In recent days, images of officials of the Coc San Commune Public Administrative Service Center (Lao Cai) bringing dossiers to their homes, even to hospital beds to help people complete administrative procedures, have received much agreement.
Among the people in Coc San who were "brought" administrative procedures this time, some have been paralyzed for nearly 20 years, and some elderly people over 100 years old are no longer able to walk.
If we wait for them to come to the commune headquarters, perhaps many procedures will be prolonged, and even benefits will be delayed. Therefore, Coc San commune officials have proactively brought public services to them. That is not too large in scale but very meaningful for administrative reform thinking.
For a long time, we have only talked about simplifying administrative procedures in terms of reducing paperwork, digitizing dossiers, building e-government and then digital government. The ultimate goal is to help people carry out procedures more conveniently.
Now the story in Coc San also suggests another "simple" way of procedure, which is that the government proactively brings public services to the people.
This is to solve a problem that is actually raised that people do not always find public service headquarters for many different reasons.
Especially, if elderly people, sick people or people with disabilities still have to find every way to come to the headquarters just to sign a power of attorney or certify a document, then clearly the gap between the government and the people has not really been narrowed as desired.
This is even more meaningful in the context of the two-level local government model being implemented nationwide.
The rearrangement of administrative units helps streamline the apparatus and improve management efficiency. But in some mountainous areas, remote and isolated areas, the distance from people's homes to the administrative center may be longer than before.
If local authorities only change in organization without changing the way they serve, people may still face more difficulties.
Another positive thing is that after the trips of officials of the Public Administration Service Center such as in Coc San commune, people also feel cared for, listened to and served. And that is a solid foundation to build trust with the grassroots government.
Of course, resolving administrative procedures at home needs to have a clear process, in accordance with legal regulations and only be applied to truly necessary cases. This cannot be turned into a mass approach or the emergence of a xin - cho (ask - give) mechanism.
If organized methodically, the approach of the Coc San Commune Public Administrative Service Center (Lao Cai) will be a good model - suggestion worth considering for many localities.
