What will the merger of the three Offices of the National Assembly Delegation, People's Council and People's Committee be like?

The outstanding advantage of the pilot implementation of the merger of the 3 Offices of the National Assembly Delegation, the Office of the People's Council and the Office of the People's Committee into a common office is to minimize the number of office organizations, the number of organizations within the office and the number of management leaders. The functions and tasks of the organizations under the common office are clearly defined and do not overlap. The operating costs and facilities, working conditions and means of the office are centrally managed by one management agency.

These are the assessments reported by the Government to the National Assembly Standing Committee on the results of implementing Resolution 580/2018/UBTVQH14. But whether the reduction of focal points actually creates operational efficiency for each of these agencies or not requires objective and scientific assessment.

Mergers cause disruption in local government operations

At the local level, in the process of performing the functions and tasks of the National Assembly Delegation and the People's Council, although more or less related, the relationship between these two agencies is still vague, ineffective, lacking in binding and connection. This leads to activities such as monitoring and resolving opinions and recommendations of voters, representatives, and elected bodies being untimely, not strict, and sometimes overlapping, so it has not created a combined strength in the activities of elected bodies.

According to Mr. Tran Van Mung, Head of the Culture - Social Committee, Kien Giang Provincial People's Council, the pilot merger of the three Offices of the National Assembly Delegation, the Office of the People's Council and the Office of the People's Committee will cause disruption and even conflict in the activities of local governments.

“The best solution is to merge the Office of the People’s Council and the Office of the National Assembly Delegation because these two offices are both elected bodies: one elected body of the National Assembly and one elected body of the locality. I think that way, firstly, there will be no disruption, secondly, similar functions and tasks will operate better,” said Mr. Tran Van Mung.

When merging three offices, two agency focal points equivalent to the department level in each locality will be reduced, corresponding to a reduction of two department heads and three deputy heads, many department heads and department heads and deputy heads. However, the merger should be designed in a suitable model, ensuring the dual goals of compact focal points and efficiency, which need to be calculated more fully when piloting the merger of three offices. This is an issue that still receives many different opinions.

The biggest advantage of the merger of the three Offices of the National Assembly Delegation, the Office of the People's Council and the Office of the People's Committee is the streamlining of the focal point. However, many limitations and difficulties of this merger were pointed out by National Assembly deputies during the discussion session of the Draft Law amending and supplementing a number of articles of the Law on the Organization of the National Assembly at the 9th session of the 14th National Assembly. Streamlining focal points and reducing staffing are among the outstanding advantages of the pilot implementation. However, looking more deeply into the actual implementation in the locality, Mr. Nguyen Tao, Deputy Head of the National Assembly Delegation of Lam Dong province, said that the pilot merger is still mechanically assembled with the goal of ensuring the maintenance of the advisory and service work of the 3 offices as before, so there have not been many innovations to operate more effectively and efficiently.

“Compact but effective?”

The General Office performs advisory functions and tasks, serving many different subjects with 3 direct superior entities: the National Assembly Delegation, the People's Council - the elected body, the State's power agency, supervising the implementation of legal policies at the local level and the People's Committee - the administrative agency, implementing legal policies and being the executive body of the People's Council. Therefore, it is difficult to ensure objectivity in advisory activities for the State management work of the People's Committee and the supervision work of the National Assembly Delegation and the People's Council.

“Compact but effective or not?” is the question raised by many National Assembly deputies. Deputy Nguyen Quoc Han, National Assembly Delegation of Ca Mau province, said that the National Assembly Standing Committee needs to evaluate and summarize the activities of the Office of the National Assembly Delegation since its separation until now. Because when separating the two offices into independent ones as is currently being implemented in most localities, the previous National Assembly must have carefully considered the necessity, scientific basis, theoretical basis and practical basis.

“We need to evaluate the activities of the Union since its separation until now, and see if there have been any changes after 5 years that we are considering merging again. If it is to implement Resolution No. 39 of the Politburo, we need to evaluate the effectiveness and efficiency of the office when merging to avoid mechanical mergers,” emphasized delegate Nguyen Quoc Han, National Assembly Delegation of Ca Mau province.

Many National Assembly deputies share the view that the Office of the People's Committee should be kept intact. However, the question of whether or not to merge the Office of the National Assembly Delegation and the Office of the Provincial People's Council has not yet convinced many National Assembly deputies. This option also needs to be considered thoroughly and scientifically based on the functions and tasks of these agencies. Avoid implementing it mechanically, in a piecemeal, or mechanical manner. The determination of the staff and support apparatus must be based on the position, role, nature, and scope of activities of the leading and directing entity in order to be implemented stably and long-term.

Shared offices are difficult to ensure objectivity.

The Government's report at the recent meeting of the National Assembly Standing Committee said that in 12 pilot localities, 11 places merged all 3 offices. Ho Chi Minh City alone only piloted the merger of the Office of the National Assembly Delegation with the People's Council. The pilot streamlining was carried out in 27 department-level units, reducing 14 administrative civil servants, 18 career civil servants, 23 chiefs of office and 3 deputy chiefs of office compared to before. At the end of 2019, 6 localities had more deputy chiefs than prescribed. Despite minimizing the number of office organization points and the number of organizations within, the Government admitted that the common office was difficult to ensure objectivity due to consulting and serving many agencies at the same time.

This inevitably leads to the situation of “both playing football and blowing the whistle”, the merger is still mechanical, only reducing the number of leaders, not reducing the number of deputy leaders and civil servants leading and managing at the department level. Therefore, the Government agrees with the proposal of the majority of localities implementing the pilot that only the Office of the National Assembly Delegation and the Office of the People's Council should be merged, while the Office of the Provincial People's Committee should be kept intact.

Standing Vice President of the National Assembly Tong Thi Phong commented that initially, the agencies have been streamlined in terms of focal points, but the advisory work still has issues to discuss because the advisory and service objects of these three supporting agencies are different entities. Regarding the proposal to merge the Office of the National Assembly Delegation and the Office of the People's Council of the Government, Standing Vice President of the National Assembly Tong Thi Phong frankly said that the Government's report has not clearly stated the effectiveness or consequences of how many personnel we have arranged, has not clearly stated how much money will be earned from the economic efficiency of the rearrangement, has not clearly stated the effectiveness or consequences of the innovation in the working methods of cadres after the arrangement. Regarding paperwork, the merger is also confusing.

Affirming that whether or not to merge the Office of the National Assembly Delegation and the Office of the People's Council is an issue that needs further discussion to make a thorough decision, National Assembly Chairwoman Nguyen Thi Kim Ngan stated her opinion: "Each organization in the political system has different functions, so there must be an organization serving with different functions. The majority of opinions say that merging all three offices is not possible. Whether or not to merge the Office of the National Assembly Delegation with the People's Council depends on the upcoming amendment to the Law on Organization of the National Assembly. We are implementing the Central Resolution, we must rearrange and streamline the payroll, but it is not a mechanical arrangement."

Streamlining the apparatus but must aim at efficiency, improving the quality of operations. That is the meaning, the requirement of the reorganization and rearrangement. Therefore, the merger of 3 offices or the organization of 3 separate offices needs to be objective, scientific, and evaluated from many perspectives in theory and practice./.

PV