Percentage of Respondents Who Said That Meetings With Commune/Ward People's Committee Officials To Resolve Problems Had Good Results (%)

In 2019, only 53.6% of businesses had to pay informal costs, the lowest level in the past 6 years [15, p60].

In 2019, 32.5% of enterprises said they had to pay unofficial fees to inspectors, while the figures for previous years were: 39.9% (2018); 44.9% (2017); 45.8% (2016) [15, p32].

The 2019 PAPI report also shows that the general picture of the performance of the civil service is changing positively. In 2016, 83.5% of respondents said that meetings with commune/ward People's Committee officials to resolve problems had good results. This number decreased to 81.01% in 2017, increased sharply in 2018 with 88.21% and decreased slightly to 87.33% in 2019, but still increased compared to 2016 and 2017 (Figure 3.3) [18].

88.21

87.33

83.5

81.01

2016

2017

2018

2019

Figure 3.3. Percentage of respondents who said that meetings with commune/ward People's Committee officials to resolve problems had good results (%)

Source: PAPI Report 2019

According to the 2019 SIPAS report, the percentage of people who believe that civil servants “cause trouble and harassment” and “suggest payment of money outside of fees/charges” has decreased gradually in recent years. The percentage of people who believe that civil servants “cause trouble and harassment” in 2017 was 3.35%; in 2018 it was 2.45% and by 2019 it had decreased to 1.41%.

The proportion of civil servants who said they “suggested paying extra fees/charges” decreased from 1.85% in 2017 to 1.42% in 2018 and 0.47% in 2019 [15, p30].

The results of the Thesis survey also show that most of the criteria for measuring personal ethics and professional ethics of civil servants are also assessed at a relatively high level. In which, the criterion: "Not involved in social evils" has the highest average score of 4.68 points, close to the absolute level (the absolute score is 5 points); the criterion "Complying with legal regulations on what civil servants are allowed and not allowed to do" reached 4.22 points; the criterion "Having a frugal, simple, honest, pure, healthy lifestyle..." reached 3.72 points; the criterion "Being an example in implementing the policies, laws of the Party and the State" reached 3.66 points. The remaining two criteria are "Complying with speech discipline" and "Being aware of improving qualifications and capacity" reaching 3.25 points and 3.13 points, respectively.

Table 3.5. Assessment scores on personal ethics and professional ethics of civil servants in TTCV

Criteria

Point Evaluate
Not involved in social evils	4.68
Comply with legal regulations on what civil servants can and cannot do allowed to do	4.22
Have a frugal, simple, honest, pure, healthy lifestyle...	3.72
Be a role model in implementing policies and laws. of the Party and State	3.66
Discipline in speech	3.25
Consciously improve qualifications and abilities	3.13

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Source: Thesis survey results

3.3.4.2. Limitations and problems

The issue of moral degradation of a part of civil servants has been mentioned in many documents of the Party and State and in many studies in recent years.

The documents of the 10th National Congress clearly pointed out this situation: "degeneration, change in politics, ideology, ethics and lifestyle; bureaucracy, corruption, waste, and harassment of people among a significant number of cadres and party members have occurred seriously and have not been prevented or pushed back, especially in public agencies, the fields of basic construction, land management, state-owned enterprise management and financial management, reducing people's trust" [111; pp. 263-264].

Although the Party and the State have identified this situation early on, the problem still persists. The Resolution of the 4th Conference of the 12th Party Central Committee on strengthening Party building and rectification; preventing and repelling the degradation of political ideology, morality, lifestyle, and manifestations of "self-evolution" and "self-transformation" within the Party has pointed out: "The degradation of political ideology, morality, and lifestyle of a significant number of cadres and Party members has not been repelled, and in some cases, it has become more sophisticated and complicated; corruption, waste, and negativity are still serious, concentrated among Party members holding positions in the State apparatus".

Resolution of the 7th Conference of the 12th Central Executive Committee on focusing on building a contingent of cadres at all levels, especially at the strategic level, with sufficient qualities, capacity and prestige, equal to the task, continues to affirm: “A significant number of cadres have faded ideals, reduced will, work superficially, are afraid of difficulties and hardships, have degraded political ideology, ethics, and lifestyle, and show signs of "self-evolution" and "self-transformation". Some leaders and managers, including those at the strategic level, lack exemplary behavior, have low prestige, and their capacity and qualities are not equal to the task, are bureaucratic, distant from the people, individualistic, and are involved in corruption, waste, negativity, and group interests”.

