Civil Society of the Future

The Civic Chamber of the Russian Federation sees combating poverty as one of its priorities.

Chair of the Commission of the Civic Chamber of the Russian Federation on Social Policy, Labour Relations, Liaison with Trade Unions and Support for Veterans

The problem of social justice and social equality is perceived with acute sensitivity not only by the most under-privileged strata of the general public but also by fairly well-heeled people. This manifests itself in unequal access to social services as well as the infrastructure.

Poverty is one of the main causes which influences the existing inequality. According to Rosstat, Russian Statistics Authority, the poor and the low income groups account for 40% of the country's population. This is also borne out by the results of the study conducted by the Civic Chamber during the outgoing year. Almost half the respondents said that they had enough money for food only; buying something to wear is already a huge challenge for them.

Social inequality is a systemic issue, with the most painful nerve centres in this respect being the poor quality of services in the social sphere as a whole; low accessibility of social services in the rural areas; the educational system which does not guarantee that school leavers and university graduates will be in demand in the prospective labour market; as well as decline in the number of state run sporting institutions which means less access for citizens to practice sport.

The problem of cultural facilities being accessible resonates with everyone acutely as well. This year, the Civic Chamber initiated an accessibility monitoring of the cultural facilities in all the regions of this country. Based on this research, proposals are to be prepared with a view to changing the system of financing cultural facilities in the regions.

There are also many other problems which cannot be silenced. They have to be given a public airing including a discussion in the Civic Chamber's forum, however, the main thing is to deal with them effectively.

The country's social policy must be aimed at consistently allaying and further alleviating the inequalities in the present day Russian society. Its key priority is to develop human capital.

Russia is the world’s richest country by the size of its territory and natural resources ^* . At the same time, according to Rosstat, the Federal State Statistics Service, 21.1 million Russians (14.4% of the population) have income below the minimum subsistence level ^* and 12.1 million Russians (16.8% of the employable population) are “working poor”^*.

Near the poverty line are 93% of agricultural workers; 93% employees of consumer industry; 87% of educational sector employees; 85% public healthcare employees; 83% employees of the services sector, including utilities, social and other services, culture and sports ^* . Currently, 80% of all poor in Russia are families with two or three children ^* .

Forty per cent of Russians say that they have money for food only ^* . Actual numbers may be even higher because people prefer to give socially acceptable responses and are ashamed of being ill-provided.

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There is a strong need for justice, honesty and respect in the Russian society, sociologists suggest ^* . This is extremely important. In good times, people pay little attention to those values, yet their lack is always noticed during the periods of decline or crisis ^* .

Currently, 61% of Russians claim that modern Russian society is unfair.

They believe that injustice manifests itself through social inequality, unfair income distribution (16%) ^* , low living standards (9%), corruption, theft, no punishment of corruptionists (5%), no care of people (4%), lack of legal order (4%), etc. ^*

The average salary in Russia Russian before tax is RUB 38,083 ^* (which is less than that in Serbia, Romania, China or Poland ^* ). Besides, this number is calculated as the mean value of the salary of a state corporation top manager and, for instance, a postman. And those salaries are different many times over.

Consider the example of how the salaries of university rectors and research and teaching staff compare. Why do junior research fellows and young teachers earn RUB 7,000 per month and some rectors earn millions? Resulting from such injustice is the obvious: young specialists see no potential for development in the academic and scientific sector, the layer of promising scientists and teachers is destroyed, universities become uncompetitive, and the higher education system in Russia remains in a general crisis and fails to provide skilled resources for the country ^* .

Or take the gap between salaries in business and the public sector. Why should a person who opted to serve the society and became a teacher, a doctor or a social worker assume huge workloads (including lots of paper-based reporting ^* ), hold several jobs, take additional teaching hours just to earn the regional average salary? ^*

Or the gap between salaries in the RF constituents and in Moscow. Instead of earning a fair wage in their regions and developing them, people have to relocate to the capital looking for a better life. Even supermarket staff in Moscow can earn more than teachers or doctors farther away from the capital.

