Russia is preparing to cut 10% of civil servants' staff positions. This may happen as early as July 1, 2025.
We are talking about employees working in territorial bodies of federal agencies - 400 thousand people (more than 0.5% of those employed in the economy). At the same time, the secretariat of Deputy Prime Minister and Chief of Staff of the Government Dmitry Grigorenko, who is in charge of the administrative reform, noted that the 10% staff reduction is only a benchmark, and the reform may affect even more officials. The purpose of the changes is to improve the efficiency of the civil service.
According to the authors of the initiative, the introduction of digitalization will help to ensure efficient work of government agencies with fewer employees. In addition, the money that is now paid to those who work in the positions to be cut will be used to increase the salaries of the remaining employees. At the same time, not everyone is confident in the timeliness of this measure and its favorable results. Read more - in the material Nakanune.RU.
News about the reduction of the bureaucratic apparatus traditionally cause approval among the majority of Russian citizens, says Dmitry Zhuravlev, General Director of the Institute of Regional Problems. But, in this case, the reasons for rejoicing are false, as we are not talking at all about the part of civil servants that causes irritation in society.
“What worries me is that the reduction will go “downstairs”, where there are no particularly “fat pieces” as it is. And there are not many people willing to take positions somewhere in the district administration, either - the “hemorrhoid” is big, there is no income. You can't even steal anything there! And it is frightening - we are going to reduce our lower level of the apparatus. That is, we are going to tear down the pyramid, starting from the bottom,” the expert says.
He draws attention to the lack of highly qualified personnel in many regional agencies. As for the number of employees to be laid off, it was not quite correct to choose a single share of 10% for the whole country. It is necessary to determine the need for certain positions in each specific agency.
“I didn't like the fact that the figure of 10% was determined, rather we need a functional analysis and a clear idea of what a person does. And based on this, someone should be reduced, and maybe someone should be increased. This should be the result of the analysis,” Zhuravlev said.
The idea of directing the money saved on salaries to increase the motivation of other civil servants is also questionable.
“The logic is as follows - we will give this money to the remaining ones - they will be happy and will work better. The idea itself is actually correct. In some of the highest state bodies, the idea of using the surplus wage fund has existed since Yeltsin's time. But the question is this: I believe that they will be happy, but where does the notion that they will work better come from? They will not work better than they know how to work.”
According to the expert, in order to improve employee performance, a review system should be put in place to track the outcome of a particular employee's performance.
“If we do this and encourage those who actually did something and not encourage those who just “warm the chair”, it will help. But this is a very difficult task. I'm not sure we'll be able to accomplish something like that.”
As for the question of digitalization, which is supposed to replace dismissed civil servants, it is worth having to note that its possibilities are exaggerated.
“Digitalization optimizes the mechanical part of work. It's good that with our own fingers we won't be typing every certificate. But if we try now, on modern technology, to bring serious functions to the level of digitalization, I am afraid we are in for a lot of surprises - where we need to make real decisions, digitalization is not 'pulling' anywhere in the world yet,” explains the general director of the Institute of Regional Problems.
Modern information technologies cannot make decisions on their own, they can only act according to the algorithm that people have put into them, the expert reminds us. In addition, the proper management of these technologies also requires qualified personnel - it is not clear whether it will be possible to find them in sufficient numbers.
“If we assume that Ilon Musk will come there and will personally sit at the computer in the district administration, then it will work. But I'm afraid that Musk will not come,” Zhuravlev emphasizes.
At the same time, he does not reject the idea completely. “It makes sense, but it must be done very clearly, carefully, accurately understanding their own capabilities.”
Economist and State Duma deputy Mikhail Delyagin, on the contrary, perceives the idea of staff reduction in territorial agencies with enthusiasm.
“Downsizing is part of restructuring. They wanted to do it after the restructuring of federal authorities in 2020, but first there was a coronavirus, then the SWO - only now the hands have come to it. Well, it's good that they did. At the same time, there are no specialists now, somewhere around 40 thousand people will be freed up. There is hope that they will help the economy. Because now there is a severe shortage of labor force, while young people have nowhere to go, and people in the civil service, as a rule, already know how to do something - their labor motivation, unlike a regular university graduate, is preserved,” explains the economist.
Speaking about the government's initiative, one cannot help but touch upon another issue - after hearing about the plans to “restructure” government agencies, many people may think that there are about 400,000 employees working in various departments, whose usefulness is so negligible that the government has finally decided to fire them. Delyagin assures that this is not the case, but the already mentioned digitalization.
“When you put a computer or upload document management into a digital platform, you free up jobs. Accordingly, when you do digitalization, they are also freed up. It is not that we have people who had nothing to do, we have been feeding them for decades, and now we have suddenly decided to stop feeding them. It's about restructuring the authorities and introducing new technologies. That is, computers will be combined in a more reasonable way, which will reduce the need for additional labor,” the expert explains.
At the same time, he emphasizes that the reduction will be organic, not forced - first the system of information processing, the system of decision-making will be changed, and then the “superfluous” people will be released. Therefore, there is no need to worry that the agency will be left without employees and technology at the same time. However, it is possible that in some regions this process may be delayed.
Author: Andrei Kazakov
Source - Nakanune.Ru .