Penza, 3 January 2018. PenzaNews. Penza entered the list of municipalities, whose residents give a high rate to the work of the city authorities. This was evidenced by the results of the research conducted by Financial University under the Russian Federation government within the project "Quality of life in Russian cities".

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It was based on the results of sociological surveys conducted in November and December 2017. They were held in cities and towns of Russia using the CATI methodology (computer assisted telephone interview) based on a representative sample reflecting adult population of the municipalities.

Residents were asked three questions altogether.

The first one ran as follows: "Do you agree with the fact that local authorities do a lot for the well-being of the residents of your city?"

In general, more than half of the respondents – 52% – gave a positive answer. At the same time, the share of those who have such an opinion has grown in comparison with the previous year.

The highest result was registered in Grozny – 95% of the respondents fully or basically agree that local authorities do a lot for the welfare of the town. The second place is occupied by Tyumen – 82%, the third one – by Kazan – 67%.

In Penza, 52% of survey participants gave a high rate to the work of the municipal authorities.

Respondents were also asked to answer the question: "Do you agree that residents of your city can strongly influence the municipal government?"

Most respondents are convinced that they do not have the capacity to do so. Only 27% of the research participants fully or generally agree that they can have a strong influence on the municipal government.

On this indicator, Grozny distinguished itself the most having shown the result higher than that average in Russia – 66%. The second place is occupied by Tyumen – 59%, the third one – by Sevastopol 49%.

In Penza, the same as in the whole country, 27% of respondents believe that residents can have a strong influence on municipal government.

The third question which was asked to participants of the survey concerned corruption and ran as follows: "Have you ever had to give money to local government officials, social workers or community service employees over the past year?"

The share of those who had no need to resort to bribes in 2017 slightly decreased compared to that of the previous year and amounted to 78%. At the same time, the respondents admitted that they most often gave illegal rewards to representatives of the traffic police and doctors.

According to the results of the survey, the maximum share of those who did not have to give bribes to officials was registered in Ekaterinburg and Penza – 93%. High results are also registered in Nizhny Novgorod – 91%, Barnaul and Sevastopol – 90%.

The results of the population surveys were recalculated by researchers in index values from 0 to 100, then integrated into a single quality index of the city authorities, where 0 is the lowest score and 100 is the maximum.

In the final rating, Penza occupied the sixth place out of 38 possible ones with the quality index of municipal authorities equalling 57.

Grozny became the leader showing the maximum result of 100.

The top five also included Tyumen with the index of 90, Sevastopol – 65, Khabarovsk – 62, and Novosibirsk – 59.