Decentralization of planning approval to commune level

Specifically, Point d, Clause 2, Article 41 of the draft Law stipulates that, based on the requirements for development management and the capacity of the People's Committee at the commune level, the People's Committee at the provincial level decentralizes and authorizes the People's Committee at the commune level to approve zoning plans of the city, in accordance with the reality of a number of cities developing according to the model of multi-polar, multi-center urban clusters (regardless of the administrative boundaries at the commune level).

Discussing this provision at the 10th Session of the 15th National Assembly , many opinions affirmed that this provision is necessary. However, when decentralizing power, it must be accompanied by a coordination mechanism to avoid fragmentation in planning or lack of synchronization. In addition, the regulation that the Provincial People's Committee decides to decentralize and authorize the Commune People's Committee to approve planning tasks and general planning of the commune when there are sufficient conditions in terms of organizational structure, personnel and capacity is not suitable to reality and does not ensure effective implementation of tasks.

The reason is that in the context of decentralization and delegation of power to grassroots authorities, if the commune-level authorities are not or do not meet the conditions, who will take over the task of approving the planning? Furthermore, the criteria for assessing the commune level as qualified in terms of organization and personnel are unclear and very difficult to quantify. If the capacity requirements are not met, what will be the accountability mechanism? Will it lead to overload for the units and will the principle of decentralization and delegation of power associated with specific responsibilities be guaranteed?

Other opinions suggest adding the decentralization condition to be linked to the capacity of specialized agencies and applying mandatory training for commune-level staff. If not clearly defined, it will be easy to be confused, leading to planning being delayed or not ensuring quality. Moreover, when commune-level planning for land use must be implemented, referenced on the basis of the general planning of the province to avoid conflicts.

The decentralization and empowerment of the People's Committees at the commune level, allowing the commune level to establish and approve a number of detailed plans in the draft Law is an important step towards perfecting a unified, modern, transparent planning institution, suitable for the 2-level local government organization model. However, this is a fairly new and big issue, so it is inevitable that there will be concerns.

However, as explained by Minister of Construction Tran Hong Minh, when promoting decentralization and delegation of authority in planning and approval, it should not be assumed that the commune or provincial levels do not have the capacity to appraise. Instead, there should be specific guidance through decrees and circulars to ensure consistency and quality. In particular, zoning plans within the commune level will be implemented by the People's Committee of the commune level, and important plans on politics, culture, history, security - defense and economic development will be decided and approved by the Provincial People's Committee.

For zoning plans and detailed plans, they need to be approved by the Provincial People's Committee based on the professional capacity, apparatus and technical conditions of the locality. When the Commune People's Committee has not met the appraisal requirements, the implementation will be transferred to the Provincial People's Committee to avoid the situation where the State has to directly establish all detailed plans...

It should be emphasized that one of the contents in Conclusion 221 of the Politburo and Secretariat on the situation and results of the operations of the political system and two-level local government apparatus is to assign the Government Party Committee to lead and direct ministries and branches to continue to coordinate with the Ministry of Justice and relevant agencies to urgently review the entire system of legal documents in each sector and field to promptly amend, supplement and perfect institutions, policies and laws to ensure closeness to reality and thoroughly overcome the situation of overlap, contradictions and inconsistencies with the two-level local government model, in which priority is given to the fields of finance - budget; land and planning...

Therefore, we should not be too rigid and rigid in saying that the commune level does not have enough capacity. Instead, we need to clearly define the conditions for decentralization to ensure the quality of planning as well as avoid the situation of "everyone doing their own thing".

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