How to improve the efficiency of budget control?

The article is devoted to analysis of current indicators of control efficiency in the budgetary sphere, main directions of the reform of control and supervisory activity (hereinafter — CSA), held in Russia since 2009, as well as objective obstacles to the successful implementation of the reforms in the budget sphere. According to the author, in the budget sphere, the general ideology of the CSA reform does not work well, since the amount of violations detected by the control bodies is not equal to the amount of damage caused to the budget. The author comes to the conclusion that the main reason for the low efficiency of control in the budget sphere is the latent nature of embezzlement of budget funds, as a result of which such embezzlement is usually qualified as «inefficient use of budget funds», which excludes liability and recovery of damage caused to the budget. According to the author, the effectiveness of control in the budget sphere can be improved by shifting the focus from subsequent control to preliminary control, which should be carried out mainly by automated means, as well as by introducing a certain form of responsibility of officials for the «inefficiency» of their activities.