Discussing public ethics means discussing the “red” aspect in President Ho Chi Minh’s advice on caring for revolutionary ethics education for the youth, both “red” and “specialized”. Mentioning public ethics for cadres, civil servants, and public employees are principled requirements in performing public duties towards serving the People.
Thanks to the good implementation of administrative reform, the Department of receiving documents and returning results of the People's Committee of Hai Thai commune, Gio Linh district always brings satisfaction to people and businesses - Photo: D.T
Public service ethics in relation to the Provincial Competitiveness Index (PCI) is reflected in the component indices and sectors that make up the PCI. In other words, if cadres, civil servants, and public employees perform their duties with the highest responsibility, they will directly or indirectly contribute to improving the PCI index according to the assessment of the surveyed people.
Regardless of the approach, with different broad and narrow scopes, it is necessary to correctly perceive the ethical nature of public servants as the standards of public service that must be absolutely followed. Thus, the quality of public service ethics will determine the quality of component indicators and related constituent fields of PCI.
The relationship between improving PCI and public ethics
The relationship in improving PCI and public service ethics is approached in this article through screening, proposing component indicators and measurement factors of PCI directly related to the quality of public service ethics; building a model of public service ethics in relation to the indicators.
The component indicators and constituent areas of the PCI indexes are all directly or indirectly affected by the quality of public service ethics; in which, separating the component indicators, the directly affected constituent areas include 8/10 component indicators related to the quality of public service ethics, including: (i) Market entry; (ii) Land access; (iii) Transparency; (iv) Time costs; (v) Informal costs; (vi) Fair competition; (vii) Dynamism of provincial government; (viii) Business support services.
To improve the PCI component indicators effectively, it is necessary to focus on the indicators assigned high weights. The PCI component indicators are assigned weights related to the quality of public service ethics, including: Transparency and Business Support Services: 20%; Informal Costs: 10%; Market Entry Costs, Land Access, Time Costs, Fair Competition, Proactivity and Pioneering of Provincial Governments: 5%. The components of public service ethics within the framework of the relationship with PCI include: Honesty, integrity; ensuring public interests; Transparency and fairness; Responsibility and dedication; and Dignity.
Current status of PCI index results of Quang Tri province
According to the announced results, PCI of Quang Tri province in the period of 2020 - 2023: in 2020 and 2021, it reached 63.07 and 63.33 points respectively, both ranked 41/63 provinces and cities (previously in the period of 2016-2020, the ranking basically improved, in 2020 it increased by 2 ranks compared to 2016 and increased by 8 ranks compared to 2019); in 2022, it reached 61.26 points, down 1.81 points compared to 2020 and 2.07 points compared to 2021, ranked 59/63, down 18 ranks compared to 2020 and 2021.
On May 9, 2024, the PCI of 63 provinces and cities in the country was announced; of which, Quang Tri province achieved 63.23 points (an increase of 1.97 points compared to 2022). The new point of PCI in 2023 is that the Vietnam Confederation of Commerce and Industry (VCCI) only announced and ranked the top 30 provinces and cities with the best governance quality in the year; the remaining provinces and cities only announced the scores of component indicators and were not ranked.
Comparing 8/10 PCI component indexes directly related to the quality of public service ethics, in 2023 compared to 2022: 4 indexes increased in score including: Market entry reached 7.43 points, up 0.5 points; Land access reached 6.47 points, up 0.71 points; Transparency reached 6.09 points, up 0.15 points; Business support services reached 6.42 points, up 1.61 points; up 0.29 points.
The 4 indexes with decreased scores include: Time cost reached 6.86 points, down 0.49 points; Informal cost reached 6.57 points, down 0.39 points; Fair competition reached 4.65 points, down 0.75 points; Dynamism of provincial government reached 6.3 points, down 0.41 points. Thus, the 2 component indexes with the highest weight of 20%, including Transparency and Business Support Services, both increased.
