What is the basis for selecting people when streamlining the apparatus?

I recently talked to an officer at a department about the arrangement of personnel at the department head and deputy department head levels when two departments were merged. "Many department heads have to be demoted to deputy department heads, so what should we do and what criteria should we use to make the arrangement work?", I asked.

Having studied the issue very carefully, he said that first of all, it is necessary to base on Instruction No. 590/HD-UBND dated February 14, 2025 of the People's Committee of Hai Duong province on the arrangement and assignment of leadership and management positions as heads and deputy heads of departments, offices, and branches under the management of the People's Committee of the province, departments, branches, and district-level People's Committees when implementing organizational arrangement. This instruction states the purpose, requirements, principles of arrangement, orientation criteria, arrangement and assignment... In the orientation and arrangement criteria section, it is clearly divided into 5 sub-criteria on: political qualities, ethics, lifestyle, sense of organization and discipline; professional capacity and work experience; results of performing assigned duties and tasks in the last 3 years; prestige and leadership and management capacity; The criteria are linked to the structure standards and planning of the Party Committee to serve the personnel work of the Party Congress for the 2025-2030 term. Each sub-criteria has more specific requirements.

Listening to him talk about such criteria, I expressed my concern that there might still be some people chosen as department heads because they are "children of the boss", have close relationships, group interests... and not because they are chosen to do better, or have more outstanding abilities. He replied that Instruction No. 590/HD-UBND is an important basis, but to anticipate people's questions, which could cause disunity when arranging the apparatus, the staff agency on the organization of cadres of his department has continued to specify a set of criteria suitable to the reality of the agency, ensuring that the person chosen as a department head is truly exemplary, can do the assigned work well and is the most deserving person.

Furthermore, the Party Committee and the agency's leadership also discuss democratically and implement a multi-step process to make a realistic and impartial assessment. If it is not done correctly and impartially, it is easy for officials to have opinions or even sue.

The evaluation of cadres, civil servants and public employees is the root of the organization's arrangement and streamlining. If the evaluation is specific, ensuring quantitative and accurate standards, the selection of leaders, deputy leaders, or the selection of people to stay in the organization, people to leave the organization, etc. will be favorable. On the contrary, if the evaluation is emotional, lacking in specificity, objectivity and transparency, it will easily lead to complaints and dissatisfaction. Painful lessons from unclear, emotional, flattering and personal evaluation of cadres are not lacking in reality.

Currently, the criteria for evaluating cadres, civil servants, public employees and workers to implement the arrangement and settlement of policies and regimes are stipulated in Article 6 of Decree 178/2024/ND/CP dated December 31, 2024 of the Government on policies and regimes for cadres, civil servants, public employees, workers and armed forces in implementing the arrangement of the apparatus of the political system.

These are the framework criteria for each locality, agency, and unit to concretize into their own reality. In Hai Duong, the provincial authorities have promptly provided guidance on the assessment, arrangement, and assignment of cadres according to regulations. For example, on January 20, 2025, the Provincial Party Committee Standing Committee issued Conclusion No. 482-KL/TU on the principles of arrangement and assignment of cadres under the management of the Provincial Party Committee Standing Committee for units to be arranged and merged. The Hai Duong Provincial People's Committee has issued Instruction No. 590/HD-UBND mentioned above...

Decree 178/2024/ND-CD requires that no later than 5 years from the effective date of the decision on organizational restructuring of the competent authority, the number of leaders, managers and the number of cadres, civil servants, public employees and workers in agencies, organizations and units in the political system after the restructuring are in accordance with regulations.

Reality shows that after consolidation and merger, the number of cadres, civil servants and public employees often exceeds the regulations. Within 5 years, the apparatus will have to be streamlined to return to the regulations. In this work, the evaluation of cadres, civil servants and public employees will be the deciding factor in determining who stays, who must leave, who must be demoted, etc. Thus, fair, accurate and specific evaluation of cadres is not only meaningful in the immediate context but also in the long term.

The requirement to streamline the apparatus has strongly innovated the evaluation of cadres in the spirit of Resolution No. 26-NQ/TW dated May 19, 2018 on focusing on building a contingent of cadres at all levels, especially at the strategic level, with sufficient qualities, capacity and prestige equal to the task. That is to innovate the work of evaluating cadres in a consistent, continuous, multi-dimensional manner, according to specific criteria, by products, through surveys, publicizing results and comparing with equivalent positions; linking individual evaluation with collective and task performance results of localities, agencies and units.