Summary of the Doctoral thesis of Public Administrative management: Completing the advisory work of the central state administrative agencies

Research purpose of the topic proposing solutions to improve the operational efficiency of advisory work in Central State administrative agencies.

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND

TRAINING -/ -

MINISTRY OF HOME

AFFAIRS -/ - NATIONAL ACADEMY OF PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION

The Thesis is completed at: NATIONAL ACADEMY OF PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION

Science instructors:

1 ASSOC PROF PHD LƯU KIẾM THANH

2 ASSOC PROF PHD NGÔ THÀNH CAN

The Thesis can be found atNational Academy of Public

Administration’s library or the graduate school website

INTRODUCTION

1 The reason for choosing the topic

After joining the WTO, Vietnam must prepare to face many challenges

to improve the State administrative management level, to improve administrative decisions and the State administrative management capacity,

to strengthen inspection and supervision as well as to build a long-range strategy to increase the competitiveness index and bring the country through difficulties and challenges of the big playground One of the basic conditions which ensures the improvement of administrative decisions and administrative management capacity is in the role of counselor The advisory apparatus is responsible for proposing solutions in policies and strategies as well as in deployment, inspection and implementation monitoring

While, a series of problems which arise in both technical and advisory organization activities shows the urgency of completing the legal system as well as ensures technical elements for the advisory apparatus to operate in line with the tasks in the new period

The era of knowledge economy requires the enhancement of knowledge content in socio-political economic activities Staff position thereby is enhanced as one of the basic and decisive factors for the development This is

the reason why the author chose the research direction of “Completing the

advisory work of Central State administrative agencies”

2 Research purposes and tasks

Research purpose of the topic: Proposing solutions to improve the operational efficiency of advisory work in Central State administrative agencies.Research tasks: the thesis concentrates on doingthe following tasks:

- Systematizing the theoretical basis for: advisory work;

- Carrying out the survey of real situation of advisory management organization, the real situation and results of advisory activities in Central state administrative agencies

- By evaluating the real situation and analyzing the causes, Thesis provides specific solutions to introduce advisory organization model in accordance with current requirements and necessary conditions when applying the modernization model of advisory work

3 Research subjects and scopes

Thesis researches the completing Solutions of advisory work for the Central State administrative agencies

Reseach scopes of the thesis:

To study the advisory work in the State administrative management in

the period of 2010-2014, the period is short but there are many strong changes associated with the promotion of administrative reform in the second stage of Vietnam The thesis researches real situation of advisory work, identifies and surveys and evaluates the organization and implementation elements which ensure advisory work limited in Central state management agencies’ advisory activities

4 Methodology and research methods

Methodology: The topic is studied on the basis of the methodology of

Mac Leninism and Ho Chi Minh's thought about building a socialist law state by the people and for the people

rule-of-Specific methods are applied to research: Methods of sociological investigation, statistic, synthesis, comparison, analysis and systematic method,…

5 Research questions and scientific hypotheses

d, What are solutions to improve the advisory work of the Central state administrative agencies

Scientific hypotheses:

From the perspective of public administration science, the construction

of solutions to complete the advisory work of the Central state administrative agencies will ensure quality, ensure requirements on the rationality, legality, consistency and feasibility of Central state administrative management decisions, and ensure ensure effectiveness for macro directions; Since then, ensure the efficiency of the state administrative management in general

6 New contributions of the topic

Systematizing theoretical knowledge about the advisory work, finding out and learning from Vietnam and Internation’s practical experience about the advisory activities of effective policy

Stating real situation of quality results of the advisory work in Central

state administrative management, requirement meeting levels of the advisory work about state administrative management in Central State Agencies

Proposing solutions to improve effect for the advisory work in the Central state administrative agencies, turning them out the bases for reference and applying to the state administrative advisory work at all levels and sectors

Setting up assessment tools, assessment standards for advisory activities Applying incentive with money or gifts to creat incentives for advisory activities Building a flexible advisory organization process Building a systematic model of information support center for interdisciplinary advisory, strategic policy institute, socialization of advisory work Establishing conditions for applying managing methods of innovations regularly, continuously and periodicly

Organization and advisory activities will be developed and carried out flexibly, gathering the collective and social intellect

The theoretical and practical significance of the thesis:

a, Theoretical significance,

The thesis clearly defines position, tasks and role of the advisory work on state administrative management activities; defines contents, theories about organiztion of advisory activities, advisory process and advisory methods

b, Practical significance,

The thesis has the following contributions:

- Evaluating the real situation of organization and state administrative advisory staff at the Central, determing influence scopes of subjective conditions on advisory performance

- Contructing solutions on all aspects to ensure a gathering of social intellect and make legal bases as well as technical bases for the policy proposal

7 Thesis structure

The thesis is divided into 4 chapters:

Chapter 1 Overview of research situation on advisory work of the Central state administrative agencies

Chapter 2 Theoretical bases on advisory work of the Central state administrative agencies

Chapter 3 The real situation of advisory work of the Central state administrative agencies

Chapter 4 Direction opnions and solutions to complete advisory work

of the Central state administrative agencies

Chapter 1 OVERVIEW OF RESEARCH SITUATION

General assessment of research documents on technical and technological factors in the advisory work can be considered under the following angles:

Concept of advisory work and related terms

Domestic and foreign researches on advisory work include doctoral thesis, master thesis, scientific research topic from ministerial level, monographs, research articles in magazines, seminars, or posted on the web forum… The documents include a few doctoral theses of Party advisory skills, ministerial scientific research topics of Ministry office advisory apparatus and most of articles in seminars, monographs, scientific articles The documents introduced the concept of advisory work, substance of the advisory work in relation to other terms such as consaltation However, the documents have not analyzed the position and role of administrative advisory work in the new stage yet This concept only mentions to advisory concept from an individual's operational perspective without mentioning to advisory activities of an organization

1.2 Skill, process, technical means of advisory work

Group of skills of collecting and processing advisory information of the Central Party agencies: has many limitations in proactively covering information from different channels Specially the information is detecting and forecasting In addition to, there is still a lack of other contents such as using professional techniques to check, verify, systematize information, protect information secretly

Domestic and foreign documents verified the contents of advisory skills, stages of advisory activities but they haven’t established an advisory process in the office, administrative organization’s activities as well as they haven’t built a method of organizing and operating the advisory apparatus, coordination of parts and individuals in the advisory apparatus

1.3 Research and organization of advisory work

The authors have paid attention to the factors that influence the advisory skills About organization, to pay attention to requirements of the advisory process, appraisal However, the comments are only the proposals,

no specific researches

Documents only mentioned to advisory works of the Central Party agencies About government office staffs, there are only reviews and evaluations to the practically advisory work of armed services such as police, military There are no comprehensive documents on the specific situations of advising the government as well as no general researches on advisory organization, the documents only assess advisory activities of the individual staff

1.4 Conditions and factors influence advisory activities

Especially, the authors stress on political and cultural factors in

advisory work In addition, the authors also mention some issues related to technical factors in requirements for the advisory work According to the authors, besides subjective factors of capacity and quality of the advisory team, the following factors must be considered to make the advisory work highly effective: the convenient environment for advisory staffs to collect,

circulate, process, exchange, compare, publish information

Objective factors: Mechanisms, recruitment policies, remuneration policies for specialists; training and cultivating the professional advisoory expertise; conditions to ensure the consolidation and development of advispry skills and organizations

The research articles show the basic factors influenced the effectiveness of advisory activities, but there are no research works which could systematize these factors as well as no deep evaluations and full analyses of correlation level among these factors and the quality of advisory work

1.5 Solutions, technologies to complete the advisory work

In terms of practice, the documents survey advisory skills of the Central Party officers, the Ministry office advisory apparatus These documents focus

on reasearching the real situation of the officers’ advisory skills These documents only mention to advisory work of the Central Party agencies; in terms of government office staffs, there are only reviews and evaluations to the practically advisory work of armed services such as police, military There are no comprehensive documents on the specific situations of advising the government as well as no general researches on advisory organization, the documents only assess advisory activities of the individual staff

Proposals for solutions are only specific solutions to improve the advisory skills for the Central Party board The documents haven’t studied

solutions for advisory activities for the government or solutions for organizing the advisory work There are only individual solutions for training, and specific remuneration policies for the advisory officers, there are no overall solutions which have a macro level for the all and the one; there are only linked solutions for the organization of policy advisory apparatus but no specific solutions which have development of supporting technology and application of specific calculation tools

1.6 International experience on innovation of advisory work

In the world, some countries build the advisory process in the direction

of strengthening the responsibility in appraisal the legalilty of texts Models

of the United States and Western countries are about organization and construction of policies; models of Asian countries (India, China) are about

developing policy institutes; Experience in some countries like France, they

recruit strictly with the rate is 200/thousands people; Organization model of independently advisory mechanism; innovation model of organization, activity of government