Some solutions and recommendations
Firstly, strengthen propaganda work, diversify communication methods to ensure that cadres, civil servants and public employees strictly comply with the law and working regulations in performing public duties related to the PCI index; communicate the meaning and importance of these indexes in the activities of state administrative agencies and the influence of public ethics in improving PCI.
Second, focus on the effectiveness of public service performance of cadres, civil servants, and public employees affecting component indices, especially those with large weights, and the areas that make up the PCI index; focus on overcoming low-ranked component indices and indices that have decreased sharply compared to previous years.
Improve the quality of business support services, especially for small and medium enterprises; focus on consulting and training solutions according to business needs with contents on business restructuring, finance, human resources, market, risk management, digital transformation, participation in sustainable value chains, and administrative procedures.
Third, officials, civil servants and public employees identify that improving public ethics contributes to improving the PCI index, the focus is essentially on improving the quality of public services; accordingly, it must be measured from service quality management with the process: assessment; inspection, supervision; harmonization of related relationships; training, fostering; salary and bonus regime as follows:
Evaluation of public servants: Agencies and organizations in the political system must seriously and synchronously implement the mechanism for evaluating cadres, civil servants and public employees in a multi-dimensional, comprehensive and continuous manner, taking political qualities and ethics as the basis, and quality and efficiency of work as the main measure. People's satisfaction in handling work with state agencies must be taken as the criterion for evaluating the quality of public service performance.
Inspection and supervision: inspect and supervise public service activities and public ethics in various forms such as: periodic and unscheduled inspections and audits of public services. Some locations can conduct regular monitoring via cameras, collect public opinions via suggestion boxes, hotlines, survey forms, large-scale surveys, etc. to rectify discipline and administrative order. Strictly inspect and control power in personnel work in conjunction with promoting decentralization and delegation of authority.
Detect and handle violations of ethical standards, communication and behavior attitudes, internal regulations, working hours; arbitrarily adding additional documents outside of regulations, causing difficulties, harassment, and negativity; not providing guidance or supplementing documents according to regulations, forcing people and organizations to go back and forth many times... Especially strictly, promptly and publicly handle violations of the law when performing official duties.
Harmonizing related relationships: Ensure good relationships between public servants and surveyed subjects and subjects related to PCI index assessment. At the same time, strengthen internal relationships between public servants (peer relationships; superiors and subordinates, subordinates and superiors); coordination relationships between departments, branches, sectors and units related to improving the indexes.
Promote the responsibility of leaders at all levels, sectors, localities, agencies and units; strengthen the mechanism of assigning and contracting work and assigning responsibility to the end; dialogue and responsibility in receiving citizens and handling people's feedback and suggestions. Leaders and managers evaluate and use "the right people for the right job", promote the strengths of employees in their work, thereby forming a sense of voluntary and self-conscious implementation of public service ethics.
Training and development: Innovate and improve the quality of training, retraining and development of cadres, especially key cadres at all levels, young cadres, highly qualified scientific cadres, cadres with information technology qualifications at agencies, localities and units to master new applications. Train cadres, civil servants and public employees according to their titles, especially cadres at the department and commune and ward levels.
Regularly train to improve professional qualifications, technical skills, communication skills, and office culture; update relevant knowledge and skills, especially new regulations and skills for work. Encourage and protect dynamic, creative staff who dare to think, dare to do, and dare to take responsibility for the common good according to the provisions of Decree No. 73/2023/NDCP, dated September 29, 2023 of the Government.
Salary and bonus regime: Develop a salary regime and appropriate treatment policies so that cadres, civil servants and public employees can work with peace of mind, wholeheartedly devote themselves to their work and serve the people. Effectively carry out emulation and reward work after announcing the PCI results to assess the level of task completion, and classify the annual emulation and reward of leaders and cadres, civil servants and public employees.
Dr. Thai Thi Hong Minh
Dr. Thai Thi Hong Minh
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