Prime Minister: Do not let the situation of "hot above, cold below" happen in administrative reform

On the afternoon of November 14, at the Government headquarters, Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh - Head of the Government's Steering Committee for Administrative Reform chaired the sixth meeting of the Steering Committee.

The meeting was held in both direct and online formats, connecting from the Government headquarters to 63 provinces and centrally-run cities.

At Nghe An province, comrade Nguyen Duc Trung - Deputy Secretary of the Provincial Party Committee, Chairman of the Provincial People's Committee chaired. Attending were leaders of relevant departments, branches and localities: Vinh City, Nam Dan, Hung Nguyen, Nghi Loc.

MANY POSITIVE, COMPREHENSIVE CHANGES

Reports and opinions at the meeting unanimously assessed that in the first 10 months of 2023, administrative reform work has been requested by the Government, Prime Minister, and Head of the Steering Committee to ministries, branches, and localities to continue to have drastic, close, and specific innovations in leadership and direction of implementing important tasks and solutions.

The Government has organized 8 thematic meetings on law-making. Ministries and sectors have developed, submitted for promulgation or promulgated under their authority 247 legal documents. Localities have issued 1,540 provincial-level legal documents. In the third quarter of 2023, ministries and sectors have completed processing 186/190 legal documents; localities have completed processing 37/77 documents.

In the first 10 months of 2023, ministries and branches have cut and simplified 341 business regulations in 30 documents; simplified 437/1,086 administrative procedures. 5 localities cut and simplified 32 administrative procedures.

The rate of files with electronic administrative procedure settlement results of ministries and branches reached 26.93%, and that of localities reached 40.91%. The conversion from paper files to electronic files of ministries reached 82.42% (an increase of 30.73% over the same period in 2022), and that of localities reached 70.15% (an increase of 31.31% over the same period in 2022).

Regarding job positions, up to now, 20/20 ministries and ministerial-level agencies have issued Circulars guiding on job positions of specialized professional civil servants; 13/15 ministries and ministerial-level agencies have issued Circulars guiding on job positions of specialized professional civil servants.

The Government has issued Resolution No. 117/NQ-CP, Official Dispatch on the implementation of administrative unit arrangement at district and commune levels in the period of 2023 - 2025; Decree No. 73/2023 regulating the encouragement and protection of dynamic, creative cadres who dare to think, dare to do, dare to take responsibility for the common interest.

To date, 100% of ministries, branches and localities have completed connecting and synchronizing data with the National Database on cadres, civil servants and public employees. 36/63 localities have deployed smart command and control centers. The rate of full-process online public services out of the total number of eligible ones has reached 100%.

At the meeting, leaders of ministries, branches, localities and enterprises reported on achievements, difficulties and problems and proposed some solutions in the coming time.

DO NOT LET IT BE "HOT ABOVE, COLD BELOW"

In his concluding remarks, Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh acknowledged and highly appreciated the delegates for their frank, enthusiastic, responsible and practical opinions; and at the same time commended the ministries, branches and localities for their positive results in administrative reform in recent times.

However, the Prime Minister said that the awareness of some heads of agencies, units and localities in administrative reform work still has limitations; there are still outstanding debts and slow consultation on legal documents, especially documents detailing implementation; administrative procedure reform is still slow, many procedures are still cumbersome; the arrangement of the organization and administrative units is still not very effective.

In addition, administrative discipline and order are not strict, there are still cases of harassment and petty corruption; the socialization of public services has not had many breakthroughs; the construction of e-government has not met requirements and is still slow; the connection with the national population database is not high...

The Prime Minister said that the above shortcomings and limitations have both objective and subjective causes, with the subjective being the main cause. Some places are not resolute, lack creativity, and have not promoted the role of leaders; there is still a situation of "hot above, cold below"...

In the coming time, the Prime Minister requested to raise awareness of the role, position, importance and influence of administrative reform on the country's development. Promote synchronously and comprehensively 6 contents of administrative reform: Institutional reform; Administrative procedure reform; Reform of state administrative apparatus; Reform of civil service regime; Public finance reform; Building and developing e-Government and digital Government.

In particular, the Prime Minister emphasized the need to focus more on the grassroots level, resolve administrative procedures from the grassroots level, and take people and businesses as the center to create a breakthrough in administrative reform.

Ministries, sectors and localities need to avoid shirking responsibility, continue to review and innovate methods and approaches. Continue to strengthen discipline and order, review the contents of administrative reform; continue to issue and effectively implement policies; increase the reduction of administrative procedures...

Central and local working groups review legal documents. Leaders of ministries, branches and localities strictly perform the task of listening, dialogue and absorbing people's opinions in a substantive manner, avoiding formality. In particular, ministries and branches must completely resolve the backlog of documents.

Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh noted that when drafting documents, ministries and branches must review decentralization and delegation of power; cut unnecessary administrative procedures for people and businesses; and strengthen inspection, supervision and monitoring of public services.

At the meeting, Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh also assigned specific tasks to ministries, branches and localities.