On the afternoon of October 8, people were queuing orderly to handle certificate matters in the hall on the fourth floor of Yichang Government Affairs Center, which is the epitome of the deepening of administrative system reform and transformation of government functions. Ma Xuming, Mayor of Yichang, told us that after 7 times of reduction of examination and approval items, only 72 items at municipal level are retained. Through systems and mechanisms innovation, approval process alteration and administrative efficiency promotion, Yichang is trying to make itself a city with the least examination and approval matters, the lowest cost, the highest service efficiency and the best development environment.
1340 examination and approval matters at municipal level are reduced to 72 in 10 years.
Over the years, according to four principles, the officials of Yichang Government thought over the examination and approval items, charges, application materials, precondition and intermediary organizations and found out the matters that can be left out to streamline administration and delegate power to the lower levels. The four principles are as follows: any approval process that can be done in cities of the same level, Yichang should strive to complete; any examination and approval matters and steps that arouses the masses’ dissatisfaction, Yichang should adjust and reform; any matter that the market can decide, competitive mechanisms can regulate and trade organization or intermediary organizations can manage, the government should not interfere in; for any matter that can implement post-supervision and indirect control, pre-approval should not be implemented.
In Yichang, 36 departments such as business sector, tax department and environmental protection administration all moved into the Government Affairs Center. In order to serve for certain matters, correspondent sub-centers such as “Vehicle Management”，“Real Estate Registration and Transaction”and “Social Security” are set up, unifying and serving for relevant administrative examination and approval matters.
Procedure redesign promotes the efficiency so that enterprises need only 3 days to get approval.
Procedure redesign is implemented on the basis of approval simplification given that the same data and materials can be shared by each wicket. Through repeated explorations, modification and improvement, the operation mode of examination and approval that needs only one wicket, shares a set of data, handling matters synchronously and completes approval in limited time is set up, fully implementing joint examination and approval.
After that, time limit of examination and approval for enterprises is reduced from 60 days to 3 days, and that of industrial construction project is reduced from 134 days to 33 days.
So far, the average time for service items’ examination and approval falls to 8.5 days, a decrease of 64 percent, which is only 36 percent of the legal limits of time.
E-government affairs network is set up to improve administrative effectiveness.
The simplified administrative examination and approval matters lead to simple and convenient procedures, promoting the enterprises that are used to delegating matters to agency company to handle these matters themselves.
The web based service implemented in administrative effectiveness is also a factor that reduces the commission.
Information system of executive departments are integrated to build a comprehensive e-government platform and develop application system for administrative examination and approval and service, fully promoting express, economic and efficient government affairs and setting up e-government affairs network.
The latest statistics suggests that in recent years the completion rate of administrative examination and approval matters is 100 percent, the immediate completion rate is 40 percent and ahead-of-schedule completion rate is 80 percent.
The Secretary of Yichang Municipal Party Committee Huang Chuping said, “The government should vigorously streamline administration and delegate power to the lower levels and properly handle the relationship among government, market and society, thus stimulating the creative vitality of the whole society. According to the requirement of the Central Government, Yichang will further pay special attention to administrative system reforms and feasibly change government functions, switching to public service and market supervision to create a good environment for economic and social development.” (Reporter Liu Ziling and Liang Jianqiang)