Immediately after the revolution on streamlining the apparatus initiated by General Secretary To Lam, the entire political system has been involved and vigorously implemented. The National Assembly, the Government, the Vietnam Fatherland Front and socio-political organizations, ministries, branches and localities have established a Steering Committee to summarize the implementation of Resolution 18-NQ/TW on streamlining and streamlining the apparatus. The National Assembly has the Chairman of the National Assembly as Head of the Steering Committee, the Government bloc has Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh as Head of the Steering Committee; ministries and branches have Ministers and Heads of branches as Heads of the Steering Committee. Provinces and cities have the Secretary of the Provincial Party Committee and the City Party Committee as Heads of the Steering Committee.
From the proposed arrangement study, the arrangement and streamlining plan of the political system for Party committees and organizations at all levels reduces 4 Party agencies directly under the Central Committee, 25 Party executive committees, 16 Party delegations directly under the Central Committee; increases 2 Party committees directly under the Central Committee. For the Government, 5 ministries and 2 agencies directly under the Government are reduced. For the National Assembly, 4 National Assembly Committees and 1 agency directly under the National Assembly Standing Committee are reduced.
With the spirit of "lightning speed", the Central Steering Committee on summarizing Resolution No. 18-NQ/TW (headed by General Secretary To Lam) requested that units complete the project to arrange and streamline the apparatus in December 2024 to serve the Central Conference and the extraordinary National Assembly session to be held in February 2025.
In that spirit, the Government has proposed a post-reorganization plan, according to which there will be 13 ministries, 4 ministerial-level agencies, reducing 5 ministries and 3 agencies directly under the Government. The organizations after the arrangement and consolidation will reduce 35-40% of the focal points, the remaining organizations arranged internally will reduce at least 15%. Basically, the general departments and equivalent organizations will be eliminated, initially expected to reduce 500 departments under ministries and general departments. For the National Assembly, after the merger and streamlining, it is expected that the number of focal points of the National Assembly agencies and agencies under the National Assembly Standing Committee will be reduced by nearly 36%; the departments and units of the National Assembly Office will be reduced by over 40%.
It is worth mentioning that not only the Departments, Ministries and Commissions subject to merger or termination of operations must speed up their restructuring plans; but the "call" initiated by General Secretary To Lam has also urged ministries and sectors not subject to merger. For example, the Ministry of Industry and Trade has a plan to reorganize and streamline its apparatus by reducing 5 units (from 28 units to 23 units), i.e. reducing 17.8% of the number of focal points.
As for the provincial and municipal levels, responding to the "Central calls, local authorities respond", localities are currently implementing reorganization plans. In Nghe An, a plan has been proposed to merge 12 departments and end the operations of 11 party groups. Thus, according to the reorganization plan of the political system, Nghe An province will reduce 6 departments and 1 agency under the province.
Meanwhile, Hai Phong also plans to merge the City Party Committee's Propaganda Department with the Mass Mobilization Department; end the activities of the City Officials' Health Care and Protection Department, the Party Committee of the City's agencies, the City's business party and the Party delegations - Party executive committees directly under the City Party Committee. At the same time, the Department of Planning and Investment will be merged with the Department of Finance; the Department of Natural Resources and Environment will be merged with the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development; the Department of Culture and Sports will be merged with the Department of Tourism; the Department of Science and Technology will be merged with the Department of Information and Communications; the Department of Labor, War Invalids and Social Affairs will be merged with the Department of Home Affairs, and some functions will be transferred to the Department of Education and Training and the Department of Health.
According to the plan, the Standing Committee of the Hai Phong City Party Committee requires Party committees, Party organizations, agencies and units to proactively develop and complete the Project (or plan) to arrange and streamline the organizational apparatus according to assigned tasks and send it to the City Party Committee's Organization Committee before January 15, 2025 for synthesis and reporting to the Standing Committee of the City Party Committee and the City Party Executive Committee.
According to the report of the Ministry of Home Affairs, in the period of 2019-2022, streamlining the payroll has helped the budget save over 25,600 billion VND to implement salary reform. Up to now, there has been no specific estimate of the amount of budget savings after streamlining the organization of the entire political system. However, in fact, in the reform of administrative procedures to improve work efficiency and reduce budget costs, Hanoi has approved the pilot project to establish the Hanoi City Public Administration Service Center. The establishment of the Public Administration Service Center will reduce the number of "one-stop" departments (reduced from 673 "one-stop" departments to 30 branches). According to the Hanoi People's Committee, the Public Administration Center replaces the "one-stop" department, thereby saving about 231 billion VND per year.
