Preventive and inspection visits of the labour inspectorate

LEGAL DIGEST, NEWS \ 30.08.2021

The Government of the Russian Federation has issued a Decree establishing new types of control activity in the field of employment legislation.

According to the document, when carrying out state control, starting from July 1, 2021, the territorial bodies of the Federal Labour and Employment Agency can conduct a new type of inspection measures – a preventive visit in the form of a conversation.

A preventive conversation can be held at the company’s location or in the format of a video conference call. The duration of the check is not more than 8 working hours. Such visits are mandatory for organizations which activities:

• fall into the categories of high or significant risk;
• or fall into areas that have a high level of occupational injuries associated with severe health damage or resulting in death during the three years preceding the start of the performance of activities by such a company.

Also, apart from desk and on-site inspections, labour inspectors can carry out control activity in the form of inspection visits or raid inspections. Inspections are unscheduled and inspectors will not warn about them in advance.

The format of checks can be as follows: inspection, interview, receipt of arguments in writing, discovery o documents from the company or examination (only for a raid inspection). The term of carrying out these types of control is one working day.

It is also possible to carry out checks using remote interaction – by means of audio or video communication, or by taking of photographs. If the supervisory authorities use this method, a corresponding entry is made in the certificate of the control activity.

Please be reminded that inspections by the State Labour Inspectorate are carried out using a risk-based approach, which assigns a certain risk category to the organization’s activities.

The procedure for placing the activities of organizations or facilities used by them into a particular risk category is established in the Rules approved by the Decree No. 1230 of the Government dated July 21, 2021. At the moment there are six categories:

Risk category	Hazard class	Specifics of conducting scheduled checks
Extremely high	1st class	Once a year
High	2nd class	Once every two years
Significant	3rd class	Once every three years
Average	4th class	Once every five years
Moderate	5th class	Once every six years
Low	6th class	Checks are not conducted

The establishment of the above-mentioned measures is associated with a large-scale reform in the field of control and supervisory activities – the entry into force of Federal Law No. 248-FZ dated July 31, 2020, which defines a new procedure for organizing state and municipal control. The law introduces a number of other new developments, for example:

• recording the actions of supervisory authorities in information resources (for example, in the Register of Control and Supervisory Measures, in the Unified Register of Types of State Control);
• compliance with the principle of inadmissibility of checking the same requirements by several supervisory authorities regarding one object of control;
• determination of new mechanisms to reduce inspections (for example, the conclusion by the company of an insurance contract for the risks of harm);
• setting new deadlines for conducting desk and on-site inspections – not more than 10 working days (previously this period was 20 working days);
• expanding the rights of organizations during the audit (for example, reimbursement for harm if it was caused during the audit, pre-trial appeal of decisions of supervisory authorities).

In the matters of conducting inspections by the supervisory authorities and preparing for them, please contact Acsour experts.