"3 in 1" birth registration procedure: Creating convenience for people

(Baonghean) - Previously, when a child was born, the family had to go to 3 agencies to register the birth, register permanent residence and issue a health insurance card for the child: the People's Committee of the commune; the district, city and town police and the insurance agency with at least 6 trips. Now, people only have to go 2 times to submit the application and get the results, the time to process the procedures is greatly shortened. This is a "3 in 1" birth registration procedure that has been effectively implemented in Nghe An in recent times.

On December 15, 2014, the Provincial People's Committee issued Plan No. 7402/QD - UBND on the implementation of Decision No. 1299/QD - TTg dated August 4, 2014 of the Prime Minister approving the Project on interconnecting administrative procedures: Birth registration, permanent residence registration, and health insurance card issuance for children under 6 years old in the province. By May 2015, Joint Circular No. 05/2015/TTLT - BTP - BCA - BYT of the Ministry of Justice, Public Security, and Health was issued, guiding the interconnection of these procedures. However, before Joint Circular No. 05 was issued, some localities in the province in Hung Nguyen and Thanh Chuong had taken the lead in issuing "3-in-1" birth certificates for children under 6 years old.

Judicial officers of Huong Son commune (Tan Ky) guide people through the "3 in 1" birth registration procedure.

Mr. Phan Van Truong, Deputy Head of the Justice Department of Hung Nguyen District, said: “Previously, birth registration, permanent residence registration and health insurance card issuance for children under 6 years old were carried out separately at different management departments. People had to go to the commune People's Committee and the district police many times. At the same time, they had to provide the competent authorities with a lot of personal information, including duplicate information such as: full name, date of birth, ethnicity, nationality, place of residence, father's and mother's names... causing waste of time, effort and increased costs. When Circular 05 was issued, its implementation in the district was relatively smooth.”

To implement the form of connecting administrative procedures: birth registration, permanent residence registration, health insurance card issuance for children under 6 years old, the People's Committees of communes and towns in Hung Nguyen have organized training sessions, thoroughly instilling the spirit to one-stop-shop staff as well as judicial staff; at the same time, organizing propaganda of the content of the circular, providing guidance to people through mass media such as loudspeaker systems, at conferences, meetings of organizations and unions. Hung Thong commune is one of the communes that has done well in issuing "3 in 1" birth certificates for children under 6 years old in Hung Nguyen.

Mr. Cao Sy Dong, a judicial officer of the commune, said: “Previously, because of having to travel a lot and go to different agencies to carry out these procedures for their children, some people only made birth certificates for their children without registering permanent residence and health insurance cards. When children were seriously ill and had to be hospitalized, their family members would go to make health insurance cards or when the children were about to enter first grade, their families would register their household registration. Not to mention the situation where many different agencies handle the same type of procedure, which can easily lead to inconsistent information on some documents, causing difficulties for state management and inconvenience for people when carrying out administrative and civil transactions... Now with this new procedure, people only need to do the procedure once, saving them from having to travel a lot, so they are very excited to welcome it. Since the beginning of the year, all 70 cases of children born in the commune have been registered for birth in the form of “3 in 1”.

Up to now, after Circular 05 was issued, all districts, cities and towns in the province have simultaneously implemented the interconnection of birth certificates, permanent residence registrations and health insurance cards for children under 6 years old. People only have to come twice to submit their applications and get results, the time to process procedures according to regulations is no more than 15 days.

Through research, judicial officers of communes said that to implement the current "3 in 1" or "2 in 1" model, officers assigned to the task must travel to many places; must keep a number of important original documents such as household registration books, but when issuing documents to organize implementation, the costs for implementation as well as unexpected situations during the process of handling documents (lost documents, accidents...) have not been carefully calculated.

Ms. Kieu Thi Hue, Head of the Department of Administrative Justice (Department of Justice) said: “Administrative procedures that want to have quick results depend mainly on the awareness and responsibility of each officer, in each specific stage, from the officer receiving the documents to the officers coordinating the implementation. However, in order for the “3 in 1” birth registration procedure as well as other administrative procedures to be as effective as desired, there needs to be a reasonable calculation between reducing paperwork, reducing mechanical time... with increasing allowances and responsibilities of officers and civil servants. Responsibility always goes hand in hand with benefits, which is the long-term motivation, the foundation for joining hands to build an open and convenient public administration for the people”.

Minh Quan