Yeoju City Takes Active Collaborative Approach to Enhance Administrative Capacity

[Suwon Ilbo=Reporter Eom In-yong] Yeoju City has rolled up its sleeves to activate active collaboration to enhance administrative capacity.

This comes as the importance of 'administrative collaboration' is growing due to the increasing occurrence of tasks that cross departmental boundaries.

In response, the city plans to address various issues through collaboration by identifying and holding collaborative meetings on tasks difficult for a single department to resolve, including various permits, population decline issues due to low birth rates and aging, and climate change and environmental pollution problems.

To this end, the city held 41 collaborative meetings last year on various topics, including establishing work promotion directions in accordance with legislation enactment and revision, and gathering opinions on permit matters. Through examining and handling pending issues from diverse perspectives, the city said it has been able to present new milestones.

The city operates 'Collaboration Points' as a system to promote collaboration among public officials to activate administrative collaboration.

Collaboration Points can be given and received during inter-official task collaboration and are awarded points for collaborative achievements such as attending collaborative meetings or participating in task force teams. The city added that commendations are given to civil servants with outstanding achievements, creating a civil service culture that enhances productivity and administrative efficiency, demonstrating positive effects.

Yeoju Mayor Lee Chung-woo said, "In an increasingly complex environment, interdepartmental collaboration is the direction city government must take," adding, "I will make efforts to expand collaboration so that communication and cooperation between departments become routine and substantive, leading to outcomes that citizens can feel."