The leadership outnumbers the employees: Who is wrong, and who is right?

No minister or provincial governor would be foolish enough to create additional departments or offices within their own apparatus. But appointing deputy heads of departments within established frameworks is certainly worthwhile.

On March 28th, the National Assembly's supervisory delegation worked with Hai Duong province regarding organization, staffing, and leadership... Many people were wondering how this province would "explain" the situation where nearly 100% of civil servants in some departments are also leaders...

But when I heard the Provincial Party Secretary himself say that everything in Hai Duong, even so, was in accordance with regulations, specifically regulations from the Central Government.

Other provinces are similar, just like Hai Duong. In short, is the story true, false, or partly true and partly false? Ultimately, who is right and who is wrong needs to be clarified, otherwise it's a pity for the people who keep hearing the same story without knowing who is right and who is wrong.

Photo: Thanh Binh

Prior to Hai Duong, the National Assembly's supervisory delegation also worked with several ministries and agencies and observed that in many units, there were more department-level leaders than staff members.

According to current regulations, the central government specifies how many departments a department should have (this is usually a circular from the Ministry of Interior and related ministries); it also stipulates that each department has a head and a maximum of two deputy heads. That's a matter for the central government.

The rest is up to the local authorities: The province decides how many staff members are allowed in that department. For example, Department A has 45 people. According to central government regulations, Department A is organized into 5 divisions. Therefore, the total leadership of Department A would be the Director + 3 Deputy Directors + 5 Division Heads + 10 Deputy Division Heads = 19 people (the maximum number of civil servants holding leadership positions in each division is 3).

In reality, some departments may have 4 or 5 staff members, meaning there are clearly more leading officials than employees, but this is still within regulations. Whether the appointments meet the standards and procedures is another matter.

Appointments made within the established framework, why not take them?

Similarly, at the central level, the Party Secretary of Hai Duong province hit the nail on the head with an issue that everyone has known about but never publicly discussed. It's exactly like the Hanoi People's Committee Chairman saying that police were present at beer stalls during a sidewalk enforcement campaign. The number of departments and bureaus each ministry is allowed to organize, and the number of offices within each department, is stipulated in a government decree.

Both the ministry and the province strictly adhere to this. The rest is up to the ministry: deciding how many people are in Department B, appointing the department head and deputy department heads, and heads and deputy heads of divisions within the department (assuming, according to government regulations, if the department has 3 divisions, the leading officials of the department would be: 1 department head, 3 deputy department heads, 3 division heads, and 6 deputy division heads = 13, while the overall staffing for the entire department is approved at 18 or 20).

In the end, there were more leaders than employees, yet the rules were still followed.

No minister or provincial governor would be foolish enough to create additional departments or offices within their apparatus; doing so would be disastrous. However, appointing deputy heads of departments within established frameworks is a viable option, motivating civil servants and gaining their support.

Many cases in one room on the West side.

This is the general situation throughout our country's administrative system (data for the Party and mass organizations is not yet available). So where does the problem lie?

The problem lies in the fact that decisions regarding the administrative structure are entirely subjective and arbitrary, lacking organizational analysis to determine job positions and the structure of civil servants within an organization.

The regulations from the beginning stipulated that Ministry X had 7 departments, of which 4 had no offices, and 3 had offices with a specific number of rooms. Similarly, provincial departments were given a fixed number of offices...

A closer examination of Vietnam's administrative apparatus reveals that many cases are at most equivalent to one department in a Western system; some cases in our country have 7 or 8 civil servants, and it's common to have 20-25 civil servants.

With 20 people and 3 rooms, it's certain that in the future, there will be more leaders than employees, and it will still be within regulations. The same applies at the local level. Therefore, the Party Secretary of Hai Duong has a point when he makes that statement.

The conclusion of this story would be: Just follow the regulations, and that will ensure everyone gets along. The central and local authorities should either continue as they are now, or seriously reconsider seemingly simple things like what constitutes a department, a division, or a bureau; when to organize departments and when to organize divisions; how to accurately determine the number of people in a department or division; and thus, the appropriate number of leaders in each department or division.

According to Vietnamnet.vn