Information technology and society: Plans to improve the quality of public services and their conversion into electronic form discussed in Moscow

The meeting of the Government Commission on the use of information technology to improve the quality of life and the business environment took place on 19 September 2013 under the leadership of the Prime Minister of Russia Dmitry Medvedev. The Minister of Communications and Mass Media of Russia Nikolai Nikiforov told about plans to improve the quality of public services and their conversion into electronic form. 

Dmitry Medvedev said that the year 2018 is to ensure the provision of public and municipal services in electronic form for the 70% of citizens. Furthermore, 90% of the residents must be happy with the quality of their provision. Also in 2014 it should be reduced waiting time to obtain Internet services to 15 minutes. “Everything that we do for the conversion of public services into electronic form, ultimately aimed at making it easier for people to work, so that they understand as much as possible for a service to get it to be simple, easy to understand, clear and non-spending time”, - said the Prime Minister. 

Nikolai Nikiforov, in turn, spoke about the plans and the package of measures proposed by the Ministry of Communications to achieve the goals. In particular, we plan to introduce an electronic record for admission to state institutions. For this it is necessary to work out a standard solution, and then implement the pilot implementation of such a system in conjunction with the Federal Migration Service and the traffic police.  

There are also plans to develop new channels of service delivery. One of them may be new generation that will get online services and make payments. The Minister said that they would be a good addition to the traditional service delivery channels and would have wide opportunities.

The head of the Ministry of Communications also announced that in the near future it is planned to simplify the registration of a single portal for public services (EPGU). According to him, at present are already worked out all the technical issues and a draft document is submitted to the Government of Russia.

In addition, the issue of creating the portal of integrated services, which would be a more advanced version of EPGU and would fully provide the socially important services, as well as the use of a unique network of post offices as part of the infrastructure of e-government as part of its reform was discussed.