Building a team of "smart", straightforward and honest social opinion collaborators

Chairman of the Provincial People's Committee Nguyen Xuan Duong inspects the brick and tile production line at Tan Ky Tunnel Brick Factory. Photo: Dao Tuan (TL)

Tan Ky is a district with many advantages in socio-economic development, attracting many large-scale investment projects. However, the implementation of the projects has encountered many difficulties and obstacles. The grasp of public opinion in some areas has not been paid attention by the Party committees and authorities, so there are still cases of people complaining.

In order to innovate the work of capturing public opinion information, building a team of social opinion collaborators with sufficient capacity to meet the requirements in the new situation, the Standing Committee of Tan Ky District Party Committee has established a team of social opinion collaborators at the district level. The activities of this team in recent times have demonstrated innovation in propaganda work.

For example, the land dispute between Kieu Phuong Company Limited located in Nghia Dung Commune (Tan Ky) and households in Quang Thanh Commune, Yen Thanh District, has lasted for more than 10 years but has not been completely resolved.

Although the authorities at all levels have invited households to directly participate in the process of inspection, field measurement, and record-keeping, the majority of households have not cooperated, causing difficulties for the authorities in performing their duties; such as the work of clearing the land of 10 kiosks in front of the District Library gate, resolving land disputes in the Cua tile-making village industrial park, etc. are typical examples.

In recent years, the work of grasping public opinion in Tan Ky district, directly chaired by the District Party Committee's Propaganda Department, has proactively grasped the thoughts, aspirations and concerns of the people, thereby promptly reporting to the Party Committee to propose effective solutions.

However, according to the assessment of the District Party Committee's Propaganda Department, the propaganda team at some bases is both lacking and weak, their ability to grasp and analyze the situation is limited, they are afraid of conflicts, sometimes they are respectful and avoid sensitive issues, so the quality is not high, they do not accurately reflect reality, and they have not built a network of public opinion collaborators.

Being close to the people is the way for the public opinion team of Tan Ky district to quickly grasp the social and ideological situation. Photo: My Nga

Recognizing the importance of this issue, on February 20, 2017, the Standing Committee of Tan Ky District Party Committee decided to establish a team of social opinion collaborators at the district level. The goal is to improve the quality of close contact with the grassroots, grasp the thoughts of cadres, party members and people on major issues, meet increasing demands, forecast public opinion promptly and accurately and propose solutions to provide correct guidance and decisions, resolutely not allowing "hot spots" to occur in the area.

The team of social opinion collaborators at the district level consists of 20 people, who are selected by the District Party Committee from the grassroots level, have prestige, are able to grasp information, have experience in ideological work, have prestige, communication skills and a high sense of responsibility.

Comrade Hoang Van Minh - Deputy Head of the District Party Committee's Propaganda Department, in charge of social information work, shared: "The district-level social opinion team has all members, not just leaders, some members are just commune-level civil servants. The district has determined the viewpoint that this team must be truly "sophisticated", sensitive, "working" independently, speaking frankly and honestly. They must be the ones who directly interact with the people every day, listening to their sharing about social issues. Only then can the Party Committees and authorities have accurate information to assess social issues of concern, thereby providing a basis for coming up with effective solutions."

Chairman of the Provincial People's Committee Nguyen Xuan Duong chaired a meeting with Tan Ky district to evaluate the results of the first 6 months of 2018. Photo: Dao Tuan (TL)

According to the operating regulations, the role and task of the social opinion team is to observe the developments in psychology, viewpoints, tastes, and perceptions in society to synthesize and generalize public opinion and promptly provide it to the Standing Committee. On that basis, to closely assess the social mood and ideology of the people, propose to the Party Committee and the government solutions to propagate, orient and resolve a number of issues of public concern in order to stabilize the situation in the district.

This practice requires each collaborator to increase extensive contact with all classes of people, be enthusiastic and dedicated to the job to grasp and promptly synthesize social opinions. After 1.5 years of operation, the team of social opinion collaborators of Tan Ky district has provided the District Party Committee with over 100 pieces of information on developments directly related to the lives of people and businesses.

Currently, the Standing Committee of the Social Opinion Team is coordinating with Party committees and authorities to pay attention to information surrounding issues such as: degraded traffic infrastructure and power grids, especially in remote areas; traffic of oversized and overloaded vehicles; solutions to prevent child drowning; food hygiene and safety issues; output prices of some agricultural products; counterfeit, fake, and poor quality goods affecting consumers; some issues related to the land sector...

In addition, in order to promptly support the team of social opinion collaborators, the Standing Committee of the District Party Committee also provides financial support, in accordance with Conclusion No. 100-KL/TW of the Central Party Secretariat on "Innovation and improvement of the quality of investigation, grasping and researching social opinion", currently district-level social opinion collaborators receive an allowance of 0.2% of their salary.

To meet the urgent tasks in the new situation, Deputy Head of the District Party Committee's Propaganda Department Hoang Van Minh said: Tan Ky District will regularly innovate and improve the quality of activities of the district-level social opinion collaborators, equip them with knowledge and skills, as well as exchange and encourage this force to fully promote its role in guiding the ideology of society. In particular, in the work of grasping public opinion information, social opinion collaborators must build a deep and wide information network, detect outstanding issues, promptly reflect and forecast the situation, and not let "hot spots" occur in the area.