The situation is similar inside Russian regions, where a huge gap exists between the living standards in urban and rural areas.

Rural areas development

Villages receive only 10% of the state funding allocated to a region ^* , and their development under federal programmes does not take into account local specifics, resources and opinions of the residents. This impairs the sustainable development of rural areas.

The official wage benchmark in agriculture stands at 55% of the average salary in the national economy ^* , which inevitably results in economic migration from rural areas to cities ^* . The outcome is 2,267,900 abandoned households (12% of their total number) ^* .

Preserving villages by providing state support to farmers and rural cooperatives

Such contradictions and issues, social distances and property disproportions result in injustice, which in turn causes social tension.

The Civic Chamber of the Russian Federation launched an online survey of the residents of the Russian Federation regarding their attitude to poverty and social disparity. It proposes to use its outcomes to establish a system for protecting the interests of the most vulnerable groups of the population. According to the initial results of the survey, Russians believe that poverty threshold is a monthly income of RUB 20,000.

The Civic Chamber of the Russian Federation believes that overcoming poverty and social injustice is to be structured along several streams.

The Civic Chamber of the Russian Federation proposes to establish a system to prevent or mitigate key social risks that reduce the income level. Potential measures include a review of the social support system at the regional level followed by its optimisation. Other possible steps to reduce poverty are re-focusing the current category-based social support system towards targeted support and introducing a universal family income supplement.

Potential measures to reduce poverty include re-focusing the current category-based social support system towards targeted support (including ration stamps ), the introduction of a universal family income supplement , establishment of statutory allowable multiples for the correlation between salaries of regular employees and managers of state-controlled enterprises and organisations.

Wealth inequality results in inequality in other areas. Throughout the year 2017, the Civic Chamber of the Russian Federation has been pointing out the issues of dilapidated housing, violation of good faith purchaser rights, lack of equal access to proper quality social services and social infrastructure in education, sports, and culture to authorities of all levels.

About 159,000 Russians still live in dilapidated housing. There are also those who became owners of the so-called “new substandard housing”, and about 32% of new residential buildings belong to this category ^* . The state budget-funded programme for relocation from dilapidated housing also raises serious concerns. There are no particular suggestions as far as establishing a permanent mechanism for relocating people from housing officially acknowledged as dilapidated after 1 January 2012 ^* . The Civic Chamber of the Russian Federation and regional civic chambers have raised this issue on many occasions at their forums.

In 2017, protection of good faith real estate purchaser rights remains on the agenda. The Civic Chamber of the Russian Federation continued the discussion of this issue as it held a ‘zero reading’ of draft Federal Law No. 243975-7 “On Changes to Article 302 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation (in terms of improving protection of rights of good faith purchasers)”. The Civic Chamber of the Russian Federation stressed that the practice of taking real property from good faith purchasers that paid for it must be stopped completely. Overcoming negative trends in court practice could emphasise the importance of constitutional provisions on the equal protection of all forms of ownership. Legal mechanisms enhancement in this area should start with the update of the Uniform State Register of Immovable Property to ensure the reliability and accurateness of information on property owners contained in it. And the introduction of liability mechanisms will guarantee that no favourable conditions for illegal dealings with real property continue in the future.

Deputy Chairperson of the Commission of the Civic Chamber of the Russian Federation on Social Policy, Labour Relations, Liaison with Trade Unions and Support for Veterans

The Civic Chamber of the Russian Federation, at the initiative of the Commission on Social Policy (Labour Relations, Liaison with Trade Unions and Support for Veterans), has radically revised the approach to the problems of handicapped people. Now attention is not focused on certain nosological groups or certain spheres of life, it is focused on the ENTIRE SYSTEM of government social support, which exists for invalids, which gets bogged down in the gaps of the inter-departmental interface between a huge number of "supervising" ministries and agencies. Whereas the entry point leading into this system is the activities of the medical and social audit function (hereinafter referred to as the MSAF), which reports to the Labour Ministry of the Russian Federation.

