One of the important contents that the 10th Central Committee Conference highly agreed among the major groups of issues mentioned in the documents to be submitted to the 14th National Party Congress is to continue focusing on building and streamlining the organizational apparatus of the Party, National Assembly, Government, Fatherland Front, and socio-political organizations to make them operate effectively and efficiently.

Of these, Streamlining the apparatus and organization of Party agencies so that these agencies can truly be the intellectual nucleus, the "general staff", and the vanguard leading state agencies has been highlighted.

This is also one of noteworthy messages conveyed by the Party Committee Secretary General and President of State To Lam in his article titled ‘Continuing to strongly renovate the Party’s leadership is an urgent requirement in the new revolution period’.

More experts, less administrative procedures

Prof. Dr. Phung Huu Phu, former Permanent Vice Chair of the Central Theoretical Council, who was a member of the team editing the documents of the 11th, 12th, 13yh and 14th Party Congresses, stressed that the restructuring and renovation of organization and apparatus is a Party great idea.

The 6th Central Committee Conference of the 12th tenure issued Resolution 18/2017 titled "Some issues on continuing to renovate and reorganize the political system to make it streamlined and operate effectively and efficiently"; and the guidelines have been implemented actively.

However, as a matter of fact, the rearrangement and reorganization of the apparatus need to continue to be implemented in a stricter and stronger manner.

With the spirit, the 10th Central Committee Conference requires to continue to build and organize a streamlined, transparent, efficient and effective political system, with the emphasis on the streamlining the Party’s apparatus and organizations.

According to Phu, in addition to the requirement that the Party’s organizations must be exemplary and restructured, the Central Committee emphasized that while streamlining and rearranging the apparatus, it is necessary to be sure that the positions of the Party’s organizations must really be the ‘General Staff’, serving as the organ that directs and leads the entire political system.

Therefore, the streamlining must be implemented in a way to ensure the appreciation and promotion of the role of the Party’s agencies. 

“Party agencies are the ‘general staff’, strategic agencies that guide and lead the development, so the staff must be strategic,” Phu said.

Phu believes that in the time to come, agencies need to be restructured so as to increase the number of specialists and reduce the number of administrative officers. Also, it is necessary to communicate among agencies to ensure smooth operation and strength.

“If the Party is well organized, operates effectively and efficiently, this will create a very good effect, encouraging, motivating and guiding other organizations of the political system to continue reviewing to become more streamlined, more transparent, and operate more effectively and efficiently,” he said.

Tidy apparatus needs good staff

The principle for the reorganization is avoiding the overlap in functions and tasks. Organizations need to be tidy and consist only of necessary divisions.

Some localities tried models in accordance with the Resolution 18 of the sixth Central Committee Conference of the 12th Party Congress. However, they have stopped this because they still have not carefully leaned about the models.

According to Associate Prof Dr Nguyen Viet Thong, former secretary general of the Central Theoretical Council, 11 cities/provinces tried to merge three offices (NA deputies, people’s council, and people’s committee) into one. But after just a short time, they realized that the three offices should not be merged.

In other localities, at the district level, the personnel division was merged with home affairs division. Some provinces merged the planning and investment department with finance department, and transport department with construction department.

Phu said it is necessary to conduct research methodically and scientifically before making decisions. This avoids unnecessary upsets, and avoids doing it over and over again, separating and then incorporating all the time.

This explains why the structuring of apparatus always has to be associated with staff planning.

“After restructuring and reorganization, the apparatus must be better and more effective, while cadres become more mature,” Phu explained.

Thu Hang - Le Anh Dung