Hanoi continued to stay in the second place nationwide in the 2019 Public Administration Reform (PAR) index with a combined score of 84.64%, slightly up from 83.98% in 2018.

Chairman of Hanoi People's Committee Nguyen Duc Chung at the PARINDEX 2019 launching ceremony.

Quang Ninh province remained at the top spot for three consecutive years with a score of 90.09%, and Dong Thap at third with 84.43%.

Notably, the average score of Vietnam’s five largest cities, including Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh, Can Tho, Danang and Hai Phong, has reached a four-year high at 81.15%, moving up 4.23 percentage points from that of last year.

In 2019, seven out of eight sub-components of the PAR Index recorded higher average scores compared to last year, except for the “Evaluating of impacts of administrative reform to citizens, organizations and socio-economic development indicators at localities”.

Chairman of the Hanoi People’s Committee Nguyen Duc Chung said the result reflected strong efforts of Hanoi towards a smoother administrative environment in 2019.

Chung reiterated the administrative reform is considered one of Hanoi’s three breakthrough policies to ensure socio-economic development and security in the 2015 – 2020 period.

According to Chung, Hanoi has set up an evaluation system to assess administrative reform efforts among local agencies.

This year, Hanoi is developing a set of criteria to assess creativity and management capacity of departments, units and people’s committees at district- and ward-levels, Chung said.

Meanwhile, there have been a monitoring system in place to check the progress of local authorities in complying with instructions of the central government, Prime Minister, and city’s leaders. 

Hanoi continues to tighten disciplines of public servants and strictly punish those that violate the code of conduct when working with the citizens and enterprises.

Regarding the PAR Index 2019, Chung said one of Hanoi’s highlights in improving the quality of public services is the establishment of 1,717 internal procedures to realize administrative process, which are fully disclosed to the public and available at the national portal of the People’s Committee.

In 2019, Hanoi’s authorities processed 11.4 million applications on time, or 99.1% of the total, while the number in the first quarter of 2020 was 1.87 million, equivalent to a rate of 99.8%.

Additionally, 1,421 out of 1,611 administrative processes are carried out online at advanced stages of three and four out of a four-level scale, or 89% of the total, in which 388 are at stage 4.

To date, Hanoi has integrated 48 public online services to the national services portal, and an addition of 200 are expected to follow suit by the end of June.

Among measures to boost the administrative reform, Hanoi is encouraging its citizens to use public online services at advanced stages, a key step to build e-citizens and a smart city, while evaluating the satisfactory of citizens and enterprises towards the quality of public services at the city’s 22 departments and 30 districts.