Socialization of public services to share the management for the private sector and non-governmental organizations

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By 2016, more than 8,000 investment projects in the field of socialization have been granted investment licenses. Photo Duong Ngan

Reducing the investment burden from the budget

Over the past years, the Government, ministries, sectors and localities have actively instructed, directed and implemented policies to encourage the socialization nationwide. The main contents have included: Improving the autonomy and self-responsibility mechanism of public non-business units; Improving mechanisms, laws and policies to promote the mobilization of social resources and encouragement of socialization of public services; Improving the institutions on structure and method of state budget investment for the development of public services; Developing the public services market; Strengthening the role of the State and improving the management and inspection tools of state management agencies. These policies have come to life and achieved positive results.

According to incomplete reports by localities, by 2016, over 8,000 investment projects in the field of socialization have been granted investment licenses and came into operation with a total registered capital of over VND 132,000 billion.

According to Pham Van Truong, Director of the Department of Finance and Public Administration under the Ministry of Finance, these actions initially changed the social awareness of using pubic services provided by public non-business units. "The policies have promoted the mobilization of public service, attracted resources from various economic sectors in the society to participate in the development of public services. In general, the completed socialization projects which have been put into operation have met the committed targets and promoted the efficiency, ensured social welfare and security, and reduced the investment burden from the budget," said Pham Van Truong.

Mr. Truong also noted that these policies have attracted various economic sectors together with the state budget to invest in the supply of public service provision. At the same time, expanding the application of advanced management and administration skills of all economic sectors in the supply of public services, contributing to quickly raising the scale and quantity, diversifying the kinds and improving of the quality of public services.

The State provides only essential services

Although the encouragement of socialization of public services has brought certain results, the implementation of social policies of socialization has encountered many obstacles to be overcome in the coming time. For example, at present, ministries, sectors and localities have not promulgated comprehensive and unified documents guiding the specific implementation of socialization. The policies related to site clearance and clean land allocation to investors have not been fully implemented.

In addition, there are many different ways of understanding and determining the foundations of socialization, the application method, scale and standards of socialization establishment, which leads to difficulties and inconsistency in the implementation of the policies among localities, especially the determination of preferential policies on corporate income tax. The level of universal socialization in the public services was different, usually concentrated in a number of sectors and types that were easy to profit and areas with developed socio-economic conditions.

Remarkably, the report on the implementation and achieved results were limited and failed to reach the target. Many ministries, sectors and localities submitted reports behind the deadline with inadequate data.

Mr. Truong recommended that, in order to promote the socialization of public services, it was necessary to clarify between public services under the responsibility of the State’s investment, and public services which could be socialized by restructuring the list of public services associated with requirements on reform of management, and operation mechanisms in public non-business units.

At the same time, it needs to determine the priority order of state investment for each type of public service under its management, which is an extremely important content in the investment reform from the state budget. The state should provide only essential public services that only the state has sufficient legal basis and resources to implement. Other services should be socialized by allowing the private sector and non-governmental organizations to implement.

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Particularly, Pham Van Truong said that it was necessary to renovate State investment method for public services under its management. Accordingly, it needed to gradually increase the proportion of investment expenditures, gradually reduce the proportion of regular expenditures for public service supply. At the same time, it was necessary to fundamentally change the method of allocating state fund allocation to public services, and step by step transfer from the allocation of regular expenditure estimates into the form that the State orders, and put the supply of public services for an auction.