Shanghai Government Work Hard to Speed Innovation and

Increase Service Ability

Source: Weihui Daily

In order to reach the aim of “the highest administrative transparency, the highest administrative efficiency, and the least administrative charges”, Shanghai government is speeding up its administrative innovation, increasing its executive ability, public trust, and the ability to serve the people, by using the transformation of government functions as the core, the systematic construction as the basis, the moral construction as the guarantee, and the reform of administrative examination and approval system and the open governmental information as the key.

Reform of Administrative Examination and Approval System Creates a Shortcut

Keboda Automobile Electronic Base project situated at Zhangjiang Hi-tech Park finished capping on the main body construction of its workshop. As an experimental example of the reform, Keboda project went through simplified examination and approval procedures. The duration of examination and approval reduced from 100 work days before the reform to about 50 work days. This private hi-tech enterprise specializing in automobile electron gained competitive advantages from the shortened duration. The administrative efficiency is an important criteria to assess the government’s ability of administration and service. Before the reform, a project like Keboda should go through six formalities, including acquiring the land use right, examining and approving the master plan scheme, examining and approving the preliminary design, checking the blueprint, examining and approving the commencement, and checking completion, and should deal with more than a dozen of departments, including planning, transportation, traffic police, environmental protection, environmental sanitation, public health, earthquake resistance, energy saving. “We can really feel that the efficiency has been really increased”, said Zhou Jinli working in the construction office of Keboda.

What on earth does the reform of administrative examination and approval system work? More than 50 newly-established enterprises benefited from the reform, since three districts (Luwan, Changning, Minhang) carried out the experimental reform of parallel examination and approval for domestic enterprises last year. The reform proved to be a success for those enterprises could get “One License, Two Certificates” in an average of 7 work days by visiting relevant government departments for two times. As for those foreign-invested enterprises, Shanghai Municipal Commerce Commission transferred the examination and approval power of the foreign-invested projects of not more than USD 0.1 billion which fall within the category of encouragement or permit to relevant departments at the district/county level as of August 1, 2009. At present, most of the examination and approval work of foreign-invested projects have been transferred to the district/county departments. Instead of 20 work days before the reform, it takes only more than a week to complete the procedure of examination and approval of a foreign-invested project which falls within the category of encouragement or permit. 

According to the statistics, 55 departments of the Municipal People’s Government reported 1852 items during the 4th clearing of administrative examination and approval items, among which, 1527 items belong to administrative license; after the clearing, 206 items of administrative license were cancelled, 744 items were adjusted, amounting to a total of 950 items which is close to the total amount of items (1044 items) cancelled and adjusted in the preceding three batches. The remaining 601 items were made public.

For the next step, Shanghai will continue to strengthen the reform of administrative examination and approval system, manifesting both administration and services, speeding up government function transformation and administrative innovation, and promoting self-construction. The five key factors of such reform this year are: examination and approval catalogue, examination and approval manual, online examination and approval, parallel examination and approval, and notification-commitment.

Open Government Information Assures the Citizens

Open is the principle, and confidentiality is the exception. Shanghai pioneered in exercising open government information countywide on May 1, 2004. Last year, Shanghai government continued to strengthen the width and depth, and innovate the methods of open government information, so as to develop the same in a more standardized and complete way. The open government information not only normalizes the government’s acts, but also assures the citizens.

The acceptance work of the application for affordable houses in pilot areas of Shanghai has just finished recently. As an important policy for the people’s livelihood, relevant department of Municipal People’s Government published the Trial Procedures of Shanghai Municipality on the Administration of Affordable Housing (Opinion Soliciting Draft) to solicit opinions from the citizens early last year. In the following ten days, more than 18 million clicks on relevant website were counted, and more than 3400 written opinions or suggestions were collected. The Trial Procedures were officially promulgated in last June after the serious consideration of the citizen’s opinions and suggestions; meanwhile, hot issues concerned by the citizens were explained officially to the public in the form of FAQ.

Li Ming, a deputy to Shanghai Municipal People’s Congress, always brought with him a thick pile of materials related to the municipal budget at this year’s Municipal Congress conference just closed. After studying the “Consolidated Budget Report of 2010 on Shanghai Municipal Departments”, he satisfactorily found that his last year’s proposal of “further making public the projects invested with social public funds which are concerned by the citizens” got an echo on this 118-page budget report which reported in detail the situation of using social public funds, such as the revenue from auction of newly-applied automobile quota in Shanghai in 2009.

Openness and transparency is an important symbol of a service-oriented government, a government of accountability, a government ruled of law, and a clean government. In the near future, Shanghai will continue to strength the publicity of information on government-invested projects, public policies, and the public services, push forward the open and transparent operation of financial funds and social public funds, and push forward the open of auditing in accordance with law.

“Transparency and Exposure under the Sun” without Dead or Blind Areas

The principle of “transparency and exposure under the sun” shall be followed at every section of government power operation without any dead or blind areas. It is clearly emphasized in the Working Report of the Municipal People’s Government that the transformation of government functions shall be further sped up, the social management and public services shall be strengthened, and the capacity of handling public events shall be raised. Some government departments which have some kind of formalism and bureaucratism, need an improvement on their implementation, coordination and cooperation work.

Never refuse to face existing problems. Such events as the “entrapment incident” and the “building collapse incident” happened last year reflected the problems in the government’s administration by law. To solve the problems concerned, Shanghai will focus on system construction by normalizing the administration system on the receipts and expenditures of administrative penalty, resolutely putting an end to the connection between penalty receipts and the bonus of the law enforcement officers or department budgetary revenues. The Municipal People’s Government is planning to amend relevant normative documents to improve the administration on penalty. Shanghai will further strengthen the qualification authentication of the law enforcement officers, carry out the system that the officers must be qualified with credentials before they are on duty, and show their credentials in law enforcement, strictly restrict the acts of the assistants to law enforcement, and strengthen the work of on-duty training and credential administration. The unqualified personnel are prohibited to be put on duty.