According to the Director of the Department Vu Dang Dinh, identifying administrative reform as a key task, the Department has focused on improving the quality, awareness and responsibility of officials in performing civil service and administrative discipline; improving procedures to accelerate  administrative clearance so as to ensure streamlined and simplified paper processing. Over the past year, the Department proposed the City People's Committee to remove one administrative procedure, reduce one professional unit, cutting the  current 9 bureaucratic procedures down and upgrade, as planned for  the end of 2017, seven out of nine administrative procedures to  level 3. In 2016, the Department processed a total of 1,242 administrative procedures, in which 1,215 administrative procedures were settled on time, reaching 97.8%. In the first quarter of 2017, the Department received 180 administrative procedures  and cleared timely 176, reaching the proportion of 98%. Appreciating the determination and PAR results of the Department of Foreign Affairs, the Deputy Secretary of Hanoi’s Party Committee Dao Duc Toan said that the Department effective clearance of procedures has helped to raise  the image of the capital city in the eyes of  Vietnamese citizens and friends abroad. The Department of Foreign Affairs should build a staff  of external affairs able to meet professional requirements, associated with the promotion of studying and following Chairman Ho Chi Minh's ideals, morals and style, especially his diplomacy style. "The first impression is very important, so external affairs officials  must be not only fluent in foreign languages but also have to understand the culture of Hanoi to convey to foreigners," said the Deputy Secretary of the City’s Party Committee. In addition, each official and civil servant must be aware of their position and role to improve the quality and efficiency in advising the city’s leaders on external affairs. In particular, they need to  strictly base on the centralized political tasks of the city to perform external affairs work. It is necessary for them to  attach importance to the work of forecasting based on studying  the current situation and improve cooperation to promote investment.
Regarding the administrative reform, the Deputy Secretary of the Party Committee Dao Duc Toan proposed the Department of Foreign Affairs not only to carry out online administrative procedures at level 3, but also to upgrade them  to level 4 to help organizations and individuals. At the same time, he asked the department to accelerate internal administrative reform, clearly assign and delegate tasks in tandem with the strengthening of the regime of reporting, checking and , execution of tasks.