Reforming public governance in Russia that has been initiated at the onset of the century is ultimately aimed, according to official documents, at improving efficiency and quality of performance by the government of its constitutionally vested functions and provision of public services through budget performance optimization and a range of performance-dependent incentives for public officers. As such, the unfolding reforms are very much similar to the ongoing campaign in both developed and emerging markets to revamp the functioning of the executive branch – government – based on the new public management concept.

Improvement of the public administration based on the new public management concept in the developed market economies proceeds largely with a view, as is codified in many official documents, to raise the quality of public services rendered by the government (public) organizations to the population.

The significance of the above objective is directly emphasized in the official documents of the Russian Federation intended to formulate the aims and areas of the public budgeting improvement: "Better performance of budget spending is primarily associated with changes in the budgeting process. At the same time all elements of the budgeting system restructuring are interrelated and the optimal outcome is not possible unless there is a concurrent, consistent and successful restructuring of the entire public sector. Accordingly, performance-centered budget planning is pivotal for the system of mutually complementary incentives to improve efficiency of the public administration and as such may generate the maximum positive effect given the integrated approach to the latter's reform. Whether this method is to succeed depends on efficient interaction between the budgeting and administrative reforms and their practical implementation as well as realization of other lines of the public sector policy and measures aimed at raising the quality of public services …".

Development and introduction in the daily routine of a public service organization of quality standards for the services rendered are undoubtedly the steps critical for the overall success of transition to the performance-centered budget planning which, although initiated at the federal level, will be ultimately extended to the subject entities of the Russian Federation.

In light of the above, proper understanding of the nature of such services and regulation of their development and implementation in the work of public service organizations rendering the respective services, i.e., "end"-receivers of budget resources that directly transform them into the government (and municipal) services, is critical for successful improvement of the public administration efficiency in the Russian Federation.

Considering the afore-stated, this paper provides a consistent overview of the following groups of issues: definition and functions of the quality standards in the activity of various organizations and economic sectors from the economics perspective (Section 2), international best practices in the area of development and implementation of quality standards for the public services (Section 3), approaches to development of laws regulating the quality standards in the public sector currently pursued in Russia, and the functioning of organizations in charge of public administration which are providers of government (public) services (Section 4). Results of the study reflected in the above sections are summarized in Section 5 in the form of findings and recommendations to help improve the currently developed public services standards and administrative regulations.