This study is about activation plans for administrative affairs inspection in local councils. The case of the local council of Gyeongsangbuk-do was used as an example in this study. The purpose of an administrative affairs inspection is to understand...
This study is about activation plans for administrative affairs inspection in local councils. The case of the local council of Gyeongsangbuk-do was used as an example in this study. The purpose of an administrative affairs inspection is to understand the overall condition of the administrative affairs of a particular local council each year, and to obtain data and information necessary for the legislative activities and next year’s budget inspection. Another purpose is to correct and deal with the wrong policies that the local council implemented, and discover and propagate admirable cases and model cases to improve the quality of lives of citizens.
The institutional and operational problems of Gyeongsangbuk-do council from the phase of preparing for an administrative affairs inspection until the phase of processing the results of the inspection, and several measures to improve those problems are as follows.
In terms of local council, the number and duration of questions by inspection commissioners is one of the issues; if one inspection commissioner uses up a lot of time in asking questions, the next inspection commissioner will not have enough time to ask questions, and not only that, the people concerned might end up leaving their seats frequently. Therefore, administrative affairs inspections need an institutional framework that could limit the number and time for questions just as it is the case in general meetings of local councils.
Furthermore, there needs to be a way to make an inspection commissioner who needs to leave his/her seat during an inspection to receive approval from the head commissioner. There also needs to be an institutional device that could impose sanctions to commissioners who demean the council by making unnecessary remarks such as insulting remarks to officials attending the administrative inspection. In addition, it is also necessary to review ways to allocate some administrative questions to temporary meetings unless the questions must be resolved in regular meetings since most agendas are concentrated in the second regular meetings.
While preparing for administrative affairs inspections, receiving reports from citizens may be utilized as a route for citizens to participate in local politics. It is necessary to go beyond just receiving reports but extensively promote the reporting system and grant incentives to participants whose reports have been selected.
Next, in terms of the executive organization, Gyeongsangbuk-do should make every effort in supporting and cooperating to facilitate the administrative affairs inspection. As mentioned above, reshuffle of high-level officials before an administrative affairs inspection deserves consideration. It seems that other cities and provinces are reshuffling officials for the first half of the year in January in order to facilitate their administrative affairs inspections.
At the annually implemented administrative affairs inspection when the council sends matters pointing out correction and calling for suggestion for projects to the executive organization, the organization submits the result reports for the inspection and in the case of matters not available for handling, the executive organization specifies the reason. However the problem is that in the case of matters under review and implementation, the council doesn't know the accurate situation unless it additionally requests implementation result after one year.
It means that the projects reported as the projects under the review to the council do not have any handling measures although 1 year has passed. If a project can not be completed after the deadline for the result report(twice a year), theoretically it is possible to check again at the next inspection. However, in general, if the council member who pointed out a problem changes his/ her standing committee or finishes his/her term, re-inspection is barely implemented. Therefore it is necessary to establish an institutional device to continually report to the council about the matters under review and implementation although one year passes.