On May 31, 2024, at NAPA Headquarters in Ha Noi, the National Academy of Public Administration (NAPA) held a workshop titled “Defining the Roles and Responsibilities of the Government and People’s Committees at All Levels in Ensuring Public Services.” This topic is part of the Ministerial-level key research project “Organization of State Administrative Apparatus to Meet the Requirements of National Governance Innovation Towards Modernity and Effectiveness” for the period 2021-2025 of the Ministry of Home Affairs (MoHA), led by Dr. Phung Van Hien, Deputy Director of the Planning and Finance Department.
An overview of the workshop.
The workshop was attended by guest speakers including Prof. Dr. Pham Hong Thai, former Dean of the Faculty of Law, Viet Nam National University; Assoc. Prof. Dr. Pham Van Hong, Rector of Dai Nam University; Dr. Vu Xuan Thanh, Deputy Director of the Institute for State Organizational Sciences; Mr. Tran Anh Tuan, Chief of Office of Son Tay Town Party Committee, Ha Noi City; Mr. Nguyen Thanh Thao, Head of Digital Policy Division, National Authority of Digital Transformation, Ministry of Information and Communications. From NAPA, there were Assoc. Prof. Dr. Nguyen Quoc Suu, NAPA Vice President; Prof. Dr. Nguyen Huu Khien, former NAPA Executive Vice President; Assoc. Prof. Dr. Dinh Thi Minh Tuyet, former Dean of the Faculty of State Management of Society; Assoc. Prof. Dr. Vo Kim Son, former Dean of the Faculty of Personnel Management and Organization; Assoc. Prof. Dr. Ngo Thanh Can, former Vice Dean of the Faculty of Documentation and Administrative Technology; and representatives of NAPA leaders, officials, and lecturers. Assoc. Prof. Dr. Nguyen Quoc Suu, NAPA Vice President, and Dr. Phung Van Hien, Deputy Director of the Planning and Finance Department, co-chaired the workshop.
Dr. Phung Van Hien, Deputy Director of the Planning and Finance Department, project leader, at the workshop.
In his opening remarks, Dr. Phung Van Hien emphasized the crucial role of public service provision in socio-economic development. The process of building modern and effective national governance raises many issues, including ensuring public services. The workshop was organized to provide a platform for experts, managers, and lecturers from within and outside NAPA to exchange and delve deeper into the aspects and issues related to defining the roles and responsibilities of the Government and People’s Committees at all levels in ensuring public services. The workshop aims to receive feedback, discussions, and contributions from academics to further refine the topic.
Assoc. Prof. Dr. Nguyen Quoc Suu, NAPA Vice President, at the workshop.
In his remarks, Assoc. Prof. Dr. Nguyen Quoc Suu expressed his gratitude to the delegates, experts, and academics who have contributed papers and participated in the workshop. With 25 papers published in the workshop proceedings and the attendance of academics, it affirms the interest in the topic of defining the roles and responsibilities between the Government and People’s Committees at all levels in ensuring public services. He acknowledged the meticulous preparation of the research team and hoped that academics would clarify the theoretical and practical basis for defining the roles and responsibilities between the Government and People’s Committees at all levels in ensuring public services.
Prof. Dr. Nguyen Huu Khien, former NAPA Executive Vice President.
Prof. Dr. Nguyen Huu Khien, former NAPA Executive Vice President, delivered a presentation titled “The Duties and Roles of the Government and Local Governments in Public Service Provision”. He emphasized the need to clarify and define the concepts of public services and public administrative services to determine the appropriate subjects. Public services are state-related tasks and are directly associated with activities in the administrative and non-business sectors, in addition to the function of state management.
Assoc. Prof. Dr. Dinh Thi Minh Tuyet, former Dean of the Faculty of State Management of Society at NAPA.
Assoc. Prof. Dr. Dinh Thi Minh Tuyet, former Dean of the Faculty of State Management of Society at NAPA, presented her paper titled “Defining the Roles and Responsibilities of the Government and People’s Committees at All Levels in Ensuring Public Services in the Education Sector”. She argued that to effectively fulfill the task of providing public services, it is essential to clearly define the roles and responsibilities of the state apparatus in general and of the Government and People’s Committees at all levels in particular, to improve the quality and effectiveness of public service provision and better meet the increasing needs of the people.
