Licensing Structures Unite

<BR>The formation has begun of a new body within the city administration: a Licensing Chamber.<BR>It is being created according to governor's decree No. 119-r, dated 3 February 1999. The new body will an adaptation of the existing Centre for State Licensing (TsGL), a part of the Committee for Energy and Engineering (KEIO). According to the head of IGL's information and analysis department, Igor Fedotov, the centre has traditionally worked on wider licensing than that of energy alone.<BR>"A single organ, issuing licences for all types of activity, is convenient primarily for businessmen," says Igor Fedotov. "Now it will be possible to receive licensing for all activities in one place. The creation of a chamber will remove the interests of individual agencies, and it will be easier to trace the flow of cash, as it passes through one structure."<BR>Some representatives of licensing organs attached to various committees spoke of the idea of a new chamber without any particular enthusiasm. "The approach to licensing construction activity and to issuing permission for educational activity must be different. The same specialists cannot be working on both cases," said spokesman from one of the licensing centres.<BR>Igor Fedotov agrees that approaches must be different. "But the differences have to be taken into consideration only at the stage of expert evaluation," he says, "the forms of licensing, the selection methods, the demands all have to be the same."<BR>More often, the directors of licensing organs have noted that their structure, according to federal legislation, can only exist as a part of a specialist agency.