Provincial level will have the right to reduce departments and branches
It is expected that the organization and arrangement of specialized agencies under the provincial People's Committee in this direction is being proposed in the draft decree replacing Decree 24/2014-ND-CP.
Deputy Minister of Home Affairs Nguyen Duy Thang answers the press - Photo: NGOC HA
On March 26, at the regular press conference of the Ministry of Home Affairs, Mr. Nguyen Tien Thanh - Chief of Office of the Ministry of Home Affairs - said that according to the draft decree replacing Decree 24 of the Government regulating the organization of provincial-level professional agencies, the organizational structure at the department level has many innovations.
Currently, the country has 17 departments organized uniformly in all provinces and cities. However, in the new draft, these 17 departments will be divided into three groups.
Group 1 (a group of departments organized uniformly nationwide) includes 7 departments: home affairs, justice, natural resources - environment, labor - war invalids and social affairs, health, inspection, and provincial People's Committee office.
In particular, if the provincial People's Committee office pilots the merger with the provincial People's Council office and the National Assembly Delegation office into a general advisory and assistance office, it will be renamed the Provincial Local Government Office.
The remaining 10 departments will be divided into two groups: one group includes departments that are regulated in the direction of assigning authority to the Provincial People's Committee to submit to the People's Council of the same level to maintain stability or merge (with adjustments in name); and one group of departments that are regulated in the direction of assigning authority to the Provincial People's Committee to submit to the People's Council of the same level to maintain stability or merge.
As for the 4 special departments (not organized uniformly among localities, including: the Department of Planning and Architecture under the People's Committee of Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City; the Ethnic Minorities Committee, the Department of Foreign Affairs, and the Department of Tourism), the authority is assigned to the Provincial People's Committee to submit to the People's Council of the same level to maintain stability or merge, establish or not establish.
Meanwhile, Mr. Nguyen Van Luong, Deputy Head of the Department of Organization and Personnel, said these innovations aim to implement Resolution 18 of the 6th Central Conference, and are consistent with the Law on Organization of Local Government and the Law on Organization of the Government in 2015.
Mr. Luong further explained that with the new draft, in addition to the mandatory departments in all local governments (ie 7 departments), the remaining departments will be submitted by the Provincial People's Committee to the People's Council at the same level for decision.
"There will be no hard regulations requiring which departments must merge with which departments. The decree only gives suggestions and guidance, and the provinces will decide to establish or not to establish, merge or not to merge, as long as they are within the specific number of departments that will be stipulated in the decree," said Mr. Luong.
In addition, the Ministry of Home Affairs is also building a framework for the minimum number of staff to establish a department, regulating the number of deputy heads of specialized departments at the department level as well as the framework for the number of specialized departments.
In which, the expected minimum number of staff to establish a department must be from 7 people or more.
Mr. Nguyen Duy Thang - Deputy Minister of Home Affairs - also added that in order to achieve the goal of innovation and reorganization of the apparatus, a series of other decrees of the Government will have to be amended in the near future, such as Decree 123 regulating the functions, tasks, powers and organizational structure of ministries and ministerial-level agencies; Decree 10 regulating agencies under the Government...
Accordingly, the organizational structure within departments and divisions will be clearly defined; criteria for establishing departments, divisions, and general departments; minimum staffing requirements will be clearly defined...
As planned, the draft decree will be posted online for public consultation in the coming time.
Based on the opinions of ministries, branches, localities..., the Ministry of Home Affairs will complete the draft and submit it to the Government in the second quarter of 2018.
