Vol. 5 No. 2 (2013)

The article focuses on the participatory budget formation at the local level. The authors suggest the approach to the definition of the ‘participatory budget’, formulate the conditions for participatory budget formation, and summarize the current data on the implementation of the participatory budgeting in the international practice. The major attention is given to analyzing the models of participatory budget. The authors propose criteria for the models classification and describe the motivation of the key target groups in formulation of the participatory budget.

The article contains the analysis of government actions on ensuring the transparency and accountability of the budget. The author analyses the key regulatory documents and policy papers that are sought to create open budgets at the federal and regional levels. The major focus is given to the evaluation of the existing situation in the sphere of formation of the ‘Citizens Budget’.

The article attempts to justify the possibility of using crowdsourcing to the budget system of local government. Analyzed examples of public involvement in the process of formation of the local budget expenditure part operating in the territory of the Russian Federation, the advantages and disadvantages of existing techniques are identified.

This article discusses the possibility of using participatory governance technology in the formation and execution of local budgets in Russia on example of city district Nizhny Salda. Analyzes the legal basis for the realization of public budgets in the municipalities, the use of different forms of citizen participation in the management of budgetary funds. Based on the research the author highlights the main differences between participatory budgeting in Russia and abroad, as well as difficulties in the formation of the local budget using participatory governance technology.

Description of local self-government development tendencies in Post-Soviet period in Russian Federation is represented in the paper. A special attention is paid to a problem of sufficient financial-economic base of municipal governments activity. The problem of municipal fiscal and economic autonomy has been the main problem during all years of municipal reform. All changes in municipal sphere has been oriented on creation of basis for independent solving of local problems by municipal governments and the further independent social and economic development of municipal territories. The paper contains an actual data analysis of financial and economic resources of local self-government, key problems of the reform present stage are defined. At the end of the paper was made a conclusion about reduction of municipal resources for providing local services and centralization tendencies.

The article presents outcomes of the Federal Law № 83-FS execution in the Sverdlovsk region, analysis of the industry specifics of the budget sector in the region, and the main criteria for determining the legal status of public institutions. The research also shows a detailed analysis of this law’s implementation by the public law entities, which consists in the organizational, methodological and legal interaction between regional and local authorities and public sector institutions. As a result of the study, the author develops a system of stepwise measures for public authorities of the Sverdlovsk region, contributing to the socio-economic development of the municipalities and the region.

The article deals with the problems of financial security settlements municipalities, owing to the lack of effective interaction between local government of municipal districts and settlements in its composition. The article is based on materials of the Chelyabinsk region.

The article presents a comparative analysis of the key strategic documents of the Sverdlovsk region and its largest cities, defining development priorities for regional and local consumer markets. As a result of the analysis, the author determines the degree of their coordination, congruence and consistency.

The article analyzes the main approaches to evaluating the effectiveness of social partnership in local governments by both domestic and foreign researchers; the article looks at the problems encountered in the development of tools for social actors’ effectiveness evaluation. The author proves that the evaluation of the effectiveness of social partnership in local governments should reflect the contribution of each of the social partners to the development of a municipal division, as well as assess the quality of their interaction.

In the article based on the author’s social research problems of reforming local government in Nizhniy Novgorod region are analyzed. The obtained data allows to conclude that the most important problem of local government is the problem of weak interaction between authorities and population that makes actual the necessity to improve the effectiveness of the government actions aimed at public awareness and development of cooperation of citizens with local authority when it comes to matters of local significance.