Agenda: Implementation of initiatives on healthcare, education, social assistance, migration and public administration.
Mikhail Mishustin’s opening remarks
Tatyana Golikova’s report on social initiatives
Alexei Overchuk’s report on an initiative to promote studying and working in Russia
Dmitry Grigorenko’s report on the State for the People initiative
Excerpts from the
transcript:
Meeting on implementing socio-economic development initiatives to 2030 and their results
Mikhail Mishustin: Good afternoon, colleagues.
We are continuing a series of meetings on implementing strategic socioeconomic development initiatives. Today, we will listen to reports by my deputies – Tatyana Golikova, Alexei Overchuk and Dmitry Grigorenko. They will present detailed reports on what has already been done in the projects they supervise and tell us about their plans for the future.
Let’s start with social initiatives.
Our priority is to improve the living standards of our people. Naturally, it is the people who will assess the results of our efforts.
We have launched the Social Treasury initiative. The main task is to create a fair, targeted support system for the people. The people who really need this support should receive it – quickly and without much trouble, as the President instructed.
We started introducing the new approach last year. We provided 11 support measures proactively, without any applications. These included the maternity capital certificate, and lump sum payments for children and pensioners, 65 million people in all.
By 2030, we must move all types of assistance – federal, regional and municipal – to a uniform standard so that they can be received without red tape via integrated centres or the government services website. And, of course, the time for processing these documents should be reduced from several days to several minutes.
Another major area is protecting public health. The initiative on the country’s sanitary shield, which is carried out at the President’s decision, has become a response to the Covid pandemic and potential future challenges.
We must learn to act in advance, to predict risks. If new viruses appear, we must quickly use vaccines and diagnostic tools.
We have professionals for this – epidemiologists, scientists and experts. We will supply them with everything they need for their work. And we will continue building modern infection centres and laboratories in the Russian regions.
In addition to countering the coronavirus, it is necessary to continue resolving other healthcare problems that are of particular concern to people, for instance, primary care. This system is facing a tremendous challenge. It is under an enormous strain. Doctors are helping many patients, but so far, their number has been increasing every day.
It is already time to make decisions to ensure more comfortable and quicker assistance in outpatient clinics, and not only during such serious trials but in normal life. It is important to adopt an individual approach to treating patients. Modern technology should simplify the process of making appointments, and issuing conclusions and prescriptions. It is essential to reduce the waiting time for appointments with specialised doctors and, of course, rid the medical personnel of paperwork and endless reports.
The pandemic-related experience shows the importance of post-disease rehabilitation. Consequently, the President has instructed us to draft and implement a programme for developing the medical rehabilitation system. This sphere now requires advanced approaches. Under the relevant initiative, it is necessary to create a modern infrastructure for this, so that patients can undergo medical rehabilitation at all stages of their treatment. In the next few years, 60 percent of medical organisations implementing medical rehabilitation projects will have to be provided with the necessary equipment, and we will have to train specialists in this field. People should really be able to afford this treatment.
The development of medical science will provide the healthcare system with additional capabilities and new tools. Yet another initiative is aimed at accomplishing this task.
By pooling the efforts of all participants, including medical education institutions, scientists and production facilities, we will launch advanced research and development projects and speed up the introduction of the newest and most popular treatment methods.
I would like to focus on several other projects in the social sphere.
Under the Professional Education initiative, we will continue to improve education standards for college students, so that they will meet market demand to the greatest possible extent. In this way, graduates will be able to find well-paid jobs more quickly, and enterprises will resolve their HR issues.
In the next two or three years, we will have to set up 210 education and production clusters in the most in-demand industries. They will bring together colleges and employers. Each of them will get 100 million roubles’ worth of federal-budget funding to buy modern teaching equipment and draft new curricula. We will attract almost 4.5 billion roubles using extra-budgetary sources.
Everyone is already familiar with another initiative called the Pushkin Card that the Government introduced last year at the President’s instruction. Young people aged between 14 and 22 will be able to use this card to buy tickets for exhibitions, performances and concerts. From 1 February, it will be possible to buy tickets for Russian films using this card.
At the same time, we are providing favourable circumstances for people to be able to unlock their own creative potential. Under the Invented in Russia initiative, we are establishing a system to support the creative sector; the system helps generate ideas, create products that are in high demand, and sell them on international markets.
The initiative should spur the development of the creative industries sector, which is developing rapidly all over the world.
Ms Golikova (addressing Tatyana Golikova), you oversee all these eight initiatives. Please tell us more about specific results and future steps.