Thus, the completion of the advisory work in the central state administrative agency is a new issue, not thoroughly studied and fully in the scientific works and reference documents

Chapter 2 THEORETICAL BASES FOR ADVISORY WORK OF CENTRAL

STATE ADMINISTRATIVE AGENCIES

2.1 Concept, function, characteristics, role of the advisory work of

Central state administrative agencies

2.1.1 Concept of advisory work and related terms

Through synthesis we see that: the advisory work in state administrative

management is the particular work in the field of state administrative management in order to give ideas, propose solutions for for individuals and competent authorities to consider and use in the decision-making process Subjects of the activity are individuals and organizations who have specilaized responsibility in system, are legally responsible for contents and results of advisory work by implementing the tasks of information, analysing and propsing right and effective solutions in their specialized fields

By extensively generalizing the advisory function in administration, we can see that the advisory work is not only an activity of an individual or an apartment, it is also an organization or an office who has specialized responsibility to consult for a leader organization in case the ministries consult for the Government in constructing policies, issuing decisions and implementing decisions

2.1.2 Functions and duties of the advisory department

With such an understanding, the advisory department is characterized

by being in a position to help a subject that may be a leader or a manager That the characteristics and new requirements of the leading subjects will determine characteristics of the advisory staffs In terms of advisory content,

we can divide into two types: general consultation and specialized consultation The advisory object is an organization from the point of view of consultation, we can understand that they are powered leaders who have rights to issue and implement management decisions

In learning about subjects of advisory work of the central state administrative agencies, we can say that they are individuals, organizations who do the advisory work for leader objects who are the central state administrative agencies

Departments do the advisory work in the central state administrative agencies can be understood as ministries, ministerial-level agencies that consult for Government and ministry affairs that consult for ministry leaders

Therefore, the products of the advisory work may be specific management decisions or consultation for construction of the macro policies

2.1.3 Characteristics and scope of objects of advisory work in central state administration

First, the advisory work is a supportive activity, means that it is always associated with management activities of leaders in which the leading management is the center, the object served by consultation

Second, advisory work is professional, associated with a specific field and a specific profession and it is the deep expertise activity

Third, the advisory work is specialized, that is, staffs who carry out the advisory work must be a full-time team in the organization, responsible for consulting and implementing this activity regularly, responsible for the advisory results, for the effectiveness that the advisory methods bring in Fourth, the advisory work served leaders is always associated with tasks

of information Assigned responsibility demands the advisory department to ensure information in all aspects, promptly and fully

Served objects of advisory work in central state administration are activities of management, leadership in central state administration The characteristic of state administrative management is the activity whichdirectly affects all aspects of social life and citizens In terms of the scope of influence, State administrative activities in center create a direct impact on many objects of a sector or field in the area of the whole sector, nationwide, many locals, especially the fields related to foreign activities, the activities have foreign elements

2.1.4 Responsibilities, rights and obligations of advisors

Advisors have following responsibilities:

- Supplying managers contents of information fully, bases, necessary data about managing objects and other information related to management process;

- Analysing, explaining, persuading managers for choosing the best one from proposed solutions suitably with management target; having responsibility for reviewing and evaluating managers’ decisions effectly,

proactively make suggestions and warnings to help managers adjust timely and direct the implementing of decisions;

- Predicting all abilities, warning incidents timely, possibility of incidents on management objects, the impact from the objective environment to the management objects for managers;

- Coordinating with higher-level agencies and units, as well as level professional departments, to ensure the professional consistency in the whole state administrative management system;

lower Coordinating with the executing agency at the same level in sharing and capturing practical information belong to the field that they have responsibility for;

- By the provisions of the Decree 110/2004 and Decree 09/2010, The current law stipulates the responsibility of the advisors with the role of: bear joint responsibility before the law for contents and quality of policies

2.2 Contents, skills, process and affected factors to advisory activity

of Central state administrative agencies

2.2.1 Contents of advisory work of Central state administrative agencies

Contents of advisory work maily focus on supporting tasks for management as following:

- Collecting, processing, synthesizing, analyzing information, providing information

- Developing drafted decisions and submitting to leaders to promulgate

- Managing the database that served planning activities

- Developing and implementing a control system for objects of management, statistics, analysis and reporting;

- Helping the managers manage and control changes, resolve conflicts, resolve problems and prevent risks