Our Commission, together with certain well-knit patients' associations (Russian Centre for Mucoviscidosis, divisions of the Russian Diabetic Society), has been conducting studies to determine frequency of rejections and re-certifications. The interim results of this was the consent given by the Labour and Social Development Ministry of the Russian Federation to revise their own order with a view to simplifying the procedure for qualifying a person as an invalid with respect to a significant number of nosologies. That means that a great number of children once they are diagnosed with certain diseases or ailments will acquire the status of an invalid after initial re-certification, directly before the age of 18, while adults will acquire this or that disability group for an infinite time.

In a space of less than half a year, our Commission initiated two hot lines. The first hot line was for issues in respect of applicants with disability entering universities. This was one of the first experiences where issues were sorted out together with the authorities: the Ministry of Science and Education of the Russian Federation got in on the act, due to which most of the problems were dealt with practically on the spot. The most important result was that almost 85 percent of those who phoned in their problems got enrolled as university students.

One of the most popular, judging by the number of calls, was the hot line to deal with the problems of the MSAF's activities. It is also organized in close cooperation with the Federal MSAF Bureau of the Labour Ministry of the Russian Federation. A number of rulings passed locally have already been revised and people were given a disability rating or have been able to obtain a higher disability group. While the most important result, of course, is the fact that this initiative has begun to be followed by regional civic chambers. Thus, for example, in the Orenburg Region, the members of the civic chamber of the Region and the city of Orsk organized their own hot line and their own survey polling residents on the problems regarding the activities of their local MSAF.

The issue of unequal access to proper quality social services and critical social infrastructure becomes increasingly acute. This is primarily due to the deficit of social, medical and educational infrastructure in remote areas. Besides, the legacy system is still in place, with social services only available to citizens at the place of their permanent registration.

For example, the Civic Chamber of the Russian Federation encountered situations where branches of the Pension Fund of the Russian Federation refused ^* to pay disability pensions because their recipients have no permanent resident registration ^* . The Civic Chamber of the Russian Federation put its hands on this issue ^* and won the support of the Ministry of Justice of the Russian Federation ^* . This effort resulted not only in the successful resolution of individual cases, but also in the review, which is currently in progress, by the Ministry of Labour and Social Protection of the Russian Federation of its own order in terms of the package of documents and sufficient grounds required to award pensions in the absence of a permanent resident registration ^* .

The outrageous cases of indifference and lawlessness when a person could die while waiting in a queue to see a physician at an outpatient’s clinic, a cancer-stricken child would be prohibited to go to school strike massive public outcry ^* .

Disabled individuals are still among the most exposed groups. Despite the task to ensure inclusivity, the unspoken denial of educational institutions to accept children with disabilities still persists. A disabled child would be denied access to a camp or a theme park ^* . Having no enabling accessible environment, individuals with disabilities cannot live a full life and even go anywhere in their home city because the transport is not suitable for those who are physically disadvantaged.

Employers do not seem to be lining up to hire disabled individuals either: only 25% of the country’s working-age population with disabilities are employed ^* . The Ministry of Labour and Social Protection of the Russian Federation has been tasked to boost this percentage. Efforts in this area include the ABYLIMPICS PROF National Championship of Professional Excellence for disabled individuals that took place on 1-3 December 2017. That was the third time when this event being a venue for businesses to meet their potential job applicants was held ^* .

In 2017, the Civic Chamber of the Russian Federation seriously reconsidered its approach to disability issues. It re-focused on the overall system of government support to people with disabilities rather than individual groups or spheres of life. ^* This is important as the system staggers upon gaps in the multi-relay coordination between a huge number of “supervising” ministries and agencies.

The Civic Chamber of the Russian Federation receives numerous complaints from people with disabilities about the never-ending requests of medical re-examinations, lack of transparency of decisions on the award of the disability status to children or a disability group to adults, and the need to spend months running between hospitals and disability examination boards.

