The whole country currently has 705 commune-level administrative units that do not meet the standards for natural area and population size.
However, according to the Ministry of Home Affairs, many units with specific characteristics in terms of borders, remote areas, complex terrain, history, tradition, and culture may not be eligible for further arrangement.
After the Central Government has a conclusion, the Government or the Ministry of Home Affairs will have guidance on implementation, and localities will proactively propose.
Talking to Lao Dong Newspaper, Master of Public Policy Nguyen Tuan Anh said that the selection of commune-level administrative units for continued arrangement should not only be based on 2 criteria on natural area and population size, but needs to assess more broadly on development capacity and management efficiency.
According to him, in addition to current legal standards, it is necessary to consider groups of criteria such as the level of spatial development linkage; the ability to connect transport infrastructure, digital infrastructure; local economic scale; capacity to provide public services;
In particular, it is necessary to supplement criteria for evaluating efficiency after arrangement. Accordingly, not only consider whether a unit is eligible for merger or not, but also specifically assess what benefits people will receive after arrangement.
Regarding the case of continuing to arrange communes and wards, Dr. Doan Van Tinh - Deputy Head of the Faculty of Human Resource Management, Academy of Public Administration and Management (Ho Chi Minh National Academy of Politics) - said that it is necessary to simultaneously adjust policies on job positions, payroll and assignment of tasks.
According to Dr. Doan Van Tinh, after operating a 2-level local government, commune-level civil servants must take on more tasks. When localities are given more authority, if the organization and assignment of tasks are not adjusted accordingly, the team at the grassroots level is easily overloaded.
According to experts, policy completion needs to focus on 3 directions.
First, specializing job positions and the apparatus of specialized agencies under the commune-level People's Committee. It is necessary to study adjusting the names and organizations of specialized agencies in a direction suitable to the characteristics of each province and city.
Instead of combining many unsynchronized functions, it is necessary to describe the work more clearly so that each civil servant can correctly identify their tasks, products and responsibilities" - Dr. Doan Van Tinh analyzed.
Second, allocate staff according to the actual workload. Communes and wards after arrangement with large population sizes, large areas or a large number of administrative transactions need to be allocated a corresponding number of civil servants, instead of applying a common formula for all units.
Third, promote the application of technology to reduce manual work. The integration of software, data interconnection and automation of repeated inspection and data synthesis will help civil servants save time and focus more on advising and solving work for people.
This change will help commune-level civil servants work more efficiently, creating a foundation for a smooth and closer to the people grassroots administrative apparatus" - he emphasized.
