Shenzhen pioneers administrative reform

• Source: Global Times
• [21:30 August 19 2009]
• Comments

GT: The giant department system reform means merging and reducing government offices. Will this cause hardship in personnel arrangement? If so, how can the problem be solved?

Chen: Surely the giant department system reform will cut off some departments and offices. However, it doesn’t aim primarily to cut down staff, but to straighten out the relations among decision-making, supervision and execution, and transforming government functions.
To establish a service-oriented government is what the reform wants to achieve. During the merging of departments and offices, more staff may be needed.

GT: The administrative reform aims to readjust the existing power structure. If decision-making, execution and supervision departments hold the same rank, how to coordinate the three to avoid buck-passing and a lack of execution and supervision?

Chen: The UK government adopted administrative contracts to avoid such issues. The government signs contracts with its subordinate departments and offices and evaluates whether these departments and offices fulfill their contracts. If they don’t, there is a punishment. If they do, there is a reward.

China has just begun its giant department system reform, so there is a long way to go. The Western political system also took a long time to evolve into its present form. Shenzhen’s reform guideline, as far as we know, hasn’t provided principles on this respect.

GT: Shenzhen’s reform guidelines indicate that the new administration will still practice internal balancing, meaning the government monitors itself. How can we break the self-monitoring model and create systematic guarantee for public supervision?

Chen: I think government performance assessment is a good way. Governments at all levels should be under “sunshine” oversight, disclose finances, expenditures, projects and other governmental actions. An assessment from outside is useful to supervise the government.

In the West, many accounting firms and auditing firms evaluate the government performance and publicize the results.

In addition, accountability should be improved to punish bad performance.
The National People’s Congress (NPC) should play its role of effective supervision.

GT: The reform is designed to build a service-oriented government. How should this be accomplished?

Chen: Administration and the political system are connected closely. To build a service-oriented government, legislation and enforcement of laws should be strengthened. China’s democracy needs to be improved. The NPC should perform its duty and let people have more choices.