Tatyana Golikova: Mr Mishustin, colleagues.
The Government’s social initiatives are aimed at achieving benchmarks of four of the country’s national development goals, specifically, Protecting the Population, Health and Well-Being; Self-Realisation and Talent Development; Honourable and Effective Labour and Successful Entrepreneurship, and Digital Transformation.
It is the individual who is in the focus of each of the initiatives. Regular feedback helps us to promptly adjust our decisions.
The world has been living with the pandemic for two years. For many decades, humanity has not seen such a lasting health hazard that causes deaths, economic loss and sometimes forces us to make decisions with no alternative. Learning from this experience, we have developed and approved a federal project called Sanitary Shield to protect public health and fend off infections.
The project is to create an effective barrier against epidemics on three frontiers: inside the country, in our connections with neighbours and countries further abroad. People get fast, accessible and quality diagnostics, comfortable sanitary control at the border, and opportunities to live, study, work and travel without restrictions.
In 2021, we developed seven tests for one-hour diagnostics of five infections. Four of these tests are already in mass production, while two more are about to reach the production stage. We provided for the operation of 14 sequencing centres and supplied equipment to eight new centres. We developed the first national digital platform for data sequencing. We reinforced 15 PCR centres, doubling lab capacity, which reduced testing times and ensured that test results are uploaded quicker to the Gosuslugi public services website (a feature used by 24 million). We developed operation guidelines for various industries during the pandemic.
We will continue this work in 2022 and expand the network for researching dangerous infections in other regions of the world, for the purpose of better and faster prognosis. We will build four platforms for the accelerated development of safe and effective vaccines against new infections.
By 2024, 80 percent of the population will have access to tests that can be ready within 24 hours. We will implement rapid tests for 43 infections, thus providing faster medical care.
The pandemic has put a heavy burden on the country's healthcare system, and we are going to strengthen the three aspects you mentioned, without canceling our plans for the Healthcare national project or primary care modernisation programmes.
The first plan is to develop of a single digital network in healthcare, to implement a modern digital infrastructure that will bring medical care closer to patients. In 2021, 31 million Russians used the digital services available on the My Health personal account site. The most popular were the Appointment and House Call services available on the gosuslugi.ru government services website – those services have been used by 17 million people, or six times more than in 2019.
Another very popular service was Medical Services History. This has already been used by 4 million people, and 19 million can access their medical documents through gosuslugi.ru.
We thank everyone who has been helping to monitor vaccine safety by filling out self-observation journals on gosuslugi.ru – almost 14.5 million people. In 2022, we will launch new services on the My Health personal account pages. Patients entitled to the preferential provision of medicines will be able to access information about any drugs prescribed and dispensed to them. People applying for confirmation of their disability status will be able to track the progress of their medical and social assessment procedures at the designated medical centre and their review at the MSA bureau. The decision will also be available at gosuslugi.ru.
By 2024, digital services should be available to every citizen in a proactive format. For example, users will no longer need to take the additional medical tests required for a driver's license, a work permit or for disability status; most of their health information will be updated automatically after a medical examination. Nearly 40 million patients with chronic conditions will be able to renew their prescriptions from the comfort of their homes after regular screening. Remote processing of certificates and statements will help save them time by eliminating almost 300 million unnecessary visits.
The second project has to do with medical rehabilitation, which is a crucial part of recovery. This will be a major contribution to improving people’s health and increasing life expectancy in Russia. This system is extremely important and necessary for patients with nervous and cardiovascular system disorders, people after surgery, chemotherapy, radiation therapy, and COVID.
In 2021, we involved leading experts in outlining a new target model of medical rehabilitation, as well as in auditing the system as it is now.
In 2022, we will start the steady development of rehabilitation infrastructure and expansion of its coverage through the introduction and replication of high-tech methodology.
By 2024, as you noted, at least 60 percent of medical centres will have modern rehabilitation equipment, and the number of patients receiving rehabilitation treatment will double to more than 1 million; the outpatient part will be developed. At the same time, we will raise awareness about the possibilities for medical rehabilitation through the My Health personal accounts on gosuslugi.ru.
Medical Science for the People is the third project. The goal is to make research more productive and accessible to patients, including modern medications, medical devices, and methods for preventing diseases and treating them.
In 2021, we selected 11 projects for clinical drug trials to be used in 2022. Trials for safety and efficiency will make it possible to introduce modern vaccines, including those against the flu and TB, expand the arsenal of anti-cancer drugs, help us treat cardio-vascular diseases and control the risks of their developing.
