Institutional limitations in the Sphere of Public Housing and Сommunal Services of Moscow

Abstract

The article is devoted to the study of the regional peculiarities of the institute of public housing and communal services in Moscow — a new phenomenon for Russia, which arose during the implementation of one of the stages of administrative reform. The aim of the work is to develop socio-economic policies in the housing and communal services sector based on the identification of institutional constraints in the activities of state bodies and organizations of housing and communal services, related to the provision of services for the management, operation, and repair of housing, improvement of urban areas. The study was carried out by general scientific methods — logical, analysis, systematization and synthesis of data. We defined the specificity of budgetary institutions as the main subject of the sphere of state housing and communal services. We identified limitations in activity of formal and informal institutions in housing and communal services: the lack of criteria and mechanisms of quality control of services; staffing imbalances in the organs of management; violations of principles of confidentiality and legality of the measures taken in the consideration of the complaints of citizens; the impossibility of a full-fledged financial and economic cooperation in the chain the founder-organization; lack of coordination in owners’ activity in the management of apartment buildings. We also revealed negative informal relations in the organization of public control over housing and communal services. We concluded there is a necessity to develop the system of quality control in the field of public services with the mandatory evaluation criteria and the availability of professional staff appraisers, as well as the need for analysis of possible limitations in the implementation of the model institutions in the Russian practice. The existence of unexplored and unresolved institutional constraints provokes negative externalities in the institutional environment and cannot indicate the increment of its change.