Operational efficiency of public postal enterprises

The pilot project to implement the mechanism of assigning public postal service providers to guide, receive, digitize records, and return results of administrative procedure settlement has been implemented in the province for 1 year. The results show that the participation of public postal service providers in receiving records and returning results of administrative procedure settlement has brought many benefits, creating convenience for organizations and individuals; reducing work pressure for civil servants to focus on doing well their professional work and performing state management tasks.

Over the years, the activities of the Provincial Public Administration Service Center - Administrative Procedure Control have helped to innovate the operation methods of state administrative agencies in the direction of specialization, separating professional activities from the task of receiving dossiers and returning results of administrative procedure settlement to organizations and individuals. At the same time, it has created favorable conditions for organizations and individuals to submit dossiers, receive results of administrative procedure settlement and improve the quality and efficiency of administrative procedure settlement of agencies and units.

However, to implement the guidance, receive documents, and return results of administrative procedure settlement, departments and branches must arrange civil servants to perform tasks at the Provincial Public Administration Service Center - Administrative Procedure Control. This causes departments and branches to lack civil servants to perform state management tasks at the unit. Moreover, in reality, not all fields regularly arise requests to resolve administrative procedures, so arranging civil servants to be on duty all day at the counter does not bring high efficiency. Accordingly, the participation of public postal enterprises in arranging staff to perform the task of receiving dossiers and returning results of administrative procedure settlement instead of civil servants and public employees of departments and branches at the Provincial Public Administration Service Center - Administrative Procedure Control has contributed to reducing the workload for State management agencies, helping agencies focus on human resources to perform professional tasks, improve the effectiveness and efficiency of State management activities, contribute to the good implementation of the policy of streamlining the payroll, streamlining the organization of State administrative agencies; improve and change the way, innovate the method of operation in receiving, digitizing dossiers and returning results of administrative procedure settlement to save time, costs, and create convenience for organizations and individuals.

**Provincial Post Office staff guide citizens to carry out administrative procedures at the Provincial Public Administration Service Center - Provincial Administrative Procedure Control.** Photo: Han Han

Currently, the provincial post office staff are performing the task of receiving dossiers and returning results of administrative procedures, replacing civil servants and public employees of 6 departments, including: Department of Information and Communications, Department of Home Affairs, Department of Culture - Sports and Tourism, Department of Science and Technology, Departmentof Education and Training, Department of Natural Resources and Environment. After 1 year of sending staff of public postal enterprises to support civil servants in receiving dossiers and returning results of administrative procedures at the Provincial Public Administration Service Center - Administrative Procedure Control, the post office staff have replaced civil servants and public employees of 6 agencies in receiving 1,700 dossiers, including 1,669 online dossiers. Thereby, helping to resolve the pressure on payroll for state management agencies, receiving support from the people, highly appreciating the service methods and attitudes. Ms. Nguyen Thi Thu Huong, Director of the Provincial Post Office, said: In order to improve the efficiency of receiving and returning results of administrative procedures, in the past time, the Provincial Post Office has coordinated with agencies, the Provincial Public Administration Service Center - Provincial Administrative Procedure Control to organize training for postal staff to receive tasks in each field; support, guide, resolve problems for staff, supervise staff in performing their tasks. Postal staff have also proactively connected and created a separate zalo group with officers and civil servants of agencies to exchange and notify the steps of transferring documents to specialized departments, helping to provide timely information.

As one of the 6 units participating in the pilot project to implement the mechanism of assigning public postal service providers to guide, receive, digitize records, and return results of administrative procedures, right from the beginning of the implementation, the Department of Culture, Sports and Tourism has assigned specialists to work with postal staff to undertake tasks to unify tasks and coordinate contents to promptly resolve difficulties and problems during the implementation process. Mr. Nguyen Van Trong, Deputy Director of the Department of Culture, Sports and Tourism, said: Since the postal staff in charge of receiving and returning results of administrative procedures on behalf of agencies, the department's staff has been withdrawn to perform professional tasks, thereby improving the effectiveness of state management. Previously, the number of administrative procedures received online by the department was 75% of the total number of records, but by 2023, 100% of administrative procedures were received online. Online fee collection and return of results via public postal services have had positive changes. In the administrative reform scoring, the department achieved maximum points in handling administrative procedures.

Similarly, the Department of Education and Training also highly appreciated the performance of the Provincial Post Office and the provincial post office staff when they took over the role of the department's professional staff in guiding, receiving, digitizing records, and returning results of administrative procedure settlement. Accordingly, people have actively used online public services. In 2023, the number of online records completed by the department reached approximately 100%. According to the leaders of the Department of Education and Training, during the working process, the provincial post office staff were very active in coordinating and guiding citizens to carry out administrative procedures, especially for elderly citizens with limited ability to use information technology. Thanks to that, the records collected by the post office staff were basically eligible for settlement, and very few cases were returned to the people. In the past year, the Department of Education and Training has not received any complaints from organizations, agencies, businesses, or individuals.

It can be seen that the participation of public postal enterprises in receiving dossiers and returning results of administrative procedure settlement has initially affirmed its effectiveness, contributing to improving the effectiveness of administrative procedure reform, bringing convenience, saving time and costs for state administrative agencies. This is also a solution to increase the rate of receiving and returning results of administrative procedure settlement through public postal services, contributing to improving and raising the administrative reform index of the province. The achieved results will be the premise for official implementation with the participation of many departments and branches in the coming time.

Nguyen Oanh

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