National Assembly Delegates' questions on the issue of downsizing in Vietnam

National Assembly Delegates' questions on the issue of downsizing in Vietnam (Image from the Internet)

National Assembly Delegates' questions on the issue of downsizing in Vietnam

At the 36th session of the National Assembly Standing Committee, the Minister of Home Affairs received a question from National Assembly Delegate Ho Thi Minh, the delegation from Quang Tri province, as follows: The Delegate requested the Minister to clarify the current discrepancies in workforce quotas distribution among localities despite the equivalent population size, area, and administrative units. With your role, please, Minister, explain the solutions in the upcoming period to avoid mechanical, equalized workforce reductions, unassociated with the functions, tasks of each sector, each locality, to ensure that each unit and locality maintain the workforce to perform their duties in the forthcoming period.

In Official Dispatch 5547/BNV-TCBC dated September 11, 2024, the Minister of Home Affairs responded as follows:

Implementing Resolution of the Central Committee 6 of the 12th Congress, the Ministry of Home Affairs promptly advised and proposed to the Government of Vietnam to issue Decrees on managing the official workforce and the number of people working in public service providers, of which clearly stipulated the determination of workforce (officials and public employees) based on common criteria such as: population size, natural area, number of district-level and commune-level administrative units, and other specific criteria such as: the workload of each position, the level of modernization of equipment, working tools and IT application, actual usage of allocated workforce, political security characteristics, order, and social safety.

Therefore, despite the uniform application of Party and Government regulations, in practice, there are cases where localities with equivalent population size, natural area, and number of administrative units are assigned different workforce quotas by the competent authorities.

To effectively manage and utilize the assigned workforce quotas amidst the trend of downsizing, localities need to apply the following comprehensive solutions:

- Continue to review and reorganize the internal apparatus towards downsized structure combined with restructuring and enhancing the quality of officials and public employees according to job positions, matching the functions, tasks, authorities assigned by the competent authorities.

- Develop a downsizing plan with an appropriate roadmap for each agency, organization, unit within management scope (avoiding mechanical, equalized workforce reductions), ensuring compliance with the downsizing requirements as per the Communist Party's regulations in Conclusion 28-KL/TW and Conclusion 40-KL/TW.

- Focus on enhancing IT application and digital transformation, reviewing, simplifying administrative procedures, innovating the organization and activities of each agency, organization, unit, especially promoting autonomy in public service providers to restructure the workforce by reducing the number receiving salaries from the state budget and increasing the number receiving salaries from business revenue corresponding to the financial autonomy level of public service providers as per Resolution 75/2022/QH15 of the National Assembly.

- Promptly adjust workforce quotas among agencies, organizations, units within management scope, fitting the task requirements in each specific period, ensuring effective utilization of the assigned workforce quotas (avoiding vacant quotas).

Should all aforementioned solutions be fully and comprehensively implemented and the localities still require additional workforce, the provincial Party Standing Committees, municipal Party Committees need to issue documents proposing the Central Organization Commission to report to the competent authorities for consideration and decision as per Regulation 70-QD/TW dated July 18, 2022, of the Politburo on managing the workforce of the political system.

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