Minister of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine Oleh Nemchinov allows the launch of the Government centre until 2025.

"We have put this in the government's action plan for this year and as a priority for the development of the corresponding bill. This is actually the formation of a body based on the Secretariat of the Cabinet of Ministers that will significantly strengthen coordination both on the part of the Ministries and the Central Executive Committee, as well as the expertise of documents... Formation of a strong Government centre is, first of all, the development of the correct regulatory framework. Moreover, we must consider the Government centre in the context of the overall completion of public administration reform and deprivation of the government of unusual functions," Nemchinov said in an exclusive interview with Interfax-Ukraine.

He said the formation of the Government centre is actually strengthening the government's ability to adopt rule-making documents and strengthen regulatory work, "this is the tool that will allow the 'government machine' to work smoothly and stably."

When asked how the Government centre will differ from the Cabinet Secretariat, the minister said "the Secretariat is an auxiliary body that prepares government meetings and ensures the activities of government leadership," while "the Government Centre should be the body that will receive the corresponding status, will 'do the right examination," which will generally relate to the policies of ministries and central executive authorities.

"That is, so these policies are clearly assigned to the relevant experts at the Government Centre, and are reflected accordingly when regulations are submitted, including at government meetings," he said.

Nemchinov also said the Government centre could take over the issues of organizational staffing for ministries.

"Because now, when we carried out a comprehensive functional survey, we looked at some ministries and the Central Executive Committee, the service function exceeded over 30%, which is more than the common practice in the European Union countries. For the ministries, we thought about centralizing this. We have been working with the HRMIS project for several years, which deals with personnel and financial support for the civil service. Now it is being audited, as we want to understand at what stage it is at, and whether we can fully use it for ministries when forming the Government centre," the minister said.

According to him, if there is a normal digital element, a lot of functionality from ministries can be transferred to the Government centre, "and there will be no need for such a large maintenance apparatus."

According to Nemchinov, the head of the Government centre should be the State Secretary of the Cabinet of Ministers.

"We have planned for the first quarter of this year, that is, in fact, there is still another month to make the first concept, and I hope that in the first half of the year we will be able to move on to discussing the bill with the expert community. This is quite a serious document, it concerns, among other things, making changes to the political status. It is no secret that there are legal battles over whether the Cabinet Secretariat should be a legal entity or should be like other bodies ensuring the work of the Verkhovna Rada or the President of Ukraine," the minister said, admitting that the Government centre could be launched before 2025.

As reported, in December 2022, Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal expected to create a Government centre approximately in the first half of 2023.