On June 19, the Government Commission for the Coordination of Open Government held a meeting at the Government House, with Minister Mikhail Abyzov chairing. Attending the meeting were Oleg Fomichev, Deputy Minister of Economic Development; Alexei Volin, Deputy Minister of Communications and Mass Media; Leonid Melamed, Director General of the Kompozit Holding Company and member of the Government Expert Council; Svetlana Makovetskaya, CEO of the Grani Centre for Civil Analysis and Independent Research; and members of the Government Commission and the Government Expert Council.
There were two items on the agenda: the formation of federal ministries and agencies public councils, and the improvement of the forms and methods of public monitoring.
Speaking at the meeting, Government Expert Council member Leonid Melamed suggested limiting the public councils’ membership to 15-35 people and instituting a member rotation system (at least once every three years).
Mr Melamed also proposed that public council chairpersons should be elected by council members, and that public council decisions in the form of opinions, suggestions and requests should have a non-binding character.
The public council decisions, according to Mr Melamed, should be posted on the official websites of the relevant government agencies.
As Mr Abyzov said, public councils have not yet developed into panels for dialogue between the expert community and federal ministries and agencies. On the contrary, they are formal entities. “We must involve ‘tough customers’ – community activists who thoroughly understand the specifics of government, and who are able to help us establish effective cooperation between ministries and civil society. That way we will make government decisions more contemporary.”
Source: Open Government
