Suwon Expands City Hall with Additional Bureau and Departments… District Offices Face Staffing Shortage as "Administrative Service Neglected"

Amid local governments undertaking major organizational restructuring in line with the Lee Myung-bak administration's "lean and efficient organization management," Suwon is instead expanding its organizational structure. Particularly, with personnel dissatisfaction reaching peak levels, concerns are being raised about inefficient organizational restructuring aimed at creating "positions" through the establishment of new bureaus.

According to the city, it is currently promoting organizational restructuring from the existing 7 bureaus and 33 departments to 8 bureaus and 36 departments. The Department of Culture and Sports will be newly established, the Autonomous Planning Bureau will be renamed to the General Affairs Bureau, and the Department of Environment and Sanitation will be renamed to the Department of Environment. Additionally, the city plans to establish the Department of Education and Youth, Department of Urban Landscape, and Department of Facilities in the city hall, while abolishing the Construction Project Office.

Accordingly, space for the newly established Department of Urban Landscape and one other department within the newly created Department of Culture and Sports will be prepared in the outdoor rest area on the first floor of the annex. A city official stated, "The organizational restructuring plan's main focus is to divide bureaus and departments with excessive workloads, such as the Department of Citizen Life Support."

However, a civic group official stated, "We welcome the establishment of the Department of Culture and Sports to lead Suwon's future industries including 21st-century cultural tourism and sports," while adding, "Rather than expanding personnel, it would be desirable to transfer 'decision-making civil servants' from unnecessary departments."

Negative sentiment is also being detected within the civil service. One district office official pointed out, "Filling vacancies in districts where work is increasing would actually improve the quality of administrative services for residents."

Considering that Suwon is a megacity with a population exceeding one million, there is no disagreement that the current approximately 2,500 civil servants are insufficient. Compared to Ulsan Metropolitan City with a similar population but approximately 5,100 civil servants, the difference is more than twofold.

However, personnel allocation is concentrated at the city hall, resulting in inefficient personnel management. While the city exceeded the city hall quota of 677 by 23 positions, four district offices have 44 vacancies, which increases further when including neighborhood administrative centers.

Particularly, while Ulsan's city hall personnel ratio is 18%, Suwon's is 27%. Even accounting for the fact that Suwon is not an autonomous district, personnel management issues are evident.

In last year's General Affairs Division administrative audit, City Council Member Kim Ho-gyeom from the Autonomous Planning Committee noted, "Considering the qualitative improvement of administrative services and fairness in working conditions, vacancy issues in districts and neighborhoods must be addressed."

The city plans to recruit a total of 166 local civil servants this year (118 from the administrative division and 48 from the technical division), but it is known that work deployment plans will not be significantly reflected. A frontline district office official lamented, "While implementing organizational restructuring at the city hall, practical fieldwork personnel for direct service to residents are not being reflected."

A city official stated, "We are well aware of the problems inherent in personnel and organizational restructuring. Suwon, as a megacity, has special circumstances that make this unavoidable."