The Civic Chamber of the Russian Federation, together with various of the patient communities (Russian Centre of Mucoviscidosis, branches of the Russian Diabetes Community, and others), monitors the frequency of denials to award or confirm a disability status or group and re-examinations ^* . An interim result of this effort is the agreement from the Ministry of Labour and Social Development of the Russian Federation to review provisions of its own order on the award of disability with respect to a number of diseases ^* . And on December 5, during a meeting with representatives of public organisations of the disabled at the Russian State Specialised Academy of Arts, President Vladimir Putin supported the idea of simplifying the re-examination procedure for certain diseases. He also gave tasks to set up electronic document exchange between healthcare establishments and the disability examination boards system, and urged to strengthen public oversight over such boards with relevant assignments given to ministries and agencies ^* .  This means that a considerable number of children will be awarded disability status during their first re-examination that will remain effective until the age of 18, and adults will get this or that disability group for life ^* .

Speaking about education, free education in Russia is not quite free any more (mandatory tutors needed in order to enter a university, paid trainings ^* and “charges” at schools ^* ). The situation is similar in free medicine, which is also not quite free (no proper health check-up is possible in a public clinic without paid tests or medical services. Besides, from 1 January 2018 the procedure of medical check-ups for children changes. The number of free procedures for children will be reduced, and medical check-ups at educational institutions for children will be cancelled ^* . It generally hard to understand why residents of one region may not get fast and unhampered high-tech medical aid in another region).

The issue of lack of access to social services in rural areas is extremely acute ^* : the access distance to a nursery school is 20 km, a school – 17 km, hospitals – 85 km, medical and obstetrician centres – 15 km.

What makes the situation more difficult is the lack of hard-surface roads or the horrible condition of existing roads ^* , as well as the poorly organised public transport system – there is no public transport available at some remote settlements at all ^* .

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Another important issue is the quality of social services. For example, the quality of education . Can the current education system guarantee that the graduates will be in demand in the future labour market? ^* The current educational system does not train resources for a knowledge-based economy. The school is insensitive to the need for change, and the quality of university education gets worse from year to year despite its better accessibility nowadays. As a result, 91% of employers mention that graduates lack practical skills ^* .

Deputy Chairman of the Commission of the Civic Chamber of the Russian Federation on Social Policy, Labour Relations, Liaison with Trade Unions and Support for Veterans

In view of my active way of working, I travel a lot through the city and through this country. I notice what a large amount of work has been done to create an accessible environment. Today, a person with special mobility requirements can travel by air. I have personally tested out the services provided by the Russian Railways, which proved to be a pleasant surprise. However, there is still room for improvement. Nowadays, indeed, great consideration is given to people with health impairments in various spheres, such as sports, culture, education, public health, social sphere; "Accessible Environment", a government sponsored programme, is being implemented; the paralympic movement is being supported, the professional mastery competition " ABYLIMPICS" among people with disabilities is conducted. Special consideration is given to issues pertaining to fully fledged social adaptation of persons with handicaps, their employment, as well as to matters of their access to facilities enabling their creative potential to be tapped. Within the walls of the Civic Chamber, the subject relating to equal opportunities for persons with disabilities is one of the key subjects. This year, for instance, we have held a roundtable discussion on accessibility of public transport and operation of social taxi services, monitoring has been carried out to research the extent to which education is accessible to young persons with disabilities, to say nothing of the multiple letters sent by citizens on the above mentioned issues which the Civic Chamber considers on priority basis. There still exist a great many issues which have not been addressed yet and await attention as well as investigation. And the Civic Chamber will continue to be the platform on which these extremely important issues will continue to be raised – with participation of experts, representatives of the authorities, business, invalid communities — for the purpose of developing joint solutions allowing improvement of our citizens' lives and allowing really equal opportunities to be created for everyone.

Quality of education in Russia

Russian science seems to be in a difficult situation as well. The purpose of the national scientific and technical policy pursued for the past twenty-five years was to support a resource-oriented economy. This approach disregarded science as the key productivity driver. The government made several attempts to reorient the economy towards innovation-driven development: since the early 2000s, a number of relevant documents have been passed ^* , yet the results have been limited ^* .

