In this article we discuss the practice of implementing and evaluating public programs in the Russian Federation. Federal public programs in the period from 2011 to 2017 were surveyed. We present the results of empirical analysis of programs, their descriptive characteristics, and the overall situation with public programs, and the quality of their implementation. We revealed the relationship between the dynamics of socio-economic development and achievement of the program targets. Also we clarified the link between the level of public programs implementation by federal executive bodies and the effectiveness of implementation their other functions. The system problem is that the target indicators of public programs are developing now by the responsible executor, proceeding from the simple and fast reporting. As a result, the indicators are process-oriented, but not result-oriented. We suggest use the programs implementation effectiveness as an indicator of the effectiveness of the public authorities and their managers, including organizational and staffing decisions making by the President and the Government of the Russian Federation. We also recommend complement the existing methodology with the regulatory impact assessing at the stage of developing programs and the actual impact assessing after their completion. Also should be developed a methodol ogy for assessing the "sensitivity" of the spheres of regulation to the program mechanisms. We offer to enter the maximum number of target program indicators and prohibit their change during the program implementation period. It is necessary to provide the possibility of changing the financial support of programs in the period of their implementation, taking into account the achieved target indicators. These measures will make it possible to target responsible executors of the public programs to achieve the final results and to evaluate their activities in a comprehensive, regular and comparable manner.