Correcting the "Four Winds" without stopping! Formalism and Bureaucracy Issues Increase Grassroots Burden State | Supervisory Commission | Formalism
The Central Commission for Discipline Inspection and the National Supervisory Commission reported that in the first half of this year, a total of 43193 cases of violations of the spirit of the eight point regulations of the central government were investigated and dealt with nationwide. Among them, 18021 cases of formalism and bureaucracy were investigated and dealt with. From the recent issues reported, it can be seen that some formalism and bureaucracy issues continue to persist, with old problems becoming invisible and new problems emerging from time to time.
Formalist bureaucracy issues increase the burden on grassroots communities
Not long ago, the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection and the National Supervisory Commission publicly reported 10 typical problems of formalism and bureaucracy that have increased the burden on grassroots levels. From this announcement, it can be seen that some have repeatedly forwarded documents, copied the content of higher-level documents, formulated documents that are detached from reality and layered, acted recklessly in government services, and issued unrealistic task indicators.
For example, in September 2020, the Benxi City Federation of Trade Unions in Liaoning Province issued a notice on the target tasks for building and joining the association without conducting research and soliciting opinions. The provincial federation of trade unions was decomposed into 80% of the target tasks completed by the end of December 2023 in Benxi City, which was further refined to 80% by June 30, 2021. This significantly shortened the time limit for completing tasks at the grassroots level and greatly increased the workload at the grassroots level