The above example in Hanoi shows that if the process of streamlining and organizing the apparatus is implemented synchronously throughout the country, budget expenditures for the apparatus will be significantly reduced, thereby allocating a large amount of resources for investment in national development.
Mr. Nguyen Duc Ha, former Head of the Party Cell Department (Central Organization Department) gave an example and analyzed that: in the arrangement, if one Ministry is reduced, at least 63 Departments in provinces and cities will be reduced. When 63 Departments are reduced, thousands of rooms in districts and affiliated units of the Department will be reduced.
However, the difficulties in implementing the streamlining of the apparatus are not simple. As General Secretary To Lam has clearly stated, “this is an issue that requires solidarity, unity, courage and sacrifice from each cadre and party member, first of all the heads of Party committees, authorities, the Fatherland Front and mass organizations at all levels, all for the development of the country”.
From many years of practical experience in researching the issue of personnel work, Mr. Le Van Cuong, former Deputy Head of the National Assembly Delegation of Thanh Hoa province, said that streamlining the apparatus has been proposed for many years but has not been implemented due to many obstacles. Now there is no more time to back down, so now we have to "run and queue at the same time", meaning we have to do it while learning from experience, and in the process of doing it, we will focus on removing the obstacles, problems, and bottlenecks in those areas.
Considering that this is a very difficult problem, touching the interests, feelings and emotions of the staff, civil servants and public employees, according to Mr. Cuong, the most difficult problem is still solving the human problem. Therefore, for those who voluntarily apply for leave, it is easy to solve, but there needs to be a satisfactory policy in a public and transparent manner. Therefore, now to solve the above problem, it is necessary to soon issue a superior support policy to encourage those who apply for early retirement.
Regarding the challenge for those who “don’t want to retire yet”, according to Mr. Cuong, in streamlining people, there needs to be a “transitional period”, that is, a roadmap. Explaining the above proposal, Mr. Cuong said that, in the immediate future, we should carry out the work of arranging the organizational apparatus to reduce the focal points. Thereby, determining the functions, tasks and powers of the new organization after the arrangement and merger, initially reducing the number of heads and deputies.
As for people, according to Mr. Cuong, it needs to be step by step, with a roadmap. Because if pressure is used, it will make cadres, civil servants, and public employees "thoughtful".
From the previous reality, the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development of Thanh Hoa province after the merger had 6-7 Deputy Directors of the Department, but now it has stabilized, with only 3 Deputy Directors left, Mr. Cuong said: "The most important goal when streamlining and merging is that the apparatus must be strong and effective, work must not be interrupted or delayed but must be connected, in which the human factor is to ensure the operation of the State administration. Therefore, we should first arrange to streamline the focal points. As for human resources, this is a difficult and sensitive issue, so we need to take steps to stabilize the organizational apparatus after the arrangement, and only after the Congress is completed can we consider the human factor."
According to Mr. Nguyen Duc Ha, we must always pay attention to overcoming both tendencies. If we are too subjective and hasty, it will have negative impacts; but we must not be too cautious and meticulous to the point of stagnation.
Mr. Ha said that streamlining the organizational apparatus of the entire political system and reducing the number of cadres in the entire political system is a big, heavy, complicated and very sensitive task. Therefore, it is necessary to pay attention to political and ideological work so that everyone clearly and deeply understands that this is an urgent and mandatory issue.
“When arranging the organization of cadres, it affects cadres a lot, and it is natural to have concerns because it affects their rights, interests, and jobs. Because cadres are also their families. Therefore, the Party, the State, and organizations must also consider, weigh, and calculate many comprehensive solutions,” said Mr. Ha.
Regarding the reorganization plan in Hai Phong, Mr. Le Tien Chau, Secretary of the Hai Phong City Party Committee, also said that it is necessary to arrange and streamline the organizational apparatus first. Then, we will streamline the payroll, restructure the staff, civil servants, public employees and workers to eliminate unnecessary positions, duplicate functions and tasks, reduce ineffective work, and focus resources on key areas and truly worthy and suitable people.
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