The issue of support and resources for science is still outstanding. There are a lot of problems in organising scientific research. The 2013-2020 Science and Technology Development national programme was among the least efficient programmes with only 69.6% of its targets met so far ^* .

Chairman of the Commission of the Civic Chamber of the Russian Federation on Development of Education and Science

The work done by the Commission on Development of Education and Science has something to do with those priorities which face our country within the framework of implementing the Strategy for the country's scientific and technological development approved by the President, within the framework of digital transformation. A large number of events have been devoted to different activities of such work. This year, we conducted a review of the Unified National Exam results in 2017 and the prospects of developing the forms of final validation at school. A great deal of attention was paid to network communication of schools, universities, as the basis for raising the quality level of teacher training. I consider the Competition held by the Civic Chamber and entitled "School Principal" 2017 to have been a very important event. One must say that these and other events stem from those concerns that the society has been having today. In order to get a better insight into how life goes on, this year we have had two hot lines; one hot line had to do with the Unified National Exam, and the second one dealt with schools making parents pay all kinds of unwarranted expenses. This matter is of great concern to our citizens. Vis-a-vis this issue, we have taken an active stand. If we are to talk about law making, this year we have considered, within the framework of ‘zero readings’, the Federal law draft on introduction of amendments to the Federal law " On Science and State Scientific and Technological Policy", which are related to improving the performance of the state research centres of the Russian Federation and a whole package of other legislative initiatives. I believe that the task we are confronted with has something to do with the fact that education has to be proactive and lay the ground for those changes which have been taking place in our society today. It is at solving this issue that the work done by the Commission on Development of Education and Science has been aimed.

First Deputy Chairman of the Commission of the Civic Chamber of the Russian Federation on Development of Education and Science

Matters bearing on education and science are the focal point of attention for the Civic Chamber and the Commission on Development of Education and Science. The Commission on Development of Education and Science has done a certain amount of work to resolve the issues relating to making unbiased and fair the Unified State Test, which is taken by all the children for the entire course of studies at secondary school. A great deal of attention has been paid to the technologies of conducting the test, and training experts for the test. And the most important thing was to make sure that the grade is objective. The annual hot line which operates at the Civic Chamber, enables complaints to be voiced regarding objectivity of conducting this test and hindrances to be eliminated which prevent making this test objective. In the Commission's activities, these matters continue to be addressed to this day. The second area is that concerning the quality of teaching literature, with provision of such didactic materials as objectively illuminate the issues of history, which qualify for the requirements that such materials be scientific and easy to understand when they are used for teaching purposes. Therefore, the Commission is still doing a lot of work aimed at analyzing educational literature. And the third area which, to this day, continues to be very important for us and it represents societal demand, relates to the issues of training teachers. The roundtable discussions which have recently taken place, speak volumes of the society still applying stringent requirements to the teaching profession and continuing to be the focus of attention. We are particularly concerned about parents being made to pay for things they are not supposed to pay for when their children attend government run schools, which is the case with different regions in the Russian Federation. The hot line organized by the Commission this year shows that these concerns happen to be very topical for all the regions of the Russian Federation. And the next press conference will focus on precisely such issues. It must be pointed out that, as a result of the Commission on Development of Education and Science having taken an active stand, we have succeeded in achieving solution of the issues pertaining to updating the Federal state educational standards, revision of the requirements that educational literature be included into the Federal list of publications recommended for use in the teaching process, and in easing the pitch of tension caused by the conduct of the final validation; establishing in the society a sufficiently tolerant attitude to independent quality assessment of our high school students' level of training for the course of their studies at general school.

As far as science, national policy has been inconsistent and controversial. No strategic document provided for the liquidation of the academic sector of science as the backbone of innovation-driven development. The reform of the academic sector has delivered no improvements, yet, it is one of the drivers of the negative processes in science, education, and culture.

