Why is the payroll expanding?

The reduction of staff in the apparatus is always mentioned, but the situation has not improved, in some aspects the management and staffing levels are still expanding.

The cause can be seen as errors in the design of the apparatus and the lack of coordination in the operation mechanism of that apparatus, reflected in the decentralization of management along with the mechanisms as well as capacity building for local agencies (province and district).

The model of the central level has agencies, the locality also has agencies, forming vertical and horizontal lines. When there are decentralized tasks, the locality must add management units, increase the number of chiefs and deputy chiefs, and increase the staff.

On the other hand, even the central ministries have overlapping functions, but it seems that no one dares to touch them because they are "sensitive issues" and conflicts are avoided. Once a problem arises, it is difficult to assign specific responsibilities.

Photo: Hoang Long

Staffing is difficult to reduce.

Particularly, the main responsibility for developing human resources for the country should belong to the Ministry of Education and Training when there are problems with quality, labor productivity, imbalance in structure and qualifications, and student streaming...

The mere removal of the mechanism of the governing ministry in the management of higher education proposed 12 years ago in Resolution No. 14/2005/NQ-CP has not been implemented. Each ministry with a school has to create more work, more staff, and more focal points for managing training facilities...

The consequence is not only that the staff cannot be reduced, the autonomy and accountability of the training institution cannot be maximized, but work will spontaneously arise and the financial flow for salaries, projects and consulting services will follow, so how can waste and loss be avoided? For local training institutions, the situation is not much different.

Regarding public service units, there is also a lack of development planning and no other country does it like us. In one area, there are too many universities, colleges (both public and private) and provincial and district-level centers.

Impractical administrative procedures

Complicated administrative procedures are also one of the causes of bloated apparatus and staff.

Decentralization to localities needs to be synchronized to reduce administrative procedures and overly strict regulations, but it is not very effective.

There is perhaps a lack of trust between policy-making agencies and local implementing agencies.

The lesson of the Ministry of Industry and Trade is to reduce over 675 business conditions in administrative procedures, which will certainly reduce staff and streamline the apparatus, and is worth considering for many ministries and sectors.

Management loopholes

This limitation is primarily the responsibility of the internal affairs sector at all levels and those working in the organization.

Human resource management thinking from the bureaucratic administrative period is still lingering, while the world is shifting to strategic human resource management.

If human resource management is related to recruitment, hiring, personnel arrangement, and salary payment according to regulations, strategic human resource management (HRM) is a systematic approach to human resource management, linked to the overall development strategy of an agency or unit, flexible and adaptable to achieve the organization's goals.

The big gap is that most of the organizational staff of human resource management agencies from central to local levels are not professionally trained to have human resource management skills and therefore have difficulty in having enough capacity to advise on the effective management of this invaluable resource.

From that lack of skills, the design of job positions according to job descriptions and the mechanism for evaluating the capacity and qualities of civil servants are ineffective. Screening out weak civil servants is very difficult at both the central and local levels.

According to Vietnamnet.vn