Directive No. 10/CT-TTG, dated April 22, 2019 of the Prime Minister on strengthening the handling and effective prevention of harassment and inconvenience to people and businesses in handling work also pointed out: "The service spirit and public ethics of a number of civil servants and public employees are still low, they have not fulfilled their responsibilities; discipline and administrative discipline in some places, on

Some areas still lack effective measures to rectify and overcome such as: tax, customs, land, licensing, practice certificates, investment, environment, construction, traffic police, specialized inspectors and some units providing public administrative services to serve the needs of people in communes, wards, medical examination and treatment facilities, education... In many areas of social life, in many sectors and at many levels, there is still a situation where civil servants and public employees, for personal gain, take advantage of their positions; take advantage of loopholes in mechanisms, policies and laws; take advantage of the trust and lack of understanding of policies and laws of a part of the people to harass, cause trouble, prolong the time to resolve work, resolve not in accordance with regulations, unfairly and objectively when resolving work related to people and businesses, causing frustration, eroding the trust of people and businesses, hindering socio-economic development [119].

According to the report at the National Conference summarizing the work of preventing and combating corruption in the period of 2013-2020: “In the period of 2013 to 2020, Party committees and inspection committees at all levels have disciplined more than 131,000 Party members. Since the beginning of the 12th Congress term, more than 87,000 cadres and Party members have been disciplined, of which more than 3,200 Party members have been disciplined for corruption; Disciplinary action has been taken against more than 110 officials under the Central Committee's management (27 Party Central Committee members, former Party Central Committee members, 4 Politburo members, former Politburo members, more than 30 generals in the armed forces)... Prosecution agencies nationwide have initiated, investigated, prosecuted, and tried at first instance more than 11,700 corruption, position, and economic cases, including 1,900 corruption cases, with nearly 4,400 defendants. The Steering Committee for Anti-Corruption alone has monitored and directed more than 800 cases and incidents at 3 levels, of which it has directly monitored and directed 133 cases, 94 serious and complicated corruption and economic incidents of public concern, brought 86 cases to first instance trial, 814 defendants, including 18 officials under the Central management who were criminally prosecuted (1 Politburo member, 7 members and former members of the Central Committee).

Party Central Committee, 4 Ministers, former Ministers, 7 general officers in the armed forces...)” [quoted from 122].

In recent studies, researchers also believe that the situation of violating civil servants' ethics still exists. Author Nguyen Xuan Phong said: "The situation of violating civil servants' ethics still occurs, the evils of corruption and waste have not decreased, and harassment and inconvenience to the people have not changed significantly" [70].

In the 2019 survey, the PAPI report pointed out that the situation of corrupt officials still exists, especially in some areas such as: granting land use right certificates: "Corruption and extortion in the service of granting land use right certificates have not changed. Although the rate of people having to pay extra fees to complete land use right certificates has decreased significantly after 2015, the change after the first sharp decrease in 2016 did not last long, but by 2019 this rate has tended to increase. In fact, this indicator increased significantly in 2019" [18, p. 19]. “The rate of enterprises reporting that they paid informal fees to speed up land procedures, after decreasing from 32% in 2017 to 30.8% in 2018, increased to 36% in 2019. The rate of enterprises reporting that they paid informal fees to inspectors and inspectors dropped impressively from 51.9% in 2017 to 39.3% in 2018, and remained around the same level in 2019 (39.3%). The rate of enterprises paying more than 10% of revenue for informal fees in 2019 was 7.5%, up slightly from 7.1% in 2018” [18, p. 25].

The survey results from the Thesis also show that, basically, issues related to personal ethics of civil servants are relatively good. However, there is still a certain percentage that believes that in agencies and units, there are still some civil servants violating principles and standards of professional ethics. For example, 25.5% of opinions believe that in agencies and units, there is still a situation where civil servants "Lack of awareness of improving qualifications"; 11.8% believe that there is still a situation

civil servants "violated the discipline of speech"; 3.6% said that there is still a situation of civil servants "violating the provisions of the law on what civil servants are and are not allowed to do" ( Table 3.10).

