analysis of subsidies distribution among the bodies and organizations which received subsidies from the federal budget with purposes for which subsidies were allocated, the data are shown in Table 3 .

The main recipient of subsidies from the federal budget was the Russian Foundation for Information Technologies Development with 43.7 billion RUB, or 44.4%, which seems justified (see Table 3 ). The Foundation concentrates on development and integration of solutions based on end-to-end digital technologies and grants for developments in distributed registry technologies.

Subsidies in the amount of 18.4 billion RUB (18.7%) were the form of government support to the Voskhod Federal Research Institute providing for reliable operation of the Russian segment of the global network, for support of electronic archives and provisions for document circulation in state and local bodies and agencies.

Certain lack of clarity in decision-making and allocation of funds appears to be present in funding of shares in equity capital of the State Transport Leasing Company and RUSNANO JSC (3 billion RUB and 2 billion RUB respectively).

A further step in monitoring is analyzing the purposes of the projects to be implemented with subsidies allocated from the federal budget of the Russian Federation presented generalized data in Table 4 .

The data in the Table 4 show that most of the amounts subsidized 72.5 billion RUB, or 37.8%, were to be allocated for development of software solutions, digital services and platforms based on the end-to-end digital technologies. Almost the same amount of 67.8 billion RUB, or 35.3%, was to be allocated for federal and/or municipal orders with no indication as to their nature, character and purpose, which makes monitoring and expert evaluation of efficiency and effectiveness almost impossible (Khalimon et al., 2019).

Training and education of human resources for various sectors within digital economy received 15.6 billion RUB, or 81%, of the total of subsidies (Rastorguev & Tyan, 2019).

Expertise, analytics and monitoring in digital economy was allocated 13.3 billion RUB, or 6.9%, of the total of subsidies. Preliminary stage of national projects analysis also requires careful examination of the amounts of funds allocated, of the purposes of the projects stated, of their technical, technological and economic essence and scope.

In the similar manner the initial data on contract funding are to be examined and analyzed.

Findings

Current monitoring of the national projects in Russia can provide for collecting, processing and analyzing the data on total amounts of funding allocated from federal budget to project implementation, on the forms in which funds from the federal budget are used, on the bodies and organizations which hold and receive these funds, as well as on the purposes for which the allocated funds will be used.

Conclusion

The system for monitoring national projects implementation will allow:

• transparency of allocation and spending of funds allocated from the federal budget;

• timely reaction and, possibly, prevention of conditions related to falling behind the project schedule, misuse of fund allocated, lower values of project indicators as compared with target values;

• continuous collection, saving and storing of project-related data with end-to-end technologies.

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