On December 18, the Government approved a Strategy for Reforming the State Supervision (Control) developed by the Ministry of Economic Development and Trade of Ukraine.

The current activities of state supervision (control) bodies are aimed at identifying and enforcing sanctions, rather than preventing violations or minimizing risks. The powers of inspection bodies are duplicated, which creates a double burden on Ukrainian business. Moreover, there doesn’t exist a system for assessing the effectiveness of state control.

"Nowadays 99% of inspections reveal violations. This is not because the entrepreneurs are careless, it's because of the purpose of the inspections is to punish, instead of to prevent and guarantee security. In 2013, there were twice as many business checks as in 2016. But there were recorded twice as many injured employees. Proper correlation between inspections and security is lacking," stressed First Vice Prime Minister, Minister of Economic Development and Trade of Ukraine Stepan Kubiv.

In order to overcome all these problems and improve business environment in Ukraine, the Ministry of Economic Development and Trade has elaborated a Strategy for Reforming the State Supervision (Control). It was designed to transform the system of supervision and control into a risk management system. Thus, the Strategy provides for improvement of the risk-oriented approach, reorientation of the inspection system to prevent violations and increase the responsibility of inspectors. It is also called to minimize corruption risks by automating the selection criteria for inspections.

Implementation of the Strategy includes the creation of an individual list of requirements for each type of business, an assessment of the importance of each requirement and the creation of a positive incentive to comply with these requirements, such as a public business rating. The risk-based approach will be introduced through the formation of a national hazard list. Only the most important requirements will be subjected to verification, and afterwards - the effectiveness of regulation and authorities under various danger factors will be assessed.

While preparing for the implementation of the Strategy, the State Regulatory Service and the Effective Regulation Office, supported by the Ministry of Economic Development, have already launched a pilot module for planning public supervision. "This is a single online portal containing all the inspection plans, all the requirements for business that will be checked, as well as the results of the inspections and complaints lodged as a result of inspections. Over first 10 days of operation of the module, it has been used by more than 50,000 users, hence there is a demand from business for such a tool. We will continue to improve it to make the national risk management system fully operational by 2020," stressed First Deputy Minister of Economic Development and Trade of Ukraine Maxym Nefyodov.

The realization of the Strategy will enable the Government to reduce the level of corruption, the level of budget expenditures to maintain functioning of the supervisory (control) system and to respond more effectively to determined risks. At the same time, business will be aware of the procedure of inspections and will trust the Government more.