Assoc. Prof. Dr. Dinh Thi Minh Tuyet emphasized the provision of public services in the education sector and the delineation of responsibilities between the Government and People’s Committees at all levels in this field. She highlighted education as a special sector, where the provision of educational services involves individuals and families and always receives attention from the entire society. Therefore, to effectively define the responsibilities of the Government and People’s Committees at all levels for the provision of public services in the education sector, several solutions need to be implemented, such as:
̣(1) Improving regulations on the delineation of responsibilities between the Government, the Ministry of Education and Training, and other ministries involved in the provision of educational services.
(2) Improving regulations on the delineation of responsibilities between the Government, the Prime Minister, the Ministry of Education and Training, relevant ministries, local governments, and People’s Committees at the provincial level in the provision of educational services.
(3) Reviewing and clarifying the activities involved in educational service provision that need to be strengthened according to the authority and responsibility of the Government and People’s Committees at all levels, in association with the responsibility of the heads.
(4) Strengthening inspection, examination, supervision, and necessary coordination of the Government, the Ministry of Education and Training, relevant ministries and local authorities, and People’s Committees at the provincial level in the provision of educational services.
(5) Ensuring synchronous coordination in the implementation of educational service provision responsibilities of relevant sectors and People’s Committees of provinces/cities.
Assoc. Prof. Dr. Vo Kim Son, former Dean of the Faculty of Personnel Management and Organization at NAPA.
Sharing at the workshop, Assoc. Prof. Dr. Vo Kim Son, former Dean of the Faculty of Personnel Management and Organization at NAPA, stated that services, service provision, and ensuring service provision for society are major issues for every nation. It is necessary to correctly understand the nature of services in a market economy to determine the role of the State and let the service market self-regulate according to market principles.
Mr. Tran Anh Tuan, Chief of Office of the Son Tay Town Party Committee, Ha Noi City.
With the presentation titled “Solutions to Improve the Quality of Public Administrative Services in Son Tay Town, Ha Noi City,” Mr. Tran Anh Tuan, Chief of Office of the Son Tay Town Party Committee, Ha Noi City, noted that the provision of public administrative services in Son Tay Town had undergone many innovations towards better serving the needs of the people, but there are still certain limitations.
To improve the quality of public administrative service provision to meet the needs of the people in Son Tay Town, Mr. Tran Anh Tuan proposed the following solutions: (1) Building and completing mechanisms and policies in public service provision, determining the correlation between the public and private sectors in public service provision, while promoting the mobilization societal resources for public services; (2) Enhancing the accessibility of information on public administrative services for citizens and businesses; (3) Strengthening community participation and supervision in the provision of public administrative services; (4) Reforming processes, procedures, and methods of public administrative service provision; (5) Consolidating the public sector management apparatus; (6) Expanding the application of ISO quality management systems in public administrative service provision.
Assoc. Prof. Dr. Pham Van Hong, Rector of Dai Nam University.
Dr. Vu Xuan Thanh, Deputy Director of the Institute for State Organizational Sciences.
Prof. Dr. Pham Hong Thai, former Dean of the Faculty of Law, Viet Nam National University.
Assoc. Prof. Dr. Ngo Thanh Can, former Vice Dean of the Faculty of Documentation and Administrative Technology.
Mr. Nguyen Thanh Thao, Head of Digital Policy Division, National Authority of Digital Transformation, Ministry of Information and Communications.
The workshop also received many comments from delegates, experts, and academics on defining the roles and responsibilities of the Government and People’s Committees at all levels in ensuring public services. The comments focused on the following contents: (1) Defining the roles and responsibilities of the Government and People’s Committees at all levels in ensuring public administrative services to meet the requirements of modern and effective national governance; (2) Defining the authority between the Government and People’s Committees at all levels in ensuring public services; (3) Defining the roles of the Government and People’s Committees at all levels in ensuring the provision of public administrative services; (4) The roles and responsibilities of central and local agencies in implementing digital transformation to ensure the provision of public administrative services and public services in the education and healthcare sectors; (5) Ensuring public services for social human resource training.
Concluding the workshop, Dr. Phung Van Hien thanked the delegates, experts, and academics for their contributions. The valuable knowledge and experience would be carefully considered by the Organizing Committee to propose solutions and recommendations. This effort aims to define the roles and responsibilities of the Government and People’s Committees at all levels in ensuring public services, meeting the requirements of national governance innovation towards modernity and effectiveness.
