Follows the transcript of Russian Labor and Social Development Minister Maxim Topilin’s speech at a videoconference on children’s summer vacations:

M. Topilin (Labor and Social Protection Minister): Thank you, dear Dmitry Anatolyevich! Dear conference participants! Let me give you a brief account of preparations for the summer vacations. I must say that, in our opinion, all the regions have done a big job to prepare for the children’s vacations in 2013…<…>  

Insurance of children is a mandatory condition for a governmental contact on rendering summer vacation services, and the average insurance premium varies from 50 to 100 rubles, while the insurance payment is from 5,000 to 500,000 rubles depending on the severity of the case. Rates differ from one region to another, as they are set by laws of constituents.

As to the cost of vacation vouchers, it will be approximately 15,500 rubles per 21 days this year. We estimate the year-on-year growth at approximately 6-7%. As organization of children’s vacations requires a systemic and program approach, practically all regions have drafted and launched regional programs.

D. Medvedev: Once again: what is the growth, what is the percentage?

М.Topilin: 6–7% as compared to last year.

D. Medvedev: Actually, they keep within inflation parameters, don’t they?

М.Topilin: Yes. We have always noted that trend. There were no hikes in the previous years; the trend is unchanged.

Summer vacation programs in practically all regions have become planned events held under regional programs drafted and approved in constituents.

The question, which has been topical for recent years, is the refocusing of institutions. I must say that regions control this process independently and, actually, we did not register such cases last year. I must say that only four institutions were refocused, and two of them are kindergartens (that was the decision of regions, the Saratov and Magadan regions), one kindergarten offered family vacations. And only in the Perm territory (according to our information, Uralkali joint stock company) sold an institution; no consent was reached.

In general, Dmitry Anatolyevich, I think that such questions as refocusing or any related problems are not occurring now. Regions settle with owners such situations, transfers to regional or municipal property, in the manual regime…

D. Medvedev: Actually, the refocusing problem is a bygone, is that so?

М. Topilin: Yes, I think that the refocusing problem is gone now. There are some individual cases, but this is not a massive phenomenon.

D.Medvedev: But you know that even individual cases need to be analyzed, because different situations are possible. You have mentioned the Perm territory, some other places. You must find out what happened there.

М.Topilin: This is what we are doing all the time. We are even trying, Dmitry Anatolyevich, to find solutions on the federal level whenever we receive such reports, and they happen, and we settle the problems with regions. We are doing that all the time.

As to financing: regions have planned allocations of about 41.9 billion rubles to finance the summer vacations. This is 12% more than last year as of the same date. We will be collecting information during the year about allocations of employers (who are also funding summer vacations) but the trend is actually such that financing will be slightly higher. Practically all regions without an exception keep financing on the same level or enlarge it as compared to the previous year. The federal year has assigned 4.6 billion rubles in subsides to constituents this year. The money is mostly spent on health resort services to disadvantaged children. The ministry fully transferred such funds to regions in February and March.

Dmitry Anatolyevich, you have said we plan vacations of 8.4 million children this year or slightly more than 50% of schoolchildren. That is a bit more than last year; that is the scope. I hope we can meet this target. According to reports from constituents of the Russian Federation, this year we will involve 52,000 vacation and health resort facilities, including 2,489 countryside camps and 858 health resorts. Most of the camps will be daytime facilities, 42,900. As we keep monitoring this dynamics, I think more facilities will involve in the vacation and health resort campaign by the end of this year, during the year. The numbers keep growing.

You have touched upon the subject of capital repairs. I would like to mention that we assigned 9.7 billion rubles for capital repairs of health resorts last year. Unfortunately, the allocations dipped to 5.7 billion rubles in 2013. Probably, that is because constituents have plenty of other tasks set for them this year, so I plead regions not to reduce the pace of works. But if we look two or three years back, we will see that there were practically no allocations for capital repairs. Capital repairs are over at 73 facilities, and there are some facilities to be repaired throughout the year for the next season. We have such projects, as well, because of the rather lengthy periods of capital repairs. Seven new institutions opened this year, Luchezarny in Anapa, the Krasnodar territory, the multirole facility Sozvezdie for 140 guests in Chuvashia, Domashovo health resort in the Bryansk region and four new facilities in the Republic of Sakha - Yakutia.

Let me speak briefly about their preparedness. Rospotrebnadzor and the Emergency Situations Ministry are verifying the readiness of camps for the summer vacation season. I presume constituents will fully accomplish this work by June 1. Some constituents had been lagging behind and we held two telephone conferences – I chaired one of them at the ministry several weeks ago and Olga Yuryevna (Golodets, Deputy Prime Minister) chaired the conference last week only. And I believe constituents will meet the targets envisaged and coordinated with Rospotrebnadzor. There was a certain lag in a number of Siberian regions, mostly because of local climatic conditions. We can say on the whole that the level of fire safety, sanitary safety, food procurement and conclusion of relevant contracts is rather high and compared with the previous periods we have grounds to hope that our summer events will pass without violations.

Transportation means are also being prepared for safe transit of children, Russian Railways are forming special trains, and police escorts are being arranged. Federal executive authorities are also doing and controlling this work.

The summer campaign is about to start, but our health resort campaign goes on throughout the year. Digits of the first four months of this year show that about 560,000 children have been on vacation, which is 10% more than last year, and many of them are disadvantaged children, about 165,000, orphans and children with disabilities. Bearing in mind the latest federal decisions, I would like to ask constituents of the Russian Federation to be more attentive to these categories of children.

I believe the work done by the regions enables us, Dmitry Anatolyevich, to say that constituents will be prepared for the summer vacation season and the summer health resort campaign, at least, this is what we think. I would like to wish them to hold it successfully, without emergency situations or negative episodes.

Thank you. The report is over.

Источник: Russian government