Hanoi strives to secure higher satisfaction of public services
The People’s Committee of Hanoi has ordered local public agencies to take stronger actions to improve its Satisfaction Index of Public Administration Services (SIPAS).
With a rate of 85.15%, Hanoi ranked 33rd among the 63 provinces and cities nationwide in the 2020 satisfaction index, up 19 places from the 2019 rankings, according to the survey conducted by the Ministry of Home Affairs.
It recorded better performance in all the five criteria of SIPAS, namely access to public administrative services, results of the settlement of administrative procedures, task performance by civil servants, results of the provision of public administrative services, and the reception and settlement of opinions and petitions.
However, some of those criteria still fared worse than the national average, including access to services, civil servants’ performance, and results of the settlement of administrative procedures.
To raise Hanoi’s position in the SIPAS rankings, Chairman of the municipal People’s Committee Chu Ngoc Anh has requested departments, sectors, and administrations of district-level localities to work out solutions to current shortcomings and strive to fulfill the tasks on SIPAS improvement set for this year and the 2021 - 2026 period.
They need to better implement the “single window” and “inter-agency single-window” mechanisms in line with regulations set by the Government; increase the number of inter-agency administrative procedures; prevent overdue settlement of administrative procedures; step up the application of information technology to administrative procedure management and settlement; and maintain quality management system TCVN ISO 9001:2015 at all departments, sectors, and district- and communal-level People’s Committees.
Authorities were also told to survey individuals and collectives’ satisfaction of administrative agencies’ services, increase dialogue with people and businesses via mass media outlets, and expand channels through which people and businesses can monitor their reception and settlement of administrative procedures.
Recently, the city mayor signed a decision on the establishment of a working group on improving the Public Administration Reform (PAR) Index and SIPAS of Hanoi for the 2021 - 2025 period.
This working group is tasked with coordinating with relevant agencies to advise the chairperson about necessary solutions and tasks to achieve better indexes.
Vo Hai Long, Deputy Director of the Hanoi Institute for Socio-Economic Development Studies, said to secure people’s higher satisfaction of public administrative agencies, the city should keep promoting its cadres and civil servants’ awareness, discipline, and occupational ethics while enhancing the transparency of state agencies’ operations.
It is also necessary to strengthen agency leaders’ sense of responsibility and seriously deal with those whose agencies show bureaucracy and corruption, especially in handling licensing, business registration, export - import, taxation, customs, and land use right certification procedures.
Hanoi should provide more online public services at Levels 3 and 4 and boost communications to help people access online services. It also needs to ensure that civil servants who directly meet citizens or handle complaints and denunciations have good knowledge of laws, as well as good communication and problem-solving skills, according to Long.
Apart from efforts to raise its SIPAS rankings, Hanoi is also working hard to raise its Provincial Competitiveness Index (PCI).
Earlier this year, the municipal People’s Committee issued Directive No 14/CT-UBND on improving the PCI performance in 2021. It demanded that departments, sectors, and district-level authorities invest resources in dealing with the sub-indexes experiencing a downward trend and those ranking “low” or “mid-low” last year.
They were told to take drastic measures to raise the indexes of “entry costs” and “access to land”, which plunged last year.
In particular, they need to have all business registration dossiers handled online, ensure the settlement of business registration procedures completed on schedule or ahead of schedule, publicise such procedures, increase the training of civil servants to boost the quality of guidance provided to people and enterprises, and press on with streamlining land-related administrative procedures.
