Recently, the National Assembly officially passed the Law amending and supplementing a number of articles of the Law on Technical Standards and Regulations with 432 votes in favor (reaching more than 90%).
The important breakthrough of the revised Law is the strengthening of decentralization and strong decentralization of power for localities. The Ministry of Science and Technology proposed to transfer 78 tasks (16 decentralization tasks, 62 decentralization tasks) to the provincial People's Committee, with a roadmap for implementation from 2025 to 2027.
This decentralization not only shows confidence in local management capacity but also realizes the idea of "locality does, locality decides and takes responsibility". At the same time, it contributes to shortening administrative procedures, improving service efficiency for people and businesses; promoting on-site innovation, improving the business environment and enhancing national competitiveness.
Sharing about this issue, Minister of Science and Technology Nguyen Manh Hung said that expanding the scope of work for commune-level authorities in the 2-level model is an inevitable requirement in the process of institutional reform, however, this also raises an urgent requirement to strengthen appropriate support tools.
To solve this problem, the Minister proposed 5 key groups of solutions with strategic orientation, as a basis for localities to develop specific implementation plans, suitable to practical conditions.
In particular, the Minister said that it is necessary to continue to invest in and improve digital infrastructure, digital platforms and digital data systems, ensuring connectivity and smooth connection between levels of government from the central to local levels. The focus is on building, integrating and effectively exploiting specialized and interdisciplinary databases to serve the management, operation and provision of public services.
Promote the application of digital technology and artificial intelligence (AI) in management and service to people and businesses. Localities need to prioritize the deployment of virtual assistants and AI chatbot on public service platforms. At the same time, AI is used to analyze big data to support the work of evaluating, forecasting, warning and policy management. The specific goal is that by the end of 2025, 70% of public service records of people and businesses must be processed online, in accordance with the roadmap set by the Government.
Build an online inspection, supervision, evaluation and post-inspection system for assigned tasks. This system not only helps ensure transparency and monitoring efficiency, but also promptly detects and handles problems in the implementation process. At the same time, localities need to establish a smart operating center with a synchronous connection to the monitoring system of the Ministry of Science and Technology.
Improve digital capacity and information technology skills for local cadres and civil servants. Training and fostering needs to focus on digital technology-based management skills, especially in specialized fields and newly assigned tasks. Along with that, it is necessary to implement policies to attract high-quality human resources in the fields of science and technology, innovation and digital transformation to work at the grassroots level.
The Minister also informed that the Ministry of Science and Technology has sent a document to ministries, ministerial-level agencies, government agencies and People's Committees of provinces and centrally run cities to inform about the hotline to promptly receive instructions to answer difficulties and problems, and propose recommendations from local agencies and units in the field under the management of the Ministry of Science and Technology.
According to the Minister, to ensure effective decentralization and delegation of authority in the field of science and technology, the Ministry of Science and Technology has conducted a comprehensive review of more than 600 valid documents under the management of the Ministry. This is an important legal basis to clearly identify the authority and responsibility between authorities at all levels in organizing the implementation of state management tasks of science and technology.
