“Public administration reform” phrase has been repeated many times for years, but how is this work going on? Vietnamese people and enterprises are very anxious about this question.
As directed by the Vietnamese Government, Minister of Home Affairs has started with the Public Administration Reform index - PAR Index, rating administration reform of ministers, sectors and provinces, hoping the reform would be more exactly assessed and evaluated.
Warnings previously issued
Assessment and evaluation of criteria and their elements to identify PAR Index are implemented by three methods. Firstly, ministers and provinces grade themselves with regulated norms. Secondly, the Minister of Home Affair assesses these grades, and marks them with consultation of appraisal committee. Thirdly, assessment is made by people and enterprises in a social survey, so-called beneficiary from public administration reform.
According to Mr Dinh Duy Hoa, Director of Public Administration Reform Department, PAR Index may measure satisfaction of people in administration and public services like: index of education, health, or one-stop shop policies of suburban districts after constructing and implementing processes. These indices in long-term will introduce new effective methods to measure and evaluate public administration reforms.
Minister of Home Affairs hopes that PAR Index will assess precisely strong and weak points of public administration reform, as well as help ministries, ministry-level authorities, provinces and cities review, assess changes on targets and contents of annual public administration reform. Consequently, units will submit appropriate solutions to improve results of their public administration reform.
Mr Hoa commented that the index will help leaders identify weak fields and contents of their public administration reform; otherwise, there will be no cure for incompetent public administration!
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Deputy Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc
The index should be objectively viewed as follows: The weakness of public administration reform is not due to lack of the index, the core problem lies in methods, people conducting reform and especially political determination of leaders of administration units. It is important to have professional, competent and responsible staff. Public servants must be a model of preventing against negatives and corruption.
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Clear-cut prizes or fines
Danang is a typical example of actively improving its PAR Index. This central city has obtained the highest point among localities across the nation. Mr Dang Cong Ngu, Director of Danang Home Affairs Department shared that Danang has completed a system of monitoring and assessing public administration reform, in which they have applied assessment software and online ranking. The new index has many improvements to direct Danang’s public administration reform. Units pay close attention and adjust weaknesses through PAR Index. Danang has done research on international and domestic public servant assessment models, then constructed criteria package and assessment method, implemented pilot programmes in all administration units in the city.
Mr Nguyen Si Dung, Vice Chairman of the National Assembly Office said that 2014 is identified as “Year of institutional reform”; therefore, it is crucial to construct professional public affairs. Otherwise, it is very difficult to reform institution and public administration. Politicized administration system with current way of arranging staff should not be maintained because it will mislead public affair administration system.
When asked about PAR index, many enterprises answered that public administration reform has been ranked by different organisations. However, this time the Ministry of Home Affairs will conduct according to the Government’s direction. To make public administration reform a high and practical politic determination, a system of prize and fine should be clearly constructed. For example, if a given ministry or province has weak and unimproved index should consider over positions of its leaders, even the highest position.
This is the first time the Ministry of Home Affairs has public administration reform index, so-called PAR Index of all ministries and provinces. Central ministries are assessed and compared at the same level and so do other provinces. PAR Index at ministry-level includes 7 fields, 31 criteria and 89 components. PAR Index at province level includes 8 fields, 34 criteria and 104 components.
BT
Vietnamese