Our main goal is to convert research projects into real products and introduce them in practice, partly by using the four experimental production lines that are being established now. They can reduce the time to practical use for these products.
The next package of projects includes making social services affordable to the population and providing assistance in choosing a professional career.
For two years, we have been working to improve the availability of social support measures. Since 2022, we have been carrying out the Social Treasury project. The goal is to make support measures more targeted, accessible and quick. Today, people only have to submit one application online to receive targeted payments based on an assessment of their needs. In 2021, this is how benefits were allocated to pregnant women and mothers with children from 3 to 7 years old. In 2022, we will introduce the Social Treasury principles into all federal support measures for families with children, as well as disabled and elderly people. The procedures for defining eligible disabilities will undergo a substantial change. In 2021, this procedure began to be offered remotely and without the physical presence of the person. The results of medical-social expertise are now being processed online. By 2024, disabilities will be established without requiring documentation from the individual concerned.
To inform people about the support measures they are entitled to, we launched proactive information on life events last year. When a baby is born, the parents are told about the available allowances and benefits in their specific region. By 2024, almost 80 million people will receive social support measures based on their online application filled once on the government services website or even without it in many cases.
The projects “Professionalism” and “Invented in Russia” programmes are aimed at helping people choose a career. Given the significant increase in college applicants in recent years, a new system for personnel training will be established under the Professionalism project.
Implementation of this project will allow students to study in colleges and universities that are up on today’s needs and receive instruction from skilled teachers and masters. The length of time for an education will be reduced. Students will be able to acquire the skills and competences required by their future employers as most academic programmes will be devoted to practical training.
Businesses that need qualified personnel will receive 350,000 prepared employees that are trained to meet the requirements of a given industry. Their up to date skills will allow them to start working almost immediately.
Implementation of this new model will meet the economy’s demand for human resources. The biggest employers have already launched pilot programmes in the nuclear, metallurgical, chemical and other industries including agriculture, railway transport, pharmaceuticals and machine-building.
The Invented in Russia project is aimed at supporting creative entrepreneurship. As part of the project, those who wish will be able to attend schools of creative industries. They will learn to create projects at the junction of arts and digital technology in studios in the following areas: cinema, animation, sound engineering, photo, video and design.
Today, the first 500 people are studying at such schools in Kemerovo, Vladivostok, and Kaliningrad. By the end of 2022, 32 more schools will open, and by 2024, there will be schools of creative industries in all regions of the country.
It will be possible to make a sample of your product at prototyping centres. The centres are being built at creative universities. Here everyone will have access to the equipment and, under the supervision of professionals, will produce small batches of goods.
To create your own production, it is important to find like-minded people, and model libraries, which are building Genius of the Place talent hubs and offer advice on doing business, will help to this end.
For quick access to information about the creative industries, the Cultural Map 360 digital platform is being created. By 2024, more than 8,000 creative entrepreneurs will master creative skills, and over 10,000 creative teams will create their first projects.
And, finally, there is the already well-known and proven Pushkin Card programme, designed to support the interest of our youth in culture and give young people aged 14 to 22 the opportunity to purchase tickets to theatres, museums and concert halls with the direct support of the state.
Each participant in the programme received 3,000 roubles from the budget in 2021, and 5,000 roubles this year. Over the first four months of the pilot programme, more than 3 million tickets were purchased, and 46,000 Pushkin events were posted in Afisha.
Performances and concerts are in the greatest demand among young people. In 2022, the number of cultural organisations participating in the programme has increased from 4,000 to 5,000. We expect the event offerings to increase to 75,000.
As you have already noted, Mr Mishustin, at the initiative of the President, today the Pushkin Card is accepted at cinemas for Russian films. At the moment, tickets have been purchased for more than 200,000 roubles. In 2022, tickets are available for 32 premieres, as well as for retrospective screenings of classics.
Three hundred cinemas have already joined the programme. In the next three years, their number will increase by five times. It is important that every third cinema is in the countryside.
The Pushkin Card works and yields fruit. Young people are ready to go to cultural events, voting with their roubles for the best of them.
Mikhail Mishustin: Thank you, Ms Golikova.
As I have already said, all these aspects are of the essence for the people because they directly affect their quality of life. This is the reason why monitoring their feedback and assessment of government decisions should be a priority. The President has repeatedly spoken about this. People’s opinions should be an unconditional guideline in implementing any social initiatives.
Another important task is to attract qualified workers to Russia from other countries, as well as talented young people who would earn degrees in Russia, find jobs here and stay. This is especially important for the country's economic development and the advancement of our interests in post-Soviet states.
