Party’s New Circular Brings Hope of End to Formalism and Red Tape
By Xie Wenting and Liu Caiyu
Global Times
2019/3/12 20:13:40
Township officials take advice at a meeting in Wailang village of Yunyang county, Southwest China's Chongqing Municipality on March 30, 2016. During the meeting, villagers spoke freely about the work of the officials. Photo: VCG
Exhausted by red tape and "formality for formality's sake"? Tired of shouting slogans and writing meaningless reports? For China's grassroots officials, a "gift pack" sent to them on Monday night might mean an end to these headaches.
Listing a series of measures, the General Office of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee issued a circular, which was made public on Monday, addressing the issue in an effort to alleviate the burden on primary-level officials.
Su Wei, a professor at the Party School of the CPC Chongqing Municipal Committee, told the Global Times on Tuesday that the timing of the circular is very important as China vowed to achieve the goal of building a moderately prosperous society in all respects and eradicating poverty in 2020.
"Grassroots officials shoulder a substantial responsibility at the frontline of eliminating poverty and environmental protection. But they have limited time and energy. If they are occupied by too many meetings and documents, they won't have time to do practical work," Su said.
Alleviating burdens
The circular, which aims to inspire these officials to be "men of action," has ushered in new measures including cutting the number and length of meetings and official documents at various levels.
Excessive efforts in the supervision and evaluation of primary-level officials will be drastically reduced while at the same time the system of accountability as well as the incentive mechanism will be improved to avoid inaction among officials, read the circular.
Hu, who works at Nanhe county government in Hebei Province, told the Global Times on Tuesday that the city-level Party committee and government has already set 2019 as a year to alleviate burdens for grassroots officials.
According to Hu, the city-level government has asked the lower-level committee and government to reduce the amount of documents by 30 percent in 2019 and hold fewer meetings.
"We can have more time to visit local communities and deal with practical issues, rather than wasting our time in conference rooms all day after the implementation of the new regulation," Hu said.
An official surnamed Wang who works at a county-level Party committee in North China's Hebei Province told the Global Times that there was a time when he and his colleagues received nearly 20 documents a day from eight different departments.
Even though many are irrelevant to their job, they are still required to spend time taking notes from these documents.
"Because of such formalism, I've seen colleagues getting tired of it, some even complained," Wang said.
A woman surnamed Zhang who works at a city-level human resources department in Anhui Province told the Global Times on Tuesday that the more details the circular stipulated, the more effective it will be.
Zhang said that after the 18th CPC National Congress, there were fewer meetings but the amount of documents remained the same.
For Zhang, the parts of the circular that mentioned changing the evaluation system of grassroots officials and favoring those who do a practical job are particularly "inspiring."
"I hope later there will be a more detailed version of the new evaluation system," she said.
Keeping up to date
Su said that after the 18th CPC National Congress, the Party has made achievements in addressing formalism and excessive bureaucracy.
But there has been a return to the old ways in recent years, especially at primary level where many officials only like to hold meetings, he said.
According to Su, the Party has launched several campaigns to address formalism throughout Party history and formalism continues to manifest itself in different ways.
He noted that after the reform and opening-up, formalism was reflected in things such as vanity projects, while historically it was shown in dogmatism or other manners.
"The Party fights formalism based on the requirements of different times," he said.
As new technology, including an e-government system, is now being widely used, Su suggested that officials should better use these tools to improve governance efficiency.
Global Times
2019/3/12 20:13:40
Township officials take advice at a meeting in Wailang village of Yunyang county, Southwest China's Chongqing Municipality on March 30, 2016. During the meeting, villagers spoke freely about the work of the officials. Photo: VCG
Exhausted by red tape and "formality for formality's sake"? Tired of shouting slogans and writing meaningless reports? For China's grassroots officials, a "gift pack" sent to them on Monday night might mean an end to these headaches.
Listing a series of measures, the General Office of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee issued a circular, which was made public on Monday, addressing the issue in an effort to alleviate the burden on primary-level officials.
Su Wei, a professor at the Party School of the CPC Chongqing Municipal Committee, told the Global Times on Tuesday that the timing of the circular is very important as China vowed to achieve the goal of building a moderately prosperous society in all respects and eradicating poverty in 2020.
"Grassroots officials shoulder a substantial responsibility at the frontline of eliminating poverty and environmental protection. But they have limited time and energy. If they are occupied by too many meetings and documents, they won't have time to do practical work," Su said.
Alleviating burdens
The circular, which aims to inspire these officials to be "men of action," has ushered in new measures including cutting the number and length of meetings and official documents at various levels.
Excessive efforts in the supervision and evaluation of primary-level officials will be drastically reduced while at the same time the system of accountability as well as the incentive mechanism will be improved to avoid inaction among officials, read the circular.
Hu, who works at Nanhe county government in Hebei Province, told the Global Times on Tuesday that the city-level Party committee and government has already set 2019 as a year to alleviate burdens for grassroots officials.
According to Hu, the city-level government has asked the lower-level committee and government to reduce the amount of documents by 30 percent in 2019 and hold fewer meetings.
"We can have more time to visit local communities and deal with practical issues, rather than wasting our time in conference rooms all day after the implementation of the new regulation," Hu said.
An official surnamed Wang who works at a county-level Party committee in North China's Hebei Province told the Global Times that there was a time when he and his colleagues received nearly 20 documents a day from eight different departments.
Even though many are irrelevant to their job, they are still required to spend time taking notes from these documents.
"Because of such formalism, I've seen colleagues getting tired of it, some even complained," Wang said.
A woman surnamed Zhang who works at a city-level human resources department in Anhui Province told the Global Times on Tuesday that the more details the circular stipulated, the more effective it will be.
Zhang said that after the 18th CPC National Congress, there were fewer meetings but the amount of documents remained the same.
For Zhang, the parts of the circular that mentioned changing the evaluation system of grassroots officials and favoring those who do a practical job are particularly "inspiring."
"I hope later there will be a more detailed version of the new evaluation system," she said.
Keeping up to date
Su said that after the 18th CPC National Congress, the Party has made achievements in addressing formalism and excessive bureaucracy.
But there has been a return to the old ways in recent years, especially at primary level where many officials only like to hold meetings, he said.
According to Su, the Party has launched several campaigns to address formalism throughout Party history and formalism continues to manifest itself in different ways.
He noted that after the reform and opening-up, formalism was reflected in things such as vanity projects, while historically it was shown in dogmatism or other manners.
"The Party fights formalism based on the requirements of different times," he said.
As new technology, including an e-government system, is now being widely used, Su suggested that officials should better use these tools to improve governance efficiency.
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