Nghe An will develop criteria to evaluate the new administrative reform index.

(Baonghean.vn) -The new process will add a sociological investigation step, according to which after agencies and units self-assess and classify, the Department of Home Affairs will preside over a sociological investigation to proceed to the step of evaluating the self-assessment and classification results.

Overview of the meeting. Photo: Hoai Thu

8 groups of criteria for evaluating the PAR index

On the morning of August 17, comrade Le Xuan Dai - Member of the Provincial Party Standing Committee, Permanent Vice Chairman of the Provincial People's Committee chaired a meeting to invite directors of departments, heads of provincial-level departments and branches and leaders of Vinh City, Cua Lo Town, Hung Nguyen and Nghi Loc districts to participate in giving comments on amending and supplementing the set of criteria for evaluating, classifying and ranking administrative reform (AR) work to replace Decision 71/2015/QD-UBND dated December 2, 2015.

Before the delegates gave their comments, comrade Le Xuan Dai expressed the provincial leaders' guiding viewpoint and agreed on the spirit of the meeting to build more objective, clear, and specific evaluation criteria to improve Nghe An's administrative reform.

"We will resolutely criticize more severely those units that do not complete and implement administrative reform ineffectively." - The Standing Vice Chairman of the Provincial People's Committee affirmed. "The assessment is to demonstrate the awareness, capacity and responsibility for administrative reform of agencies and units; at the same time, explain the level at which the units and agencies themselves assign scores."

At the meeting, there were many comments on each item of the set of criteria for evaluating, classifying and ranking administrative reform work that the Department of Home Affairs had drafted based on the regulations of the Ministry of Home Affairs, including adjusting some items to suit the locality.

According to Mr. Le Dinh Ly - Deputy Director of the Department of Home Affairs, compared to the previously applied criteria, this set of criteria has some new points such as: there are 5 classification levels, including excellent (90 - 100 points), good (80 - 90 points), fair (65 - 80 points), average (50 - 65 points) and poor (below 50 points).

Director of the Department of Home Affairs Dau Van Thanh speaks at the meeting. Photo: Hoai Thu

The new process will add a sociological investigation step, according to which after agencies and units self-assess and classify, the Department of Home Affairs will preside over a sociological investigation to proceed to the step of evaluating the self-assessment and classification results.

Previously, only the Department of Home Affairs and the Provincial People's Committee evaluated and classified the implementation of administrative reform. In the near future, there will be more participation from a number of related departments and branches in the evaluation council.

According to Mr. Le Dinh Ly, in the coming time, along with tightening the quality of administrative reform assessment, we will move towards announcing the ranking of administrative reform in the province as the Central Government has long done with provinces and cities.

Mr. Ly also said that the criteria set has 8 groups of assessment criteria: administrative reform direction and management, development and implementation of legal documents, administrative procedure reform, administrative apparatus organization, building and improving the quality of cadres, civil servants and public employees, public finance reform, administrative modernization, implementation of one-stop and one-stop mechanisms.

Linking leadership ratings to administrative reform results

Commenting on the draft decision, Mr. Hoang Van Tam - Director of the Department of Industry and Trade proposed that it is necessary to select a sociological investigation organization by bidding and arrange reasonable funding for the steps. Mr. Tam also suggested adjusting the evaluation scale for the good category to 70 - 80 points.

Regarding the opinion of raising the score scale, the representative leaders of the Departments: Foreign Affairs, Home Affairs, and the Provincial Investment Promotion and Support Center agreed with the opinion of the representative leader of the Department of Industry and Trade.

However, the representative of the Department of Justice said that the scale should be kept the same. As for the year-end leadership evaluation, it should not be included because the annual evaluation of leaders includes many aspects, including administrative reform work, and a separate evaluation and assessment council should not be established.

Mr. Nguyen Van Hai - Deputy Director of the Provincial Investment Promotion and Support Center said that it is still necessary to establish an appraisal and evaluation council as well as to associate it with the evaluation and classification of agency leaders in implementing administrative reform to enhance the responsibility of the head because reality shows that where the head is determined in this work, the quality of administrative reform is high.

The delegation conducted a surprise inspection of the implementation of Directive 17/Ct-TU and Directive 26/CT-TTg in Chau Thon commune, Que Phong. Photo: Hoai Thu

Giving the unit's comments, the representative of the Provincial Police wondered whether or not to organize the assessment and classification of administrative reform at the commune level or should assign the district to be in charge of the assessment at the commune level; at the same time, it was suggested to classify the unit's leaders to enhance the responsibility of the head and should include the criteria of minus points and bonus points in the assessment and classification to increase efficiency.

Mr. Nguyen Tung Son - representative of the Provincial Inspectorate also agreed with the opinion that the year-end emulation ranking of heads and managers should be linked to the results of administrative reform implementation of that unit.

Mr. Son also suggested that there should be specific regulations for scoring agencies without affiliated units such as the Provincial Inspectorate and the Department of Foreign Affairs, because the draft does not have this regulation, and the Provincial Inspectorate should be added to the components participating in collecting opinions to evaluate and classify administrative reform work.

Another content that was discussed a lot by the delegates attending the meeting was the assessment and classification of administrative reform for public service units under the province such as universities and colleges, because this subject is not yet in the list of units with a set of criteria for assessment and classification of administrative reform.

Adding more about the determination to promote administrative reform, Mr. Le Duc Cuong - Chief of Office of the Provincial People's Committee said: "Starting from September 2017, the Provincial People's Committee will require units to report to the Department of Home Affairs on the progress and implementation of administrative reform to submit to the monthly meeting of the Provincial People's Committee. This is also one of the criteria used to evaluate the emulation ranking of agencies and units at the end of the year".

To improve the quality of administrative reform in the province, Mr. Nguyen Khanh Thuc expressed: It is necessary to enhance the role of the Department of Home Affairs in sociological investigation. The Department should not coordinate with departments, branches or districts to ensure objectivity. The evaluation and classification of administrative reform still seems to have a tendency to "encourage each other" because at the end of the year, most units are good, so it is necessary to be bolder and more strict.

The meeting received 14 comments and all will be received and adjusted by the Department of Home Affairs into the draft to be submitted at the Provincial People's Committee meeting on August 22, moving towards issuing a new Decision to improve the quality and effectiveness of administrative reform work in the province./.

Hoai Thu