The Law “On Science and the National Science and Technology Policy” is not the only law that needs to change. It appears that the whole of the legislative foundation underlying science calls for a major adjustment to ensure the development of the country’s science and technology potential. A whole range of laws to regulate all development aspects of the science and innovation domain need drafting and enactment.

But before that, we need to design and adopt a new development doctrine for the Russian science. The doctrine could become the basis for the national science and innovation policy aiming to achieve long-term global technology leadership.

Availability of high-quality and safe sport services is generally deteriorating throughout the country

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Although a lot of Russians are actively involved in sports, the number of state-owned sports facilities declines steadily ^* , and the system of governmental funding of sport is not sufficiently well grounded. For instance, the difference in per capita expenditure in different regions is more than ten-fold. This is the derogation of the right to exercise and do sports at the place of residence with regard to part of our citizens.

Need for self-regulated fitness and sports industry

As there is no integrated system of continuous physical education, ^* the fragmented and uncoordinated efforts of the government, individuals and public organisations to promote sports and improve public health generally fail to fully achieve their goals. As a result,

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Therefore, the Civic Chamber of the Russian Federation highlights the importance of creating a continuous physical education system ^* , i.e. the National Physical Education Programme for all Russians, which programme will lay the foundation for a respective priority project.

The lack of access to cultural institutions remains another acute issue . By far not all residents of our country have a chance to watch films on a large screen, use a library or get to a community centre without calling for some ATV or a tractor ^* . All that is the consequence of the lack of cultural institutions accessibility criteria at the federal level ^* .

Chairman of the Commission of the Civic Chamber of the Russian Federation on Cultural Development Matters and Preservation of Spiritual Inheritance

During 2017, the Russian society has been responding sharply to conflicts in the cultural sector. Theatrical performances, movies, exhibitions, creative activities of certain film and theatre directors or whole performing companies have been the target of vociferous public discussion, a cause of public actions, whose sphere implicated professional creative figures, religious organisations, civil activists, deputies of the State Duma. All these conflicts have been extensively covered by the mass media, in the social networks, commented upon by representatives of government authorities. This heightened the level of tension in the society and jeopardized such values as freedom of creative art, self-expression.

It is obvious that this has become possible due to often irresponsible position taken by some creative figures whose works have reached the public domain; this is mentioned in the Report of the Civic Chamber. At the same time, concurrent to all the hype and active discussion of "scandalous" subjects, the citizens' interest in the cultural sphere as a whole has intensified, the number of visitors to museums and exhibitions has increased, the Russian cinema has become notably more popular, while tickets to the theatre are not easily available and a visit to a whole range of theatre performances has become quite an event. Of course, what I am saying applies to Moscow, St. Petersburg and other major cities, first and foremost. Unfortunately, cultural institutions in the regions, due to insufficient financing from the local budget and the notorious "shoestring funding" as well as due to not always thought-through coherent concept of development and administration, cannot be satisfactory to all the citizens' needs. Now for the role of public organisations uniting cultural figures in the partnership between the public and the government. Creative associations and unions still remain unstable in terms of their financial standing, internal problems continue to be in the way of their work. However, despite that, there is a huge potential in them to be unlocked. And in this respect, we ought to develop interaction between the public creative organisations and the state authorities on the basis of the approved provisions of the Strategy for Implementation of the Fundamentals of the State Cultural Policy which speaks about a transfer of some government functions to public associations which, in the course of their many years' work, have proved their sustainability. One can describe as a very important tendency the increased financing of the grants and projects in the cultural area. In the spring of 2017 President of the Russian Federation Vladimir V. Putin tasked the government with indexing the grants for culture and arts. The grants allotted to cultural institutions for their current activities has been indexed for the first time since 2012, whereas the list of their recipients has been expanded. The programme for providing the regions with cinema facilities and equipment has been also going ahead under which, towards re-equipping and opening more than 600 movie theatres all over the country, during the last two years, RUB 3.2 billion has been allocated. During the last decade, the number of people unable to attend cultural events in the vicinity of their places of residence has decreased three times. This and many other facts and figures make us feel confident that culture has again made it to the government's list of priorities.