We must develop a flexible and operational toolkit that will help to interest young people in studying in Russia, and to provide the right conditions for the influx of highly qualified specialists, investors and startups from abroad. We need to form a unified system for managing migration processes in order to assess their influence on the socioeconomic situation in the country and Russia’s need for labour resources.
Russia: An Attractive Destination for Study and Work is an initiative that should address these matters. In particular, it involves grants to support talented foreign students.
Mr Overchuk, please tell us in more detail how this initiative is progressing and what has been achieved so far.
Alexei Overchuk: Mr Mishustin, colleagues,
It is true that the Russia: A Country Attractive for Studying and Working project is aimed at significantly improving the flow of people entering the country, increasing the interest in the Russian language and the Russian education system, fast-tracking access to state migration services, and improving the image of Russia as a country suitable for education and work.
The project has three main areas: high-quality education migration, business migration, and creating a flow of in-demand labour migration. I will describe each briefly.
Key tasks for education migration include support for young and talented international students in Russia, encouraging them to use the knowledge they acquire for the benefit of the Russian economy.
The Russian language is a cohesive element and a common language for countries and nations in the post-Soviet space. However, the number of Russian speakers is shrinking, so the project is aimed above all at supporting Russian-language courses and increasing the number of Russian teachers abroad.
In business migration, we are launching programmes to attract and retain highly qualified specialists and investors in Russia, and developing mechanisms for identifying foreign startups and moving them to Russia.
The key task in forming a high-quality migration inflow in Russia is developing simple and clear rules for working in Russia.
Digital transformation in interaction between people who decided to move to Russia and the state, based on the principles of service and client-friendliness, will be carried out.
The federal project has been launched this year, but in 2021, we made all the preparations and worked out the legislative and administrative parts.
Russia has already got a range of support programmes for talented Russian students. At the same time, it is well-known that countries are competing to attract talent.
However, foreign students with excellent grades did not have state support until now, even if they wanted to continue working in Russia. We train them, and they often leave for other countries. This is why we are planning for at least 8,500 talented foreign students to receive additional payments every year.
We expect that at least 20,000 responsible and conscientious university students will remain in Russia by 2024. To this end, a procedure has already been developed to implement a support programme for talented international students at Russian universities.
A programme was also developed to provide a simplified residence permit for foreign investors, highly qualified personnel and members of their families. As part of regulating labour immigration, common approaches to a unified system for planning, accounting and managing migration processes were formed.
The terms of reference for launching a section for foreigners on the Unified Portal of Public Services were agreed on. Already this year we are launching 18 e-services. Work was carried out to create an international employment platform. Together with the Eurasian Development Bank, a pilot mobile application with a minimum set of services, ‘Work in the EAEU,’ was created. As the app develops, we will fill it with new services.
Approaches were developed to transfer some immigration procedures abroad, and by 2024 we plan to launch three immigration support centres – in Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan.
Our preparations and the subsequent implementation of the project will make it possible to increase by a third the number of people wishing to work in Russia by 2030.
Attracting talented, hardworking and responsible university students, investors, and in-demand labour resources to the country's economy will create the best conditions for additional GDP growth in our country.
This initiative will make a clear contribution to the economy of the Russian Federation and contribute to the perception of Russia in the world as a country that is attractive for study and work.
Mikhail Mishustin: Thank you, Mr Overchuk.
Any country that cares about its development tries to involve promising specialists in its national economy. Of course, Russia is no exception. And I am sure that the implementation of this initiative will resolve many related problems.
As for the other initiative, it is supervised by Dmitry Grigorenko and includes almost all spheres of public administration at each of its levels – this is the State for Citizens. Or, as it is also called, Customer-Focus.
The success and quality of the state’s efforts are largely determined by the degree of trust of citizens and the expert business community in the authorities’ actions, as well as by how easy and understandable their interaction is, and whether it meets people's expectations. And this strategic initiative is aimed at focusing the work of state bodies at the interests of a particular person and making departments more attentive to their needs, whether he or she is a pensioner, a doctor, a teacher, a company employee or an entrepreneur.
Modern technologies made it possible to bring the interaction between citizens and the state to a qualitatively new level – it is gradually going online. Today, citizens can access the latest information they need and resolve many life issues proactively. State for Citizens is, first, a new culture of public administration.
Mr Grigorenko (addressing Dmitry Grigorenko), please tell us in more detail what has been done as part of the initiative and what goals remain.
Dmitry Grigorenko: Mr Mishustin, Colleagues,
In fact, “Clientcentricity” is an initiative that establishes a fundamentally new approach to providing state services and performing state functions.
