National public service portal and the problem of spreading benefits and increasing friendliness

People are surprised at the quick procedure

Carrying out the procedure for issuing a passport online through the National Public Service Portal, Tran Truong Son, born in 2007, living in Long Bien district (Hanoi), expressed his surprise: " Before, I thought the procedure for issuing a passport was very complicated, but I didn't expect it to be this simple.

Just use a smartphone connected to the Internet, no need to go to the passport office with many documents and complicated procedures. I will guide many other people about online public services because it is very fast, convenient and easy .

Tran Truong Son in Long Bien District (Hanoi) felt surprised when he was able to quickly complete the passport application procedure online via the National Public Service Portal. (Photo: BM)

“ Without online public services like this, I would have spent a lot of time and effort traveling to do procedures at public agencies, not to mention having to wait a long time if there were many people in line, ” Ms. Tam Anh, who works at the Ministry of Labor, War Invalids and Social Affairs and resides on Tran Quoc Toan Street (Hanoi), excitedly shared her feelings after completing an administrative procedure on the National Public Service Portal.

Having directly supported many people in performing administrative procedures on the National Public Service Portal, Ms. Tran Thi Kim Thoa, an employee of Central Post Office 3 under Hanoi City Post Office, affirmed: “ The steps to perform online public services are very simple, everyone just needs to access the address https://dichvucong.gov.vn, register an account according to the main mobile phone number or VNeID level 2 account, then follow the published instructions, and register for the post office's home delivery service.

After completing the application, a message will be sent to the phone. When receiving the results at home (driver's license, passport, criminal record certificate, etc.), people will pay the delivery fee to the post office staff .

A new trend in the process of building and operating the National Public Service Portal is to deploy comprehensive online public services to contribute to building a digital government and digital citizens.

According to Decree No. 42/2022/ND-CP, full-process online public services are services in which all information about administrative procedures, implementation and resolution of administrative procedures are carried out online; results are returned online or via public postal services. In other words, full-process online means that people can do it themselves from home, without having to go to a state agency.

The entire process of issuing and renewing driver's licenses online is one of 25 essential public services prioritized for integration and sharing of population data from the National Population Database with the National Public Service Portal.

As of September 18, 2023, nearly 38,000 public service records for the entire process of changing driver's licenses were carried out on the National Public Service Portal, and more than 31,000 people received driver's licenses after completing administrative procedures.

Mr. Nguyen Xuan Cuong, Director of the Vietnam Road Administration, emphasized: “ The implementation of the entire online driver's license renewal process on the National Public Service Portal has contributed to simplifying and reducing paperwork procedures, saving time and costs in handling administrative procedures for driver's license renewal.

On average, for accommodation and travel costs of people in remote communes about 300 km from the city center, each online application for a driver's license renewal saves about 700,000 VND .

Many things need to be done to promote the effectiveness of the National Public Service Portal

The national public service portal was officially launched at the end of 2019 with the motto of taking people and businesses as the center, aiming to digitize records, electronic transactions, and provide public services regardless of time or administrative boundaries.

The operation of the National Public Service Portal is expected to promote administrative procedure reform through the application of information technology; improve Vietnam's position in the online public service index in the e-Government development index according to the annual ranking of the United Nations.

National Public Service Portal interface. (Photo: BM)

According to the Department of Administrative Procedure Control, by the end of May 2023, the National Public Service Portal had provided 4,419 online public services; had more than 7 million registered accounts; more than 15.9 million times of performing utility services; 14.9 million online records and more than 9.4 million online payment transactions were conducted from this portal.

Comparing the above figures with the total population of Vietnam of about 100 million people, it can be seen that there are still many people who do not know the benefits of performing public services online on the National Public Service Portal.

One of the main reasons for the above situation is said to be the lack of and weak propaganda work. State agencies do not have enough staff to go to all provinces and cities to propagate, guide and support people to access the "channel" to implement new administrative procedures.

In an effort to find a solution to the propaganda problem, the Vietnam Road Administration has signed a Joint Program to guide and support citizens in issuing and renewing driver's licenses online on the National Public Service Portal and returning results via public postal services, in order to take advantage of the nationwide human resource network, operating down to the commune and ward levels of Vietnam Post.

Vietnam Post has promptly directed provincial/municipal post offices to coordinate with departments of transport to arrange human resources and equipment to guide and support citizens in the entire process of issuing and renewing driver's licenses online on the National Public Service Portal.

“ After being trained by competent authorities on online public services on the National Public Service Portal, Hanoi Post Office has selected transaction officers and officers who are proficient in administrative procedures to serve the people.

Hanoi City Post Office currently has about 600 post offices. We will invest in additional facilities and train staff so that people can go there to perform online public services, ” said Mr. Nguyen Hung Son, Director of Hanoi City Post Office.

The cooperation between the Vietnam Road Administration and Vietnam Post is a good experience that other state agencies can apply to soon solve the propaganda problem, thereby spreading more widely the benefits of performing administrative procedures on the National Public Service Portal.

In addition to propaganda work, in order to rapidly increase the number of people using online services on the National Public Service Portal, relevant agencies need to pay more attention to the simplicity and convenience of public services, truly putting people at the center of online service provision activities.

According to the Department of Administrative Procedure Control, by April 2023, the rate of online public services of a number of ministries and branches integrated and provided on the National Public Service Portal is still low, typically the Ministry of Labor, War Invalids and Social Affairs only reached 9.4%.

There are still some ministries and sectors that have not yet digitized records or have achieved low results, for example, the rate of issuing electronic administrative procedure settlement results of the Ministry of Public Security is only 4.79%; the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment 4.34%, the Ministry of Justice 1%...

The survey results published by the research team of the Institute for Policy Studies and Media Development (IPS) in July 2023 also noted a worrying number: Only 3.05% of interviewees said they had created a user profile on the National Public Service Portal and more than 1% used the Public Service Portal to carry out administrative procedures.

Some of the main issues leading to unfortunate consequences: Features for performing online public services are not guaranteed; The process of performing administrative procedures in the electronic environment is not optimized for users; Inadequacies in connecting data, accounts and interfaces between the central and local online public service delivery systems; The public service portal is still difficult to access for the visually impaired and ethnic minorities...

The research team pointed out common shortcomings when using the National Public Service Portal, including: Technical errors leading to difficulty in accessing; Unable to make online payments; Digital signatures not approved; No explanation; Specific instructions when records are incorrect...

Up to now, many people still find it difficult to use public services on the National Public Service Portal as well as online public service portals of ministries/sectors/localities, and then tell each other to do it the old way - go directly to state agencies, meet officials and ask for help quickly.

The problem of increasing user-friendliness and convenience of the National Public Service Portal is still waiting for more effective solutions from state agencies.

Hien Minh

Source: https://vtc.vn/cong-dich-vu-cong-quoc-gia-va-bai-toan-lan-toa-loi-ich-tang-su-than-thien-ar823906.html