Deputy Chairman of the Commission of the Civic Chamber of the Russian Federation on Matters Relating to Development of Culture and Preservation of Spiritual Legacy

The past year has witnessed a great many events and functions in the cultural sphere. The Commission on Culture of the Civic Chamber of the Russian Federation carried out a monitoring of "Access to Culture" aimed at analyzing the situation, which has been unfolding in small towns and rural settlements of the Russian Federation, their today's status. Preliminary results of the survey showed an extremely negative outcome in many regions as libraries and cultural centres keep closing down, while whatever facilities remain functioning require, in the majority of cases, extensive refurbishment or replacement of their engineering systems, in many a small town and rural settlement, people have to work under appalling conditions. Culture in the regions is financed on a shoe string; this practice needs to be stopped otherwise we would lose the little that has survived. It would also be worth focusing attention on the high profile events related to corruption in the cultural sector which everybody knows well enough. All this goes to show that the public control system which is in place in the cultural area in Russia has been formalistic. The Federal law on countering corruption in culture has failed to become a well calibrated mechanism for public control. Criminal cases opened against executives in the government budget supported institutions of culture have been on the rise. Many sectors for financing involving restoration activities, procurement in the theatre art, distribution of government support in the cinema are not fully transparent and crystal clear. Federal law No. 44 "On Contractual System in the Sphere of Purchasing Goods, Work, Services To Cater For State and Municipal Needs" has given rise to closed, ignoble corruptive scheme. At the recent Cultural Forum in St. Petersburg, President of Russia Vladimir V. Putin spoke out in favour of reforming the existing system of government procurement for cultural institutions. In his opinion, it is only suitable for business needs, and using it for creative art purposes is utterly inappropriate. It is our belief that the Civic Chamber of the Russian Federation, its ad hoc commission on culture should set up, in a joint effort with the Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation, its public council, a new efficient mechanism for resisting corruption in the cultural sphere, i.e. a committee on countering corruption in the cultural sphere. The principal task of the committee would be analysis of the existing system and normative legal framework in the state financing of all the areas of cultural activities and creation of one single effective mechanism for countering corruption.

Besides, 85% of cultural institutions are currently financed out of the regional budgets, and the principle for such financing is, unfortunately, to allocate whatever remains after all other expenditures. In spring 2017, President of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin issued an assignment to perform an indexation of culture and arts grants. This is the first time when grants to the cultural establishment to fund their ongoing activities have been indexed since 2012, and the list of grant recipients has expanded. Setting up public control in the area of culture is an urgent task, as we need to have a clear understanding of how governmental funds are spent – there have been a lot of corruption scandals in the sphere of culture recently.

The Law on culture is generally obsolete, as it regulates nothing and is generally declarative in nature. The Civic Chamber of the Russian Federation thinks it necessary to continue efforts to bring this law up to date.

Cultural institutions accessibility monitoring

The current situation in the social sphere hampers building the proper level of social comfort ^* and does not match the generally accepted social justice norms. Investments in intellect, health, knowledge and living standards, i.e. in human capital, are the key driver of innovative economy and knowledge-based economy.

Today, the importance of social and human resources gets increasingly important for the development of Russia. Mobilising such resources enables better and quicker response to the needs of all sorts of strata and groups, overcoming of various bureaucratic hurdles, and building of a more organic relationship between the state and the society. It is important to focus the country’s development on the ‘human dimension’ so that people could see the results of major socio-economic and political changes in their everyday life.

This approach calls for a quality change in the role that the civil society plays in the country’s development.

New challenges demand mutually responsible partnership between the state and the civil society . And it is a partnership that is required, in the true sense of this word, with two equal parties sharing a common vision of problems, assessing the limits of potential changes and their opportunities, as well as the consequences of such changes, and accepting responsibility for their joint decisions.

This kind of partnership suggests quality change - both in the overall system of government and municipal authorities and in civil society institutions. This is to become a strategic focus area for the Civic Chamber of the Russian Federation and the whole of the civil society.