Table 3.10. Existence level of some phenomena related to professional ethics and personal ethics of administrative civil servants

Criteria

Universal variable	Little	Are not Have
Suffering from social evils	0	1.5	98.5
Violation of the provisions of law on public matters allowed and not allowed positions	0.9	2.7	96.4
Have a lifestyle that lacks standards and is not pure	0.4	3.7	95.9
Lack of exemplary implementation of policies, policies and laws of the Party and State	0.2	4.1	95.7
Violation of speech discipline	1.5	10.3	88.2
Lack of awareness to improve qualifications and capacity	4.2	21.3	74.5

Source: Thesis survey results

3.3.5. Responsibility and willingness to take responsibility of administrative civil servants in performing public duties

3.3.5.1. Results achieved

In recent years, the issue of responsibility and accountability of civil servants has received much attention, especially for civil servants who are leaders.

When discussing the responsibility of civil servants, it is necessary to clarify the connotation of the two concepts of "taking responsibility" and "accepting responsibility". "Accepting responsibility" only stops at the point where the civil servant is aware and acknowledges the results (good or bad) that are the product of his/her personal TTCV process. Meanwhile, "taking responsibility" emphasizes more on the fact that the civil servant will be willing to take personal responsibility (including legal responsibility) for the work related to him/her personally. Besides taking personal responsibility for the work within his/her duties and responsibilities, responsibility also

is demonstrated through the ability of an individual to put aside personal interests and considerations for the development of the agency or organization. As indicated in section 2.2.5, there are four specific criteria to measure the responsibility and willingness to take responsibility of civil servants in TTCV, including:

- Spirit of fighting against corrupt ideas and opportunistic manifestations in the process of public service;

- Willing to accept tasks, not shirking assigned responsibilities;

- Don't choose easy things, give up difficult things;

- Responsible for the work done.

The results of the Thesis survey show that, compared to other factors, all four criteria measuring responsibility and daring to take responsibility have lower average values on the Likert scale than other contents of civil servant culture in the process of public service. However, these criteria are all above average, with scores ranging from 2.87 to 3.23 points. In which, the criterion "Spirit of fighting against corrupt thoughts and opportunistic manifestations in the process of public service" has the lowest average score, only 2.87 points; the criterion "Taking responsibility for the work done by oneself" is 2.95 points; the criterion "Ready for tasks, not shirking assigned responsibilities" is 3.12 points and the criterion "Do not choose easy tasks, give up difficult tasks" is 3.23 points.

Table 3.6. Assessment scores on responsibility and willingness to take responsibility of civil servants in TTCV

Criteria

Point Evaluate
The spirit of fighting against corrupt ideas and opportunistic manifestations during the TTCV process	2.87
Take responsibility for the work you do	2.95
Willing to accept the task, not shirking the assigned responsibility	3.12
Don't choose easy things, give up difficult things	3.23

Source: Thesis survey results

In recent years, the responsibility of civil servants in the public service has also been improved and brought positive results to the operation of the public service in general. In the Government's report on the implementation of policies and laws on reforming the organization of the state administrative apparatus in the period of 2011-2016, it was also noted that in 2016, the number of overdue tasks of ministries, agencies and localities accounted for only 2.82 (out of a total of more than 10,000 tasks assigned by the Government and the Prime Minister), this number decreased sharply compared to the overdue rate of 25% in 2015 [104]. This shows that civil servants have become more responsible for their work, and the procrastination of civil servants is gradually improving.

A specific manifestation of the responsibility of civil servants holding management and leadership positions is daring to resign when there are violations. Currently, regulations on resignation have been specified in many documents, guidelines, policies, and regulations of the Party and the State. In Regulation No. 260-QD/TW dated October 2, 2009 of the Politburo on the termination of positions, dismissal, and resignation of officials, a number of grounds for considering the resignation of officials are given as follows: Officials request to resign due to perceived limitations in capacity or health; Officials request to resign due to perceived lack of prestige to fulfill assigned duties and tasks; due to perceived violations and shortcomings of their agency, organization, unit, or subordinates related to their responsibilities.

In recent years, the situation of civil servants holding management and leadership positions resigning has become more and more common. This is also one of the positive signs showing the responsibility in the administrative system of our country. For example, in 2019, Mr. Doan Ngoc Hai - Deputy General Director of Saigon Construction Corporation resigned because he thought he was not suitable for this position.

According to information from the Department of Home Affairs of Quang Ngai, before the Party Congresses at all levels for the 2020-2025 term, nearly 60 leaders at all levels of Quang Ngai province have applied for early retirement to facilitate the arrangement and assignment of local personnel...

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