Unification of job titles, mergers and the difficult problem of reducing public staff

It is very difficult but reducing public employees, especially leadership staff, must be a problem that must be solved. The budget can hardly bear the huge civil service system of the country as it is now.

Public personnel here, in addition to civil servants, also include leaders at all levels from the central to local levels. The need to reduce the staffing of the apparatus has never been as urgent as it is now. Because the inflation of leadership is an unacceptable reality. Especially deputy leaders.

At the national online conference to study and disseminate the resolutions of the 6th Central Committee, Session 12, on November 29, 2017, Head of the Central Organizing Committee Pham Minh Chinh spent the whole morning analyzing Resolution No. 18 on "Some issues on continuing to innovate and reorganize the political system to be streamlined and operate effectively and efficiently". In which he gave some figures that surprised many people: "The whole country currently has more than 81,000 deputy leaders from deputy department heads to deputy ministers, accounting for 21.7% of the total number of civil servants from the Central to district levels.

For every 5 officials and civil servants, there is 1 deputy leader. In some places, there are 44/46 leaders, and in some agencies, 100% of the staff are leaders, and no one is a specialist. Meanwhile, the number of department heads in the departments is up to 337 people, with the Ministry of Finance alone having 181 department heads. The number of department heads in central agencies is 218 people.

There are numbers that are hard to imagine even with a rich imagination. “There is a department with 6 department heads, 7 deputy department heads, department heads, deputy department heads, and even a department with 19 deputy department heads.” Clearly, the inflation of leadership has reached a level that is difficult to control.

If we only count the Central agencies, Party committees, Unions, State… the number of cadres definitely has overlapping titles and tasks, and what will happen? It is not difficult to answer that the work efficiency is not high and of course, having a position with a title will come with salary, responsibility and work expenses. The budget will have to pay a large amount for the absurdity of this widespread promotion. If we add the numbers from localities, the solution to the problem of reducing public personnel will become more complicated and difficult.

It is very difficult but reducing public employees, especially leadership staff, must be a problem that is solved. Illustrative photo

There have been questions from National Assembly deputies in the parliament over the past few years about the title "rank". According to Minister of Home Affairs Nguyen Thai Binh, the regulations on appointing officials do not mention this title. This is essentially just a title applied by some competent agencies.

Although not an official title according to the law, “rank” still has its own regimes for each level. In which, perhaps the expression of “rank” is more than the rights and obligations. The title “rank” of department head or deputy department head… certainly cannot create more efficiency in work. As for whether it causes any obstacles, perhaps those involved are too familiar. The conferring of “rank” titles is still a consequence that cannot be resolved.

Also at the conference, Head of the Central Organizing Committee Pham Minh Chinh also pointed out the overlapping functions and tasks between some Party and government organizations as well as ministries and branches. For example, the Party organization work with the Home Affairs agency at the same level, the government inspection with the Party's inspection committee.

These overlaps and duplications can only be ended by bold reform. Fortunately, there have been the first positive signs of unifying titles and merging agencies to solve the problem of reducing public staff. And Quang Ninh is the pioneering pilot that has brought about unexpected but positive results.

Quang Ninh has now unified the titles of district, commune, and village leaders. Some secretaries concurrently hold the positions of chairman and village, hamlet, and neighborhood chief. It is worth noting that a number of officials have been successfully appointed according to the model of Chairman of the Inspection Committee concurrently being Chief Inspector, Head of the Organization Committee concurrently being Head of the Internal Affairs Department... In particular, Quang Ninh has boldly merged a number of district-level agencies with similar functions such as the Medical Center with the district hospital, merging the district Radio and Television Station with the Cultural and Sports Center...

I believe that these are strong signals of innovation and reorganization of the political system in accordance with the spirit of Resolution 18. The unification of a series of positions and the merger of a number of departments and administrative units at the district level of Quang Ninh have proven to be very effective.

Reducing countless leadership positions, preventing overlapping functions and tasks, saving the budget hundreds of billions of dong in salaries and working expenses. But most importantly, the streamlining of the apparatus and the concentration of leadership will create positive effects on administrative reform, apparatus reform and the highest goal is economic reform.

However, Quang Ninh is still in the pilot phase and still faces many difficulties and obstacles. Because there are specific characteristics between Party and government agencies, unification of leadership is possible, but merging is another story. But I believe that these are real reforms that are suitable for real conditions. If supported and with personal efforts, I believe Quang Ninh will do well with this pilot model. The success will be a lesson to apply to reforms of the entire system from the Central to local levels throughout the country.

Coming back to the numbers of deputy leaders, I think there is definitely a lot of redundancy or at least overlapping and duplicated tasks. Who will be responsible for this promotion? When I was still working, I was "resource planning" so I understand that the process of appointing cadres is very strict in each stage.

To allow for the current widespread promotion, it is not difficult to assign responsibility. Whoever signs the appointment must bear the highest and direct responsibility. However, no one has ever signed an appointment of an official without following the correct procedure, as the Government Inspector General did before his retirement and was disciplined.

It is very difficult but reducing public personnel, especially leadership personnel, must be a problem that must be solved. The budget can hardly bear any more with the country's huge civil service system as it is now. Let's start by reducing leadership positions as a premise and by measures of unifying titles and merging to solve the problem of reducing public personnel. There is no other way!

According to Vietnamnet.vn