“I’ll just take the pack apart...”

After the Ponosov case, the Ural governors decided to switch to electronic document management and licensed software

The trial of school director Alexander Ponosov , who installed counterfeit software on computers, nevertheless became indicative. The necessary conclusions from it were drawn in the neighboring Kurgan region, and the authorities of the Perm region, where Mr. Ponosov works, even agreed to conclude an agreement with Microsoft.

In preparation for the adoption of the new budget for 2008, the governor of the Kurgan region, Oleg Bogomolov, ordered the installation of licensed computer programs in all regional government structures. “Everything needs to be legal and all programs have official status, no matter what the cost. The 2008 budget will provide credit resources for this task, and I will not allow the financial department to swing and refuse money for these purposes,” - Mr. Bogomolov announced.

For officials, the decision of the head of the region was quite expected - they started thinking about changing the software in departments and offices back in the winter, when the criminal case of director Ponosov became public knowledge. However, there were no funds for this in the budgets of official structures. The most difficult situation has arisen in the regional architecture department, where work requires not standard Microsoft Office, but expensive programs for engineers and architects. It was impossible to find money in the 2007 budget: the Kurgan region is the poorest in the Ural Federal District (its planned revenues for 2007 are only 13.4 billion rubles), and expenses are strictly scheduled. Therefore, officials perceive the governor’s promise to include costs for compliance with copyright legislation with undisguised joy.

Oleg Bogomolov himself decided to take this opportunity to change the work within the regional administration - the authorities are preparing for the transition to electronic document management. The Kurgan leader explains the need for a hardware revolution simply: “Some kind of landslide increase in the volume of documents. As soon as I take apart the pack, they bring me even more. Some write in such a way that it is impossible to make out what they want, then they wrap the herring in documents. And I want to control from my office where my order is, who is carrying it out, and at what stage of execution it is. I would like to include both municipal authorities and federal structures in this program.”

An example for Mr. Bogomolov can be his Perm colleague Oleg Chirkunov. A year and a half ago, he began implementing the Documentum electronic document management system. The head of the regional government apparatus, Alexey Kovyev, estimates the program at $2 million and says that the project is now at the completion stage. Now, about 90% of all important documents exist exclusively in electronic form and are endorsed with unique digital signatures. The only documents that exist on paper are those that, by law, cannot be of any other type: most of them are decrees of the governor.

Documentum also allows you to check the work of each of the fifteen hundred administration employees. The planning system included in it includes business plans for administration departments for the year and every month. Each employee has a personal weekly plan; the governor can see what each employee is doing at any time. In addition, Mr. Chirkunov entered into a cooperation agreement with Microsoft and SAP. According to these documents, the regional budget will spend 100 million rubles. for new operating programs.

True, in the Urals there is another example of working with electronic document management. Four years ago, the Sverdlovsk Regional Duma wanted to reduce costs and use paper media to a minimum. However, staff members and deputies, most of whom are older and approaching retirement age, were wary of electronic documents and did not agree to give up more familiar papers. Now parliament continues to work with paper documents, only occasionally using their electronic copies.

Mikhail VIUGIN