The initiative is aimed at developing a client-centric culture and modifying both interagency cooperation and the state bodies’ interaction with all categories of people and businesses in various areas.
The initiative’s important peculiarity is its comprehensive nature, and its key role is in ensuring an inclusive integration of all initiatives advanced by the Government of the Russian Federation.
The project is being implemented in five dimensions.
The first dimension concerns the rules and standards. It is necessary to create client centricity rules, define standards of interaction between the state and members of the public and organisations, and introduce these rules into the official practices both at the federal and regional levels.
The second dimension has to do with client profiles and a register of real-life situations. It is necessary to aggregate and segment information on service recipients to provide for their needs based on their individual profiling, with services rendered depending on the emergence of real-life situations, rather than one at a time. As we know, different categories of people assess the quality of services in line with the different methods whereby they get them. Some people like to use digital services at the state services website, while others prefer to visit IGSC (Integrated Government Service Centres) in the belief that it is more convenient to receive a service there.
The third dimension is the feedback. This is perhaps the most important and key element of the project. It is necessary that feedback comes in at all stages of the effort to provide services or perform a state function, from goal setting to realisation. The feedback system defines the need to introduce some or other adjustments, which certainly helps to improve services and their quality.
The fourth dimension is user testing laboratories. We are creating a network of laboratories that will make it possible to assess government services and functions in terms of their convenience to people and businesses.
And the fifth and last dimension is a personnel platform and culture. It is about developing a personnel enhancement environment and implementing personnel selection, adaptation, motivation and enhancement systems. It is also aimed at elaborating a new culture, including via teaching government employees to understand both the values and tools of client centricity.
The project was launched in fact last August after it was presented at the Government Coordinating Centre. What have we done during these six months? First, we have developed the rules and standards of client centricity, which should underlie the government’s communications with people and businesses.
We have created a concept and project solutions for an information system that includes client profiles, categories of clients, a register of real-life situations, and a tool to monitor the quality of services plus a feedback system.
Late last year, we launched two user testing laboratories. We have held the first tests and created interactive layouts of services. I would like to stress the importance of the testing and the high relevance of laboratories. In just two weeks, we received over 30 different requests from federal or regional executive authorities as well as from the Russian Federation’s regions for the testing or redesigning of existing services and functions. We have also appointed deputy heads of federal executive agencies to be in charge of introducing the client-centricity principles in each executive agency.
On 27 December, a pilot project was launched, involving six federal executive agencies – the Ministry of Economy, Ministry of Finance, Ministry of Digital Development, Ministry of Labour, Federal Tax Service, and the Federal Agency for State Property Management, as well as the Moscow, Lipetsk and Tula regions. .
As part of the pilot project, we are primarily introducing the client-centricity principles in these federal executive agencies and regions. We are also testing services and training the deputy heads in charge of client centricity.
What are we planning? Firstly, we are planning to introduce the rules and standards in all federal executive agencies. Our short-term plans are also to ensure the maximal level of testing of government services and web services is carried out at the network of laboratories to assess their simplicity, accessibility and convenience.
The next step is to maintain and expand the use of the feedback system. I would like to stress that the feedback system is being used not only as part of the Clientcentricity project but also in all of our projects. Also included in this context is a stage-by-stage transition from the provision of services to real-life situations.
We are aware that Clientcentricity is a big and ambitious project. Its main task is to shift the approaches to rendering government services and performing government functions towards effectiveness as seen through the eyes of an individual citizen. Given this approach, the indicator of effectiveness is not service provided in an ideal way but solving a person’s problem in terms of his or her real-life situation and in a form that suits this specific person to the maximum degree.
The Cliencentricity project is not a stand-alone affair. It is imposing rules and standards not only for the benefit of all other strategic initiatives but also for the rest of the government’s projects. Based on aggregating the available channels, the feedback system is emerging as a key source of evaluation of all the projects implemented by the government authorities.
Mikhail Mishustin: Thank you, Mr Grigorenko.
While discussing healthcare and social initiatives with Ms Golikova earlier today, we noted that it was quite important to monitor feedback and look at people’s assessments of the decisions we take. In your case, it is the implementation of the State for Citizens initiative. This is the key task. We must clearly understand how to respond to people’s requirements in a prompt and maximally effective manner.
To reiterate: It is the people who should be asked how convenient and useful the services and web services that we create for them are and whether they come up to their expectations or solve their problems. This is the main thing, when people address issues they encounter in everyday life.
