Suwon Citizens' Aspiration: 'Proactive Civil Servants and Positive Administration'

[Suwon Ilbo=Reporter Jung Jun-sung] Suwon City's proactive administration is heightening citizen-perceived satisfaction. The city has been breaking existing customs and pursuing new approaches to increase citizen satisfaction, while working to spread Suwon's unique proactive administration culture. This has borne fruit. Over the past two years, the city has received 9 institutional commendations and 230 million won in incentives, and has consistently made the award list of the Ministry of Interior and Safety's proactive administration excellence competition, held twice annually in spring and fall, for four consecutive times. This serves as proof of Suwon City's efforts. Let's review the efforts made by Suwon City, which has established action plans and strived for proactive administration. (Editor's Note)

■ Suwon City Proactive Administration Satisfaction 'Thumbs Up'

The city conducted a '2022 Proactive Administration Citizen Satisfaction Survey' over 83 days from March 30 to June 20. The survey was conducted to understand citizens' satisfaction with proactive administration and to set future promotion directions including improvement measures. A total of 853 citizens participated both online and offline.

According to the survey results, regarding whether respondents believe Suwon City is conducting pioneering proactive administration, 23% answered 'very much so,' 44% answered 'somewhat so,' and 23% answered 'neutral.' This means that 90% of citizens consider the city's proactive administration to be at least neutral or above.

Overall satisfaction with proactive administration was also high at 90% or above, with 'very satisfied' at 16%, 'satisfied' at 46%, and 'neutral' at 28%. Regarding efforts to promote proactive administration, 22% answered 'very much so,' 49% answered 'somewhat so,' and 19% answered 'neutral,' with 90% evaluating at neutral or above. Furthermore, most questions related to proactive administration, such as 'whether work is being processed in a proactive direction' and 'whether alternatives are sought instead of adhering to conventions,' received positive responses.

Survey respondents did not hesitate to offer advice on the direction of proactive administration. They listed the following fields as requiring proactive administration: improving work methods (16%), improving unreasonable customs (16%), and supporting national livelihood stability (14%). They also suggested the need for ways to resolve business regulations and convenience for complainants, flexible work processing suited to the field, and creating systems that are easy to understand from citizens' perspectives.

■ 9 Institutional Commendations Over Two Years, 230 Million Won in Incentives Including Special Transfer Tax

The high level of citizen perception and satisfaction with proactive administration shown in the survey is due to Suwon City's visible achievements in proactive administration efforts.

Suwon City ranked first in the basic local government category in the Ministry of Interior and Safety's comprehensive evaluation of proactive administration in 2020 and 2021 for two consecutive years. It has not missed winning awards at biannual proactive administration excellence competitions. Over the past two years, it has recorded 9 institutional commendations related to proactive administration, including 1 Presidential Award and 1 Prime Minister Award. Combined, the special transfer tax and prize money received as recognition for excellent proactive administration amount to 230 million won. Particularly in the first quarter of this year, the city is raising year-end expectations by listing one excellent case and one new case each in the evaluation of proactive administration regulatory relief achievements.

Suwon City has been continuously operating the proactive administration committee, proactive administration mindset innovation education, and has concentrated efforts on spreading proactive administration culture by selecting proactive administration excellence cases and recruiting excellent civil servants. The city has also led efforts in support and protection for civil servants engaging in proactive administration by operating the 'proactive administration advance consulting system' and 'proactive administration immunity system.'

Particularly this year, the city has established the '2022 Proactive Administration Action Plan' and is implementing 30 tasks across 5 sectors and 11 key projects. The city is strengthening the capacity of the proactive administration committee while conducting proactive administration education, commitment pledges, and 'visiting proactive administration consulting.' In addition, the city is operating a special inspection team for passive administration to make additional efforts to eliminate passive administration.

■ Citizen-Oriented Proactive Administration Heightened Safety and Convenience

The excellence cases of proactive administration created by the city through various policies and projects were a process to heighten citizens' safety and convenience.

