Nghe An: Provincial People's Council moves towards 'paperless meetings'

Delegates vote to pass a resolution at the 2nd session of the 18th Nghe An Provincial People's Council. Photo: Thanh Cuong

The session took place in mid-August in the context of the Covid-19 pandemic, the entire political system focused on disease prevention and control. Therefore, the Standing Committee of the Provincial People's Council decided to shorten the session from the usual 2.5 days to 1.5 days. In the special context, requiring special measures, the Provincial People's Council did not organize a discussion session in groups, but all meeting documents were sent early to the Provincial People's Council delegates for comments and discussions in 21 delegation groups. Reports summarizing the discussion opinions and comments of the delegation groups were sent to the Office of the National Assembly Delegation and the Provincial People's Council for synthesis and reporting at the session.

At that time, because Quynh Luu district was implementing regulations on Covid-19 epidemic prevention according to Directive 16 of the Prime Minister, the invited guests and delegates of the Provincial People's Council working in Quynh Luu district attended and followed the meeting via live television. The meeting secretariat was responsible for supporting and receiving comments and suggestions from delegates via the telephone system and the internet to forward to the meeting chair.

Along with that, at the recent 2nd session, the Provincial People's Council did not conduct group discussions, but before the session, the Provincial People's Council assigned groups of Provincial People's Council delegates to study documents, discuss and contribute opinions to the contents of the session; synthesize and send reports to the Standing Committee of the Provincial People's Council.

At the discussion session in the hall, the chairman of the session requested the delegates of the Provincial People's Council to focus on discussing the key contents; in particular, the requirement is that the discussion content should be concise, clarify the issues, and clarify the responsibilities of each sector and each level; not to repeat the contents that have been summarized in the Report presented by the Secretariat; the explanations of the departments, branches and sectors should be quick, concise, correct and on the issues mentioned by the delegates. Regarding other Resolutions presented at the session, the discussion focused on the contents that still had different opinions between the reviewing agency and the agency submitting the draft, issues that have a great impact on the socio-economic situation of the province, on the daily life and production of the people and voters.

Delegates attending the working session on the morning of August 13 at the 2nd session of the 18th Nghe An Provincial People's Council. Photo: Thanh Cuong

Through observing the session, it can also be seen that the Chairman of the session requested the Provincial People's Committee to direct departments, branches and sectors to fully attend the discussion session; monitor, record and summarize all discussion opinions of delegates by field, especially paying attention to discussion opinions on draft resolutions submitted to the session. For the contents that departments, branches and sectors have accepted, the Chairman requested that at the end of the discussion session, they must be edited in the draft resolution and sent to the Office of the National Assembly Delegation and the Provincial People's Council so that the Office can forward them to the Chairman, the session secretary and the delegates of the Provincial People's Council for study and consideration in the next session. Each turn of the Provincial People's Council delegates to discuss shall not exceed 3 minutes. Directors of departments and heads of sectors participating in the discussion shall have 10 minutes to answer and clarify related contents. In case there are still issues that have not been agreed upon and need to be debated, delegates shall have no more than 2 times to debate again, the debate time shall not exceed 2 minutes each time.

Mr. Vi Van Quy - Head of the Delegation of the Provincial People's Council in Quy Hop district highly appreciated the management work at the session, including the content of the adoption of draft resolutions that had been innovated in a more scientific direction. Accordingly, the delegates discussed and requested the Provincial People's Committee and relevant sectors to absorb and edit the draft resolutions. After being absorbed and edited, the resolutions were transferred by the Office of the National Assembly Delegation and the Provincial People's Council to the mailboxes of the delegates (the edited part is in bold and italics) for the delegates to follow. Therefore, unlike the previous sessions, at this session, at the session to consider and approve the resolutions, the Secretariat did not present the draft resolutions in turn, but the Chairman immediately asked for comments and suggestions from the Provincial People's Council delegates; if the delegates had no comments, a vote was taken to approve them.

Panorama of the 2nd session of the 18th term Nghe An Provincial People's Council.

In particular, through monitoring and reporting at the meeting, it can be seen that the Provincial People's Council has made new progress in applying information technology to its activities. At the seats of each Provincial People's Council delegate, guest, and reporter, there is a QR code, which can be scanned using a smartphone or tablet to the address to exploit documents that have been digitized into files in pdf format. With the increased application of information technology in the activities of the Provincial People's Council, the effective implementation of document, file, and document management using software has limited the use of printed documents in daily activities and meetings, thereby not only contributing to savings, but also helping to exploit documents more effectively and scientifically. However, in order to facilitate delegates, guests, and reporters to exploit and process documents via the network environment, in the upcoming meetings, the organizing committee should pay more attention to improving the quality of the Internet connection. According to delegate Vi Van Quy, in the coming time, when the application of information technology in meetings is comprehensively deployed, it is necessary to organize training for delegates so that the usage process is smooth and uniform.

It can be said that the 2nd Session of the 18th Provincial People's Council has initially made innovations in the preparation and organization of the session. This is an important premise to continue improving the quality of the upcoming sessions of the Provincial People's Council; in which, focusing on innovating the method of organizing and conducting discussions at the session; selecting discussion and questioning contents that are close to reality, issues that are of interest to the majority of voters, associated with the responsibility of quick - concise - thorough explanation of relevant authorities.

In particular, in the coming time, the Provincial People's Council will strongly apply technology to fundamentally change the organization and working methods as Comrade Thai Thanh Quy - Member of the Party Central Committee, Secretary of the Provincial Party Committee, Head of the Provincial National Assembly Delegation, Chairman of the Provincial People's Council emphasized in his closing speech of the session, which is to strengthen the application of information technology, towards effectively applying the model of "paperless meetings", managing data and documents of the Provincial People's Council with software.