Complex assessment of housing and communal sector in the region's municipalities

At present, the functioning of housing and communal sector in most regions of the country is characterized by mounting crisis. The key problems in this sphere include poor quality of provided services, high depreciation of fixed assets, large non-productive resource losses, etc. These are the issues that the authorities should address to at all levels. At the same time it should be noted that municipal entities may considerably differ in the level of housing improvement, state of engineering infrastructure, and the possibilities of introducing market mechanisms of economic management. Therefore, the state policy in the housing and communal sector should be based on the use of economic instruments and incentives, taking the fullest account of the current state, sectorial and regional peculiarities. The article analyses the state of housing and utilities infrastructure in the Vologda Oblast municipalities on the basis of the integral estimation methodology; it distinguishes the territories with similar characteristics and problems concerning the functioning of this sphere, presents group characteristics. The key directions and instruments of state policy, the implementation of which will make it possible to use limited financial resources more efficiently, to optimize the territorial-production structure and to enhance the overall functioning efficiency of housing and communal services in different types of the region’s municipalities, are offered.