Minister of Home Affairs Pham Thi Thanh Tra: Towards eliminating exams for senior experts and chief experts

Speaking at the opening ceremony of the civil servant promotion exam and administrative officer promotion from senior specialist to senior specialist in 2023, Minister of Home Affairs Pham Thi Thanh Tra emphasized many important contents related to innovation in the method of recognizing senior specialists.

The number of senior experts is too large.

Minister of Home Affairs Pham Thi Thanh Tra emphasized that this is a public service activity to select competent and qualified officials, civil servants, and administrative officers who meet the standards and conditions to be promoted to senior experts (the highest level of the civil servant title system).

"Therefore, we set very high requirements so that the exam can truly select capable, qualified and knowledgeable officials, civil servants and administrative officials," the Minister emphasized.

Therefore, when appointed as senior experts, central officials must have the ability to assess, evaluate, and build a system of institutions and policies at the macro level, and the ability to advise according to the requirements and political tasks set forth by central agencies.

For localities, these are cadres who are capable of forecasting, evaluating, advising or directly organizing the implementation of the Party's policies in the fields of industry and state management, especially for leadership personnel.

They must have the ability to advise, lead, direct, organize, implement, and build development strategies for the locality; have the vision and mindset to ensure the best management capacity, meeting the development requirements of the locality, agencies, and units.

According to the Minister of Home Affairs, civil servants and public employees who pass this exam will have the necessary and sufficient conditions to be appointed to the position of senior specialist.

“This is a very special exam. We consider this an exam through a very long journey of implementing the Law on Cadres and Civil Servants and the Government's decrees and circulars of the Ministry of Home Affairs. We are re-evaluating it to change the exam for senior specialists and senior specialists accordingly,” the Minister of Home Affairs informed.

From there, the Ministry of Home Affairs will consider which positions need senior experts at the local level, which positions in provincial leadership positions can be considered as senior experts based on the standards and conditions. This will be decentralized for implementation and the same will be done at the central level.

Noting that with current standards and conditions, the number of senior experts is too large, Minister Pham Thi Thanh Tra said that the Ministry of Home Affairs is advising the Government to issue a decree on standards for leadership positions at all levels, thereby determining how senior experts are specifically regulated for each position.

For example, at the Central level, it is necessary to determine which job positions require senior experts to train, foster, and orient them to become experts and advise on building a system of institutional policies.

“It is not like the current number is too large. In fact, there are also senior experts who, when in this position, do not meet the requirements in building the system of institutional policies. This is a real problem, so we have to overcome it to raise the standards according to the requirements,” said the Minister of Home Affairs.

From that meaning, the Minister affirmed that “this is a special exam”, creating the final transformation for the senior specialist exam. In the future, the form will change to aim at the goal of continuing to improve the quality of the staff, civil servants, and public employees, ensuring the highest quality requirements for senior specialists.

“We must constantly innovate”

According to Minister Pham Thi Thanh Tra, along with that, it will be necessary to restructure the team towards implementing salary payment according to job position and leadership title as Resolution 27 of the Central Executive Committee. Accordingly, it will correspond to which title in ministries and localities needs senior experts.

The Ministry of Home Affairs is currently seeking opinions from ministries, branches and localities to issue a decree related to this content. The Ministry will comprehensively revise the content related to the examination for senior specialists and chief specialists in a form that can be considered for selection.

Accordingly, it will target those who have met the standards and conditions, and are provincial leaders, so they do not have to take the selection exam. "We must continuously innovate," the Minister of Home Affairs emphasized.

Regarding civil servants, the Minister said that there is also a similar policy and the Ministry of Home Affairs has submitted to the Prime Minister to issue a Decree stipulating that civil servants will not have to take a promotion exam, but will be considered for promotion.

"In the coming time, we will review the implementation of the Law on Civil Servants and legal documents. We will eliminate exams or promotions for civil servant professional titles to innovate the civil service, aiming to build a civil service that serves the people, is professional, modern, streamlined, effective and efficient," the Minister of Home Affairs affirmed.

Thu Hang