Proposal to increase full-time People's Council delegates and reduce part-time delegates

On the morning of August 29, in Thai Hoa town, the Standing Committee of the Provincial People's Council held a conference to exchange experiences with the Standing Committees of the People's Councils of districts and towns in the Highway 48 cluster on the topic of thematic supervision, questioning by the People's Council and explanation by the Standing Committee of the People's Council. Comrade Hoang Viet Duong - Vice Chairman of the Provincial People's Council chaired the conference. Photo: Mai Hoa

Enhancing the role and position of the People's Council

At the conference, the opinions exchanged affirmed that thematic supervision, questioning at People's Council meetings and explanations of the Standing Committee of People's Council are important supervisory activities of People's Councils and Standing Committees of People's Councils at all levels. In particular, thematic supervision of People's Councils and explanations of the Standing Committee of People's Council are new forms of supervision promulgated under the Law on Supervisory Activities 2015.

Therefore, since the beginning of the term, the Provincial People's Council and localities have been concerned about improving the quality and effectiveness of this activity; from selecting key, urgent or influential contents to the implementation of local socio-economic development tasks and innovating methods and ways of organization and management; proposing and recommending practical issues accurately and urging "post-" supervision, questioning and explanation.

Accordingly, many issues were addressed by the Provincial People's Council and localities, creating changes after monitoring, questioning, and explaining, such as land management, granting of land use right certificates; environmental protection; implementation of regimes and policies for people with meritorious services; resolving "post-" policies of hydropower projects; infrastructure and quality of electricity for daily life; resolving complaints and denunciations of citizens and recommendations and reflections of voters and people... Through the above activities, the role and position of the People's Council were consolidated and enhanced in socio-political life.

Vice Chairwoman of the People's Council of Thai Hoa town Truong Thi Thanh Thuy said that to ensure the quality of the explanation session of the Standing Committee of the People's Council, the important factor is to choose the content and conclusions after the explanation to ensure accuracy. Photo: Mai Hoa

Since the beginning of the term, the Provincial People's Council has organized 6 thematic supervision sessions; 6 question-and-answer sessions with 12 contents at 6 meetings; 5 explanation sessions of the Provincial People's Council Standing Committee on 5 different topics. For the District People's Council, 2-4 thematic supervision sessions of the People's Council have been organized; 1-4 explanation sessions of the People's Council Standing Committee and question-and-answer activities have been organized regularly at the People's Council meetings.

Many factors affect the quality of People's Council operations.

In addition to the changes, many opinions also shared the difficulties and limitations in the operation process. Mr. Tran Huu Dan - Vice Chairman of the People's Council of Que Phong district said that the People's Council delegates were elected according to the structure, so the quality of some delegates was limited. On the other hand, the structure of some full-time People's Council delegates in the People's Council Committees was not of good quality; while the subjects of supervision in the departments and specialized agencies of the People's Committee all had specialized expertise and experts, affecting the activities of the People's Council.

Regarding the issue of thematic supervision of the People's Council, although the Law stipulates inviting experts to participate, experts in the fields that the People's Council chooses to supervise are all subjects of supervision, so the locality has not yet exploited this team.

Delegates discussed on the sidelines of the conference. Photo by Mai Hoa

Also mentioning the human factor, Vice Chairwoman of the People's Council of Nghia Dan district, Lai Thi Bich Lien, said that in addition to limited qualifications and capacity, some People's Council delegates, including members of the monitoring delegation, lack courage and responsibility, so even though they know and have a firm grasp of the issues, they do not speak up or do not dare to speak up.

Based on the practical exchange of thematic supervision activities, questioning of the People's Council and explanation of the Standing Committee of the People's Council of districts and towns, at the conference, Vice Chairman of the Provincial People's Council Hoang Viet Duong discussed many contents to improve the quality of the People's Council's activities in the coming time.

The Standing Committee of the People's Council at the district level needs to closely follow the provisions of the Law on Organization of Local Government, the Law on Supervisory Activities of the National Assembly and People's Councils to carry out activities, especially the specialized supervisory activities of the People's Council and the explanation of the Standing Committee of the People's Council newly prescribed by law; avoid the situation of doing what is easy and abandoning what is difficult.

Vice Chairman of the Provincial People's Council Hoang Viet Duong emphasized a number of issues that the Standing Committee of the District People's Council needs to pay attention to. Photo: Mai Hoa

Organizing activities needs to focus on choosing content that reflects life, to ensure a better sense of responsibility, awareness of compliance with laws and regulations of agencies, organizations and individuals, contributing to solving practical problems.

To ensure the effectiveness of activities, the Standing Committee of the People's Council of the districts needs to pay attention to monitoring and urging the implementation of recommendations and proposals after monitoring and conclusions after questioning and explaining; at the same time, if necessary, organize thematic monitoring.

The Vice Chairman of the Provincial People's Council also acknowledged the recommendations of the Standing Committees of the District People's Councils regarding increasing the structure of full-time People's Council delegates, reducing the number of part-time People's Council delegates working in State administrative agencies; recommendations and proposals for the Standing Committee of the Provincial People's Council to intervene in resolving urgent and prominent issues in localities beyond the authority of the district level.