Urban governance to be piloted in Hanoi
A plan to pilot the urban governance model in Hanoi has been issued by the municipal People’s Committee.
It aims to clarify and give instructions on implementing a Government’s decree on piloting the model in the capital from July 1.
Under the decree, there will no longer be any ward-level People’s Councils in Hanoi. It means that instead of having both a People’s Committee and a People’s Council, each ward will be governed only by a People’s Committee.
The organisational structure of the committee will also be changed. Instead of having only a chair, vice chairs and members, the new ward-level People’s Committee will also have a police chief, a military commander, and other officers performing different functions.
The chair will hold decision-making power and be responsible for everything that happens in the committee.
They can also authorise justice and civil status officers to make copies and notarise copies of the people’s original documents instead of having to do it themselves.
Officers working for these new ward-level People’s Committees will have the same rights and obligations as those working in their respective district-level People’s Committees.
Each ward-level committee should have an average number of 15 officers, according to the decree, but it's not necessarily the same for every committee.
These changes will make major improvements to Hanoi’s administrative system, said Deputy Minister of Home Affairs Tran Tuan Anh.
“With the urban governance model we will lay a foundation for the upcoming civil service reform,” he told the Government portal baochinhphu.vn.
“One of the key aspects of this model in Hanoi is that ward-level People’s Committees work as local state administrative agencies and the chairs are leaders, which will ensure a democratic focus and help modernise the administrative sector.”
Urban governance will also be piloted in HCM City and Da Nang city from July 1.
Instead of closing down ward-level People’s Councils like Hanoi, these two cities will remove district-level People's Councils from their administrative systems.
Wherever it is implemented, Deputy Minister of Home Affairs Tran Tuan Anh said the pilot process would make good use of the cities’ civil officer resources.
“It will also help the cities to be more proactive, responsible and creative in serving the people, making them happy and speeding up the socio-economic developments,” he said.
