Outsiders have changed in the rating of Russian cities in terms of management quality – RBC
“The most problematic cities either do not have and work only for survival, or they do not know how to dispose of them,” Turovsky commented on the results of the rating. He also believes that the COVID-19 pandemic has affected the positions of some cities. According to him, during the year, negative dynamics was observed in large industrial centers – for example, in Lipetsk and Novokuznetsk, which can be explained by “the growth of problems in the economy during a pandemic, while the city authorities were able to solve them.” The situation also worsened in the capitals of economically backward republics, for example, in Makhachkala and Elista, the expert noted.
In general, the level of government in Russian cities has changed slightly over the year, the study says. “The coronavirus pandemic affected the ranking, but only indirectly,” Orlov said in a conversation with RBC.
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How urban governance performance was assessed
The sample for the study included all the capitals of Russian regions, except for cities of federal significance. Also taken into account are large urban districts with a population of more than 300 thousand people, which are not regional centers, and the largest capital of Ingushetia, Nazran. There are 92 cities in the ranking. Management efficiency indicators were assessed according to criteria divided into two blocks – political and managerial and socio-economic. The final general is a generalization from the political-managerial and socio-economic blocks (the arithmetic mean of these two indicators).
204 experts took part in assessing the effectiveness of management in urban districts. When making an assessment, their opinions and statistical indicators were taken into account. As criteria for assessing the political and administrative block, in particular, the results of United Russia in the elections of the city representative assembly according to party lists in 2020-2021, the volume of subsidies per capita for January – October of the current year, as well as the dynamics of the volume of subsidies were analyzed. during this time per capita compared to the same period last year, with similar indicators for the last year and other factors.
Among the criteria for assessing the socio-economic block – in particular, the share of children under six years of age receiving preschool educational services, of the total number of children of this, the number of places in preschool educational institutions in number teachers, budget expenditures on culture and housing and communal services, etc.
Best managed
Despite the fact that the maximum value of the rating is one, none of the participating cities received less than 0.4 points. This is a good trend, experts, although Ulan-Ude approached this “threshold value” with 0.405 points. At the same time, the number of the most successful cities has grown, scoring over 0.6 points – there are seven of them (compared to three in 2019 and five in 2020).
For the fourth year in a row, Tyumen has retained the leading position in the rating. This time, Salekhard, the capital of the Yamal-Nenets Autonomous Okrug, is in second place, which has risen by three points. Grozny also improved the result: the capital of Chechnya was in third place, moving up to a position. At the same time, most of the cities that show high marks in the ratings remained at the top lines.
Indeed, the stability in the group of leaders is very high, Turovsky told RBC. “I would explain this by two factors – the availability of financial and economic resources and a management school. The best cities usually have both, ”he explained. “As for the management school, for such characters of cities as a smooth change of government, its continuity, as well as constructive relations with governors, this is a formula for success.”
United Russia will introduce KPI and promise layoffs in the “worst” regions
In general, the results of the APEC study look convincing, although a number of assessment criteria raise questions, political analyst Konstantin Kalachev told RBC. “Electoral statistics, from my point of view,” by no means always make it possible to judge the real support of local authorities. “The level of effectiveness of United Russia’s support in elections in the regions of electoral anomalies is more representative of the regional tradition of holding elections than of management efficiency (I would not want to consider it only with the positions of clearing out opponents and obtaining the necessary numbers by the method of administrative coercion).” And, on the contrary, the controllability of electoral processes, sometimes inverse to achievements in the socio-economic sphere, added the expert.
Competitive political life in cities is the flip side of the diversity of political, economic and social conditions, he is sure. “Diverse business groups, growing middle class. “It is not entirely correct to compare by electoral results.” But it is also possible that the assessment based on the election results reflects the prevailing assessments of the effectiveness of the city government.
“At the same time, such ratings lack an assessment of the situation by the population itself, which is not always reflected in the voting results,” Kalachev said. “It was probably logical to make not one, but a rating: one – based on the socio-political component, the other – a purely economic one,” he concluded.