First, in the first half of 2020, when infectious disease was threatening citizen safety, the city fired the starting gun for citizen-oriented proactive administration. This was because Suwon City's continuous advocacy and suggestions that the legal system be amended to allow basic local governments to hire epidemiological investigators after the 2015 MERS outbreak resulted in the amendment of the 'Infectious Disease Prevention Act' in March. The city also proactively prevented the spread of local infections by providing safe call vans so that overseas entrants would not use public transportation, and providing temporary living facilities or safe accommodation for families to use until test results were available. Suwon City's exemplary COVID-19 response system construction won the Excellence Award at the first-half 2020 proactive administration excellence competition.

The full-fledged achievement of Suwon City's proactive administration in 2020 gained momentum with the 'construction of an emergency vehicle priority signal system.'

The emergency vehicle priority signal system tracks the location of ambulances via GPS at the Suwon City Integrated Safety Center when transporting emergency patients to hospitals, providing green signals at intersections where emergency vehicles pass to ensure the fastest arrival at hospitals. It reduces the average travel time per kilometer from 3 minutes 20 seconds to 1 minute 27 seconds, allowing arrival at regional tertiary hospitals' emergency rooms within 10 minutes.

Suwon City Integrated Safety Center introduced the system in March 2020 and was selected as the most excellent proactive administration in the city's self-evaluation in the first half of that year. It was also selected as a 'proactive administration hotspot' by the Ministry of Interior and Safety, attracting benchmarking from other local governments and garnering nationwide attention. Particularly, at the '2020 Proactive Administration Excellence Competition,' where local governments across the country presented proactive administration cases in a national public voting competition, the system won the Presidential Award, becoming the champion of proactive administration.

Last year, Suwon City continued to win awards at the Ministry of Interior and Safety competitions, solidifying its position as a leading proactive administration local government.

In the first half of 2021, as non-contact culture spread and delivery packaging materials surged, raising environmental concerns, Suwon City received the Prime Minister Award for the multi-use transport packaging project. The 'multi-use transport packaging pilot project to reduce packaging waste,' which began in March 2021 as the first nationwide local government initiative, is a method of shipping packages using reusable packaging materials through collaboration with the Ministry of Environment and distribution industries. When residents in the pilot project areas order products from online malls, packages are delivered using multi-use packaging materials, which are then collected at designated distribution centers, dramatically reducing the use of paper boxes, styrofoam boxes, and other materials.

Suwon City's proactive administration culture spread to cooperative organizations, with Suwon Urban Development Corporation continuing the award streak in the latter half of last year. Suwon Urban Development Corporation, which introduced eco-friendly funeral flowers, received the Minister of Personnel Management Award at the Ministry of Interior and Safety's second-half 2021 proactive administration excellence competition. It was recognized for introducing eco-friendly funeral flower objects that could reduce the large amount of waste generated by existing three-tiered wreaths, leading the funeral culture. It particularly strengthened communication by operating guidance periods and holding meetings with related industries, and reduced burden by purchasing flower object stands and lending them free of charge, enabling related industries to adapt to change. This became a precedent as the first implementation in the Seoul metropolitan area.

Beyond these, the city has been externally recognized for proactive administration excellence cases including △ improving city bus inconveniences with QR code reporting for quick processing of traffic complaints △ establishing an intelligent queue waiting system at passport civil service offices to improve waiting services △ providing visiting services for vulnerable groups who find it difficult to apply for disaster basic income, minimizing omissions to resolve welfare blind spots △ increasing citizen convenience through street-light-type rapid electric vehicle charging facilities that can be installed even on narrow sites, among others.

A city official stated, "We will do our best to create a proactive administration civil service culture that citizens can truly experience by actively supporting rapid and bold decision-making by civil servants and responding swiftly to rapidly changing administrative environments."