professional training for thousands of civil servants working in administrative procedure control. On that basis, ministries and branches have organized training conferences for leaders and focal officers at Departments and Bureaus on administrative procedure control. The "Handbook on administrative procedure control" has also been issued to update new regulations on administrative procedure control, providing timely support for those participating in administrative procedure control to improve professionalism and efficiency in practical activities. In the period of 2011-2020, the administrative procedure control agency has conducted more than 70 inspections, urging and guiding this work at ministries, ministerial-level agencies, provinces and centrally-run cities. Through inspections, it can be seen that administrative procedure reform has been paid attention to and actively implemented by many ministries, branches and localities, contributing to the overall results of the sector, locality and the whole country. At the end of each inspection, the presiding agency shall submit a report of the inspection results to the competent authority.
Looking back at 10 years of implementing administrative procedure reform, implementing the one-stop mechanism and state management of administrative procedure control, although this is a new task and institution, with the attention and direction of the Government and the Prime Minister, with the assigned responsibility and determination to change the appropriate implementation methods and methods of the presiding agency, and the close coordination of ministries and branches, this work continues to be maintained stably and has achieved many practical results. The control of regulations on administrative procedures has increasingly gone into depth, contributing significantly to improving the quality of institutions according to the provisions of Articles 14 (clauses 3, 4), 92 (clauses 2, 3), 93 (clause 6), 102 (clause 2), 105 (clause 3), 172 (clause 4) ... of the Law on Promulgation of Legal Documents 2015 (amended and supplemented in 2020). These specific regulations have recognized the importance of controlling regulations on administrative procedures in the process of drafting and promulgating policies and regulations on administrative procedures... The review, simplification of administrative procedures, announcement and publicization of administrative procedures, and handling of administrative procedures have been put into order; the handling of administrative procedures has been focused on and strongly innovated from the perspective of taking people and businesses as the center of service.
Fourth, mobilize active and proactive participation from all levels, sectors and the private sector in administrative procedure reform.
Maybe you are interested!
-
Perfecting Policy Institutions and Reforming Administrative Procedures -
Protecting Qshtt at Court by Procedures for Resolving Administrative Cases -
Improving the Quality of Administrative Procedures and Strengthening the Direction and Management of the Heads of State Administrative Agencies at the Ministry Level -
Requirements of Administrative Law in Ensuring Human Rights -
The Impact of Administrative Procedures on Socio-Economic Development
The Prime Minister's Advisory Council for Administrative Procedure Reform, chaired by the Minister and Head of the Government Office, with the participation of 32 members representing ministries, agencies, socio-political organizations, and domestic and foreign business associations, was established from 2013 to present. In the period of 2016 - 2021, the Council organized 42 dialogue sessions with the business community, promptly recommended the Government and the Prime Minister to resolve 442 issues and groups of issues regarding difficulties and obstacles of enterprises in implementing mechanisms, policies, and administrative procedures related to production, business, investment and trade activities; in particular, promptly proposed to the Prime Minister solutions to reform administrative procedures to remove difficulties and obstacles for enterprises in the context of the Covid-19 pandemic, helping the Government and the Prime Minister to have timely policy responses that are appropriate to reality.
The above results have significantly contributed to improving Vietnam's position in world rankings, such as: The World Bank's Global Business Environment Ranking for the 2016-2020 period, Vietnam increased by 20 places, ranked 70/190 countries and economies and ranked 5th in ASEAN; The World Economic Forum's Global Competitiveness Index (GCI) 4.0, Vietnam's competitiveness increased by 10 places in the 2018-2019 period, from 77 to 67/141 countries and ranked 7th in ASEAN; The World Intellectual Property Organization's Global Innovation Ranking 2020, Vietnam ranked 42/131 countries and economies, holding the No. 1 position in the group of 29 countries with the same income level; US News & World magazine ranked Vietnam 8th/80 and among the top 10 countries with the best economies for investment [9].
2.2.2. Limitations and causes
2.2.2.1. Limitations
Although the Government and the Prime Minister have paid attention to and regularly directed the work of reforming administrative procedures and controlling administrative procedures, through monitoring and inspection, it is shown that the work of controlling administrative procedures and reforming administrative procedures at ministries and branches still has specific limitations as follows:
- The assessment of the impact of administrative procedures in draft legal documents has not been fully and seriously implemented according to the provisions of Decree No. 63/2010/ND-CP, Decree No. 48/2013/ND-CP of the Government and Circular No. 07/2014/TT-BTP of the Minister of Justice. Many legal documents have provisions on administrative procedures that have not been assessed for impact, have not received comments from the administrative procedure control unit but have still been issued. Although many administrative procedures have been assessed for impact, the implementation has not met the requirements. Initially, through participation in comments and appraisal, shortcomings in the provisions of administrative procedures in these documents have been discovered, but the research, acceptance and completion of the draft have not been effective. Therefore, there still exist unnecessary, unreasonable and illegal administrative procedures that hinder production and business activities, and violate the rights and legitimate interests of people and enterprises.
- The announcement of administrative procedures under the management of ministries and branches is still slow compared to the regulations in Decree 63/2010/ND-CP, Decree No. 48/2013/ND-CP of the Government and Circular No. 05/2014/TT-BTP of the Ministry of Justice. Many ministries and branches have been slow to announce administrative procedures while legal documents have come into effect, leading to the posting of administrative procedures not being guaranteed according to regulations.
- In handling administrative procedures, there are still cases of requesting additional records, documents, and declarations that are not in accordance with regulations, there is no appointment slip for returning results, or if there is, it is not recorded in the correct time limit for handling in legal documents, and there are many cases where handling is many days overdue...
- Administrative procedures and business conditions in some fields are still overlapping, cumbersome, complicated, contradictory, even "plugged in", "transformed", and arising.
- The allocation of funds to carry out administrative procedure control tasks and to resolve policies for focal civil servants controlling administrative procedures at a number of agencies and localities has not been implemented according to regulations.
- The implementation of administrative procedures has been innovated, the quality of handling administrative procedures has been improved compared to before, however, there are still situations of harassment, negativity, delays, and inconvenience; the person performing the procedures has to travel many times, to many agencies; the rate of online public service records and online payment transactions is still low compared to the number of direct records and cash payment transactions; connection and data sharing in handling administrative procedures and providing public services are still weak; the number of administrative procedures under the authority of the ministerial and provincial levels is still large (the ministerial level accounts for up to 58% of the total number of administrative procedures); the socialization of public administrative services has been implemented in a number of sectors and fields (vehicle inspection; notarization, ...) but is still slow and lacking in comprehensiveness [9].
- The results of determining the PAR INDEX at the ministerial level show that the number of ministries and ministerial-level agencies achieving a PAR INDEX of over 80% (including 5 ministries and ministerial-level agencies) is still small compared to the number of ministries and ministerial-level agencies according to current regulations [9].
2.2.2.2. Causes of limitations
- Awareness of administrative procedure control work of some cadres and civil servants is still limited; some leaders at the department and division levels of the ministry have not kept up with the requirements of the Minister as well as the guidance of the legal organization in implementing administrative procedure control work, leading to a lack of focus on directing, organizing and promptly and fully implementing this work at agencies and units.
- The direction, management and implementation in many ministries and branches are not drastic and close; there is no close coordination with state management agencies on administrative procedure reform. Advisory work to serve the direction and management
The slow revision and supplementation of the process of developing and promulgating legal documents and coordination regulations between relevant agencies and units in receiving and handling feedback and recommendations from individuals and organizations on administrative regulations and the announcement and publicization of administrative procedures has affected the results of implementing the control of administrative procedures of the Ministry and branches in particular as well as the results of administrative procedure reform in general nationwide.
- The slow announcement of administrative procedures by some ministries and ministerial-level agencies also affects the results of the announcement and publicization of administrative procedures by localities. In some places, the implementation is still formal, reactive, and not drastic.
- There is no effective mechanism for controlling impact assessment activities, as well as ensuring research, acceptance, and completion of administrative procedure regulations in draft legal documents by the drafting agency.
- The implementation of solutions to overcome the limitations and shortcomings according to the inspection team's conclusion on administrative procedure control has not been seriously implemented in some units, thus affecting the effectiveness of this work.
- Resources to ensure task performance do not correspond to requirements, especially in terms of human resources (many places do not have enough staff, and the remuneration regime for those working on administrative procedure reform has not received due attention; the organization of the One-Stop-Shop Department is currently still scattered and closely linked to administrative boundaries; the information technology infrastructure does not meet work requirements; the connection and sharing of data between software and databases related to the settlement of administrative procedures is still limited, the most common situation is that specialized and vertical software do not connect and share data with the Electronic One-Stop-Shop Information System and the local Public Service Portal).
- The form of responsibility of the head of the ministerial-level administrative agency in the current administrative procedure reform is also unclear; related legal regulations still exist scattered in different legal documents.
Chapter 2 Summary
The implementation of the institution on the responsibility of the head of the ministerial-level administrative agency in administrative procedure reform has achieved advantages in the following aspects: Consulting on the issuance of legal documents related to administrative procedure reform; directing and organizing personnel to control administrative procedures; organizing the implementation of regular professional tasks on administrative procedure control... However, there are still some shortcomings and limitations as follows: The assessment of the impact of administrative procedures in draft legal documents has not been fully and seriously implemented; the announcement of administrative procedures under the management scope of ministries and branches is still slow compared to regulations; in handling administrative procedures, there are still requests for additional records, papers, and declarations that are not in accordance with regulations; the allocation of funds to perform administrative procedure control tasks, and the settlement of regimes for focal civil servants controlling administrative procedures at some agencies and localities have not been implemented in accordance with regulations...
Chapter 3
VIEWPOINTS AND SOLUTIONS TO ENSURE INSTITUTIONAL IMPLEMENTATION OF RESPONSIBILITIES OF HEADS OF MINISTRY-LEVEL STATE ADMINISTRATIVE AGENCIES IN ADMINISTRATIVE PROCEDURE REFORM IN VIETNAM
3.1. VIEWPOINTS ON ENSURING INSTITUTIONAL IMPLEMENTATION ON RESPONSIBILITIES OF HEADS OF MINISTRY-LEVEL STATE ADMINISTRATIVE AGENCIES IN ADMINISTRATIVE PROCEDURE REFORM
3.1.1. Must closely follow the Party's guidelines on the responsibilities of heads of agencies, organizations and units in general and state administrative agencies at the ministerial level in particular in administrative procedure reform.
The 9th Conference of the 9th Central Executive Committee of the Party emphasized and pointed out this issue : “Strengthening the collective leadership role of Party committees and organizations, in which clarifying the authority and responsibility of the heads of organizations and of advisory agencies is a decisive factor in Party building work. Special attention should be paid to arranging the right leaders of organizations who are virtuous, talented, have high Party spirit, are exemplary in performing political tasks, training ethics, lifestyle, fighting corruption, and matching words with actions.” The Resolution clearly states: “High demands are placed on leaders, especially those holding important positions in the Party and State apparatus at the central and local levels, comrades of the Central Committee, provincial and municipal Party secretaries, ministers, heads of sectors, localities, units and other leaders, to voluntarily train and set an example for their subordinates in terms of political awareness, maintaining moral qualities, lifestyle, sacrifice and striving for the Party's ideals and for the happiness of the people. Those comrades must be held responsible for the shortcomings of corruption, waste and bureaucracy in the Party and the State.
industry, locality, and unit. If an agency or unit commits a violation causing serious consequences, the head of that agency or unit, even if not directly involved in the violation, must bear responsibility and receive appropriate disciplinary action " [10, p. 98].
In the 10th Congress Document, the issue of the responsibility of the leader continues to be clearly stated by our Party : "Specify and institutionalize the principle of the Party's unified leadership of personnel work and management of the cadre team, along with promoting the responsibility of the organization and the organization's leader in the political system regarding personnel work" [11, p. 107].
The 10th Congress documents also identified one of the key tasks of administrative reform as: " Continue to strongly reform administrative procedures, decentralize and clarify the powers and responsibilities of each level, each sector, each unit and the head of the agency "; " Strengthen the responsibility of cadres and party members who are heads of state agencies. Any agency that violates policies and laws, allowing negative situations and internal disunity to occur, the head must be held responsible ". The Resolution of the 3rd Conference of the 10th Central Executive Committee of the Party on strengthening the Party's leadership in the work of preventing and combating corruption and waste continues to emphasize the role of the head: " strictly implement regulations on handling the responsibility of the head of the agency, unit that allows serious corruption and waste to occur ".
The 13th National Party Congress Document continues to affirm: "Continue to promote administrative reform and build a state administration, contributing to promoting innovation, rapid and sustainable development of the country". Accordingly, the Document also emphasizes: "Urgently develop and perfect regulations on power control, accountability to ensure democracy, publicity and transparency. Clearly define the responsibilities of leaders in inspecting, detecting and handling corruption, waste and negativity..." [13] .