Only 47% of Ukrainian ministries and agencies are able to conduct a public dialogue.
On July 25, BRDO presented the rating of ministries and agencies “Capacity for Dialogue”. It outlines the results of an analysis of how central executive bodies fulfill the requirements for the transparency and availability of information on their regulatory activities. According to this study, they fulfill, on average, only 47% of these requirements.
The rating is set on the basis of the analysis of 51 central executive bodies as of July 1, 2017.
According to the results of the “Capacity for Dialogue” study, the Ministry of Regional Development with 55 out of points 58 points and the State Audit Service with 49 points are at the top of the rating.
Outsiders were the State Space Agency of Ukraine with 23 points, the Ministry of Youth and Sports with 24 points and the Ministry of Justice – 26 points.
“The regulation is impossible without consulting with the public and businesses. Slim excuses such as “our website has broken”, “e-mail is not working” and “this employee took a vacation” are not accepted. Imagine: you come to work on January 2, and it turns out that the rules were changed on January 1. You had a New Year’s Eve to adapt to them. It is important for businesses to be informed about the plans of ministries and agencies more than once a year, keep abreast, respond to proposals online, adapt to them and fully participate in the dialogue,” Ihor Lavrynenko, the leading analyst at BRDO, said.
“Ministries and agencies should understand that if consultation procedures are not followed, a regulatory act can be abolished. The advice is simple – to comply with the Ukrainian legislation,” Maksym Malashkin emphasized and went on to say that the right attitude is to initiate a comprehensive analysis of the regulation by markets in the format of Green and White Papers, as the BRDO Office was currently doing. “Then it is needed to hold a public discussion of these studies at roundtables involving various state bodies, businesses and experts. The Ministry of Regional Development is already actively involved in this format,” the State Secretary of the Minister for Regional Development Maksym Malashkin said.
The BRDO prepares Green Papers – analytical documents on regulatory issues in Ukrainian markets. The White Papers that will provide the basis of amednments to the legislation will be prepared on their basis. You can leave your comments and suggestions following this link: regulation.gov.ua.
“State institutions declare that they are ready to discuss their decisions with business, but often it’s more like a monologue of authorities. We do not know whether our recommendations are noticed and taken into account. But we are the ultimate beneficiaries of regulatory changes, we know the situation from the inside and fill the budget of the country. The companies, which are the members of the “Union of Ukrainian Entrepreneurs” (SUP) paid 14 billion hryvnas as taxes in 2015-2016. The government should be business-oriented, just then we can talk about the economic development of Ukraine,” the Executive Director of the Union of Ukrainian Entrepreneurs (SUP) Kateryna Glazkova said.
Many agencies consider fulfilling the requirements as a formality, they publish important documents in PDF, but it is impossible to find and work with such documents. The ministries do not inform the public about their plans, and amend regulatory acts and make them retroactive. Some institutions simply do not consider their regulatory acts as the regulatory ones. There is also a problem of interaction between the bodies, which shape and implement the policy. For example, the archive service is ready for dialogue, but the ministry does not do anything for 3-5 months, for a year. It happens and vice versa.
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“The government is taking steps aimed at improving communication: it informs about draft decisions, clarifies them. For this purpose, a single information platform – the Common Voice was created. Consultations are held, and today they have the obligation to report whether the public proposals have been taken into account. Accompanying documents should be clear and written in accessible language,” the Deputy Director of the Department of Information and Public Communications, Head of the Department for the Civil Society Development and Public Communications Natalya Oksha said.
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“In order to increase the protection of citizens and business representatives when adopting the regulatory acts, it is important to adopt the draft Law on Public Consultations and the draft Law on Administrative Procedures. In addition, it is needed to approve the obligatory responsibility for non-compliance with consultation procedures,” the expert of the Centre of Policy and Legal Reform Yevgen Shkolny said.
The analysis of ministries’ transparency was assessed by four markers:
- Can the government be predictable, that is, plan its regulatory activity ahead and inform the public about the rules that it wants to change?
- Can the government engage and take into account stakeholders’ proposals when developing and adopting regulatory acts?
- Can the government inform the public about its regulatory activities?
- Can the government assess the effectiveness of the existing regulation?
Next, the BRDO will prepare analytical papers and explanatory letters on how state bodies can better communicate their regulatory activities.
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