2.2.2 Advisory skills and advisory process

Researches focus on introducing contents of advisory skills and process

of carrying out advisory staffs’ activities, process of finding out solutions, includes:

- Determining problems;

- Analysing problems

- Exploiting alternative solutions

- Finding out the best solution

- Giving an effective decision

2.2.3 Conditions, factors affected the advisory activities

Because that policy is associated with benefits, advisory activities are influenced by many subjective and objective factors, even those that are beneficial, sensitive, formal and informal The factors that influence advisry activities, ability of advisory officer includes both subjective and objective factors

The factors such as the aspects of mechanisms and policies on remuneration, recruitment, professional training and conditions for advisory activities are hindering advisory officers to strengthen and develop their professional skills

Conditions of politics, development bases of socio-economic, technology foundations: in which the improvement of technology foundation helps to ensure a profound innovation of organizational methods and advisory activities, works of managing information; The economic foundation helps concretise maximum the self-control direction in socio-economic development, establish cooperative relationship, foreign relations; reduce dependence on policy making, reduce political pressure from outside forces …

2.3 Requirements, principles for organizing advisory activities of

the central state administrative agencies

2.3.1 Requirements on capacity and organization of advisory

apparatus

The advisory work must meet requirements and tasks of managing, directing and administering the works of the state administrative apparatus; ensure the quality of advices and proposals; Ensure feasibility and reality of the advisory work; Meet the requirements of administrative reform

We need to determine clearly relationships of function, power, structure and authority, and to determine a coordination model to improve efficiency and avoid overlapping waste

2.3.2 Main principles in advisory work of the Central state administrative agencies

Ensure the right current regulations of the law, the regimes and policies

of the state; have the scientific, objective and honest foundations; highly appreciate the responsibility in advisory work; the comprehensive, integrated principles

2.4 Organizing advisory apparatus and staffs in the Central state administrative agencies

2.4.1 Organizing advisory apparatus in the state administrative agencies

Issues of building a system of legal documents on advisory work, identifying advisory positions, isolating functions of consultation and performance; designing, analyzing and assigning tasks in the advisory apparatus

In terms of the scale and position of the manager subject, the objects of the advisory work, we can see that the scale of the advisory team may be different

There are 3 levels in the scale of the advisory aparatus: from the smallest to the largest In terms of contents of the advisory field, we can divide into general consultation and specialized consultation

In addition, organizing a process of advisory technique to ensure a base determining the advisory responsibilities

2.4.2 Organizing and managing the administrative advisory staffs

Contents of advisory specialist staff’s skill in the state administrative agencies: are involved in skills of collecting, processing the information, analysing and synthetising the information, finding out the problems, proposing, building and stating the ideas… as well as the soft skills which are involved in such as the ability of communication and coordination… in terms

of the real situation of the advisory staff, we need to think of the quality and quantity In terms of organizing an advisory staff: the advisory personnel organization focuses on the duties: planning, implementing, checking, evaluating for the contents: training, appointment, recruitment, force building; assigning tasks, assessing, ensuring policies, regimes, building the implementation processes, implementing coordination methods

Improving abilities for advisory staffs in the organization who work with the leaders

2.5 Technical and technological facilities of advisory work

2.5.1 Concept of technique and technical methods

The advisory staff carries out the tasks of processing the information, building proposed solutions and submitting to leaders through systems of technical and technological facilities, include: systems of eqiupments, technical foundations for the consultation; organizing databases, information and documents as well as the basic facilities to carry out the advisory tasks

2.5.2 Advisory Technical equipments

As the same as positions in administrative apparatus, the basic technical equipments for advisory work often include:

- The technical equipments and machines served the advisory work in the organization which help process information, share data

- The technical equipments and machines which served conferences, carry out the advisory tasks;

- Equipments are associated and coordinated in advisory activities;

- Equipments are used for controlling the systems;

- Technical services in the advisory work;

- Tools belong to machinery and technical features such as computers, specialized software, communication devices,…

2.6 Process and method of carrying out the advisory work

2.6.1 Method of determining problems

A precise method of determining problem must base on the construction of information resources, information channel to ensure the timeliness of information Specially, we need to highly appreciate the precision and completeness of information and a further requirement is a high prediction of management information, to have a database of development, history process of problems to determine an unavoidable extent that the problem may arise, make the proplem solving effective without waste The finding out problems must be also timely for the managers to proactively respond

2.6.2 Organizing systems of database and infrmation for advisory work

According to the characteristics of administrative management activities, activities to ensure information in advisory work also include the