Hanoi prepares thoroughly to operate the 2-level local government model

During these days (from June 20 to June 26), 126 new communes and wards in Hanoi will pilot the two-level local government model, to officially operate from July 1, 2025.

Reporter of Hanoi Moi Newspaper interviewed Director of Hanoi Department of Home Affairs Tran Dinh Canh about the preparation for this breakthrough step.

Director of the Department of Home Affairs Tran Dinh Canh. Photo: Hien Thu

Resolving administrative procedures is the number one priority.

- Since June 20, how has the pilot operation of the two-level local government model in Hanoi been conducted and what is its goal, sir?

- The trial operation is an important premise to prepare for the commune-level government apparatus to officially come into operation from July 1, 2025. The trial operation is extremely important, both to evaluate the results of preparations over the past months of the entire political system, and to test the operations of the new organizational model.

To prepare for the trial operation phase, the city has issued many guidance documents; organized 11 working groups to each new commune and ward to inspect the guidance; organized a city-wide training conference (June 19, 2025).

The main work contents in the trial operation phase include:

Operate information systems to serve the direction and administration of the two-level government apparatus, which are the electronic document processing system and the online meeting system between the city and commune levels.

Operate the mechanism of the Party Executive Committee meeting at the commune level; collective meeting of the People's Committee leadership at the commune level. The special thing is the trial operation, but the main content is the practical tasks to serve the operation of the apparatus, such as: Meeting to discuss the regulations on assigning leaders in charge of the field of work area; assigning cadres and civil servants according to work positions and testing the activities of each department in the organization to ensure that from July 1, 2025, all activities will be implemented immediately without interruption, ensuring quality.

Operate citizen reception activities; plan and software system for receiving and returning administrative procedure (TTHC) settlement results to people in the commune.

Operate and evaluate the performance of the organizational apparatus in implementing tasks according to decentralization, delegation of authority and division of authority between the Central, city and commune-level People's Committees; operate the performance of each specialized field of the apparatus to evaluate the effectiveness of the assignment and arrangement of staff and civil servants.

Operate the infrastructure system of the commune level such as specialized software systems; office headquarters; coordinate and interconnect activities between agencies and units.

- The settlement of administrative procedures when implementing the new model is a matter of concern to many people. What solutions does Hanoi City have to ensure smooth settlement of administrative procedures for people and businesses?

- The task of serving citizens and organizations in resolving administrative procedures is the city's number one priority during the pilot operation of the model to ensure that all administrative procedures are smooth, timely, and uninterrupted.

The city leaders have directed the completion of the issuance of new seals for all agencies and units to create the most favorable conditions and readiness for administrative activities as well as the settlement of administrative procedures at the commune level in accordance with the direction of the Ministry of Public Security .

The city has directed departments and branches to carry out the demarcation and authority to resolve administrative procedures at the commune level; administrative procedures authorized from the city, departments and branches to the commune level have also been implemented. Commune-level agencies are decentralized and authorized to resolve over 500 administrative procedures, requiring an operating apparatus, data system and software to meet the requirements.

Up to now, the city has had a plan to arrange public administrative service points located at communes and under the management of the People's Committee of the commune. After the model operates smoothly, the software system and digitized data are completed and synchronized from the city to the grassroots, administrative procedures are resolved entirely on the network environment... the reception of administrative procedures will be transferred to the City Public Administration Service Center in accordance with the Government's regulations. Up to this point, the public service software as well as the staff and civil servants working at 126 administrative file reception points of communes and wards have been assigned and are ready to perform their tasks.

In particular, essential tasks related to people's lives are being addressed immediately. Typically, in the field of meritorious people, the Department of Home Affairs has coordinated with the People's Committees of districts and towns to pay the end of June and July 2025 to 82,000 people who are receiving monthly allowances. Thus, in July when the new government apparatus comes into operation, those who receive monthly allowances will not be affected.

Vice Chairman of Hanoi People's Committee Truong Viet Dung inspects the trial operation.
Two-level local government model in Tay Ho ward. Photo: Xuan Hai

- How is the selection and arrangement of leaders for new communes and wards carried out, sir?

- The City Party Committee has issued Instruction No. 09-HD/TU dated May 9, 2025 on the arrangement and assignment of cadres, civil servants, public employees, and workers when arranging and reorganizing commune-level administrative units of Hanoi city. In which, specific criteria are determined: As a Secretary, the source of cadres includes the following priority order (member of the City Party Committee, incumbent district-level secretary, incumbent district-level deputy secretary, standing committee member, vice chairman of the People's Council, vice chairman of the People's Committee), must have been planned and have outstanding positions and achievements; especially deputy-level cadres to be promoted to secretary must have outstanding achievements.

With the deputy secretaries of the Party Committee selected as the incumbent deputy secretaries of the district level, members of the Standing Committee of the district level, vice-chairmen of the People's Council, and vice-chairmen of the People's Committee, it is also in the spirit: Any comrades who move from the Standing Committee or vice-chairmen to become chairmen must be determined to have outstanding achievements. In any case where there are problems (disciplined from reprimand during the term, not completing tasks in the performance of work...) even if not to the extent of violation, they need to be carefully screened to see if their capacity meets the requirements or not, then they will be assigned.

It can be affirmed that the Hanoi Party Committee has carried out the work of arranging and assigning cadres for the new model very systematically, that is, selecting cadres to be secretaries - heads of 126 communes and wards first, sending them to the appraisal agencies (Inspection Committee, Inspectorate, Police...) and reviewing the internal political standards of relevant agencies (Standing Committee of the Party Committee of the People's Committee), then selecting the deputy secretaries and chairmen of the People's Committee... After reaching an agreement on 126 permanent deputy secretaries and 126 chairmen of the People's Committee, the next step is to select the vice chairmen of the People's Council, vice chairmen of the People's Committee, standing committee members, and heads of Party committees.

Along with selecting the Standing Committee members, vice chairmen, and heads of the Party committees, the city directed the Party bloc to arrange deputies, those holding leadership positions (deputy heads of the Party committees, the Front, heads and deputy heads of the People's Council, heads and deputy heads of departments) to arrange the whole. At the same time, the Party bloc will review and compile the list of all current district, county, and city Party Committee officials and officials working in the Party and mass organizations in communes, wards, and towns to arrange them to the Party committees, Party Committee Offices, Inspection Committees, and Front agencies of the new commune level according to the new administrative boundaries.

Similarly, the government sector also reviewed and approved the announcement of the list of department heads, deputy department heads, civil servants, public employees, and contract workers of all departments, offices, and units under the People's Committees at the commune level and public service units.

For the Party bloc, the City Party Committee's Organizing Committee signs a notice of specific staffing lists; for the government bloc, the Chairman of the City People's Committee signs a notice of a list of cadres with specific positions in 126 communes and wards...

To ensure the allocation and management of cadres and civil servants in communes and wards in accordance with regulations and promote efficiency, the Department of Home Affairs has created 57 job positions for the government sector at the commune level, from which the Department coordinates with the People's Committees of districts, towns and cities to determine which job positions must be arranged and which job positions do not need to be arranged. Because in reality, there are areas of activity that only exist in wards, but not in communes, or there are areas that exist in this commune but not in another commune...

For example, with 82,000 people receiving annual and monthly allowances and preferential treatment for meritorious people in the city, the Department of Home Affairs must review the 126 communes and wards to see if there are many of these subjects, then one position will be arranged, if there are few of these subjects, then only a part-time position is needed, and if there are none, then no position will be arranged. Thus, the position of 126 communes and wards will be determined according to the correct job position. The city has reviewed all the training and job positions of all cadres to implement this content. Currently, 126 communes and wards have been arranged with professional civil servants in accordance with this spirit and have been completed.

Department of receiving and returning administrative procedure results of Hoang Mai ward. Photo: Hien Thu

Quickly remove obstacles

- Can you share what difficulties and problems Hanoi encountered in preparing to operate the new model?

- In Hanoi, through surveys and field inspections, it is possible to see initial difficulties in infrastructure serving the activities of communes and wards after the reorganization. Most communes and wards have to arrange scattered headquarters because the headquarters area of ​​the old communes is narrow.

Therefore, in the immediate future, the city directs that wards without a district headquarters use 2-3 headquarters for the Party Committee; People's Council - People's Committee; and Fatherland Front Committee.

In the future, after the new administrative unit comes into operation, based on the plan for effective use of headquarters, public assets and the characteristics of each locality, a commune-level administrative center will be planned to invest in building an inter-agency area of ​​commune-level administrative agencies, ensuring savings, efficiency as well as convenience in the leadership and administration of commune-level governments.

- According to the 2-level local government model, the organization of the commune-level professional agency consists of only 3 departments. Is this different when implementing work tasks?

- Implementing the regulations stated in Decree 150/2025/ND-CP dated June 12, 2025 of the Government, the organization of the block of agencies of communes includes 3 specialized departments: Office of People's Council and People's Committee; Economic Department (for communes), Economic, Infrastructure, Urban Department (for wards); Department of Culture and Society.

However, Hanoi has many fields with a very large scope and volume of work, leaving only 3 departments will not ensure that all tasks can be performed. Just talking about the budget revenue of a ward in Hanoi, it currently reaches about 15,000 billion VND, equal to a large locality, while the Department of Economy, Infrastructure and Urban Areas is imported from many fields from economy, infrastructure, resources, land to environment, tourism, trade, services, digital transformation... This department has too many tasks and functions.

Therefore, the city has repeatedly proposed and continues to expect the Central Government to be "open" to help localities perform well, depending on the characteristics of the situation, population size and area, scope, level of socio-economic development, number of administrative procedures and other characteristics. For a remote commune, organizing 3 departments is simple, but for a ward in a large urban center, when put into actual operation, it will certainly be very difficult. A department head cannot be qualified enough to manage all sectors and fields with such different characteristics.

Tuong Mai Ward added a desk to meet the needs of people when performing administrative procedures.
Piloting the two-tier local government model. Photo: Vuong Van

- What capacity and qualifications do the staff and civil servants need to meet the requirements of the tasks in the new situation?

- Qualification criteria for cadres and civil servants have been clearly stipulated in the Law on Cadres and Civil Servants, in Government decrees and Circulars of specialized ministries on professional qualifications and political theory qualifications for each job position.

In Hanoi, it can be said that the level of qualifications of cadres and civil servants is up to standard and relatively even. However, after the arrangement and allocation of cadres and civil servants from district to commune level, there are currently some specific difficulties in the group of cadres managing the department level in the fields of health and education. Previously, a health department only had 4-5 people, now merging 5-6 communes, do the cadres have enough qualifications to manage the new commune level health department? Previously, schools were public service units under the district education department, now they are transferred to the commune People's Committee, while the education department has specialized departments but the commune People's Committee does not have specialized departments...

Therefore, in the process of operating the new organizational apparatus, we hope that ministries and branches will base on the general practical situation and the specific characteristics of Hanoi to issue circulars guiding the functions, tasks, organizational apparatus, and coordination mechanism between branches to ensure efficiency and practicality.

Thank you very much!

Source: https://hanoimoi.vn/ha-noi-chuan-bi-bai-ban-ky-luong-de-van-hanh-mo-hinh-chinh-quyen-dia-phuong-2-cap-706506.html