On May 25, Thanh Hoa Provincial People's Committee said that the Chairman of the Provincial People's Committee has issued a directive on arranging villages and residential groups and arranging and using non-specialized personnel at the commune, village, and residential group levels. The goal of the directive is to improve management efficiency, promote socio-economic development and ensure political stability in the locality.
According to Thanh Hoa Provincial People's Committee, from 2017 to 2020, the province has reduced 1,620 villages and residential groups, from 5,971 to 4,351, contributing to the formation of units meeting the criteria for household size.
However, currently the whole province still has many units that have not met the standards: 671/776 residential groups have less than 450 households, accounting for 86.46%; 3,167/3,575 villages and hamlets have less than 350 households, accounting for 88.59%.
After the arrangement of commune-level administrative units in 2025, on average, each ward has 40 residential groups, each delta commune has 29 villages; each mountainous commune has 20 villages. On average, each commune and ward has 26 villages and residential groups, creating management pressure for grassroots authorities.
Faced with the above situation, the directive of the Chairman of Thanh Hoa Provincial People's Committee clearly states the requirement to rearrange villages and residential groups on the principle of ensuring management criteria and conditions, and at the same time considering specific factors of history, culture, customs, habits, geographical conditions, national defense - security, especially in mountainous areas, border areas, islands, ethnic minority areas and religious factors.
The arrangement process must maintain political stability, social order and safety, and ensure the trust and consensus of the people.
Chairman of Thanh Hoa Provincial People's Committee emphasized that the arrangement and use of non-specialized personnel must be public, transparent, and in accordance with regulations; prioritizing the selection of people with prestige, health, enthusiasm, and capacity to mobilize the masses, gradually rejuvenate and improve community management skills.
Functional agencies are required to closely coordinate, develop plans, publicly deploy, collect people's opinions and complete the arrangement before June 25, 2026. The Department of Home Affairs, Department of Finance, Provincial Police, Department of Culture, Sports and Tourism have the task of guiding, inspecting, urging and supervising the implementation process, ensuring that no hot spots or violations of the law occur during the arrangement process.
The Provincial People's Committee also requested localities to review all villages and residential groups, develop specific projects and report to the Department of Home Affairs before May 26, 2026. The project must complete the collection of people's opinions before June 20 and submit to the People's Council (HĐND) of communes for approval before June 25. Localities must also complete the arrangement of non-specialized personnel before May 31 and implement appropriate regimes and policies.
According to Thanh Hoa Provincial People's Committee, the arrangement of villages and residential groups is not only aimed at optimizing administrative management but also enhancing the efficiency of serving the people, ensuring stability and democracy at the grassroots level and improving the capacity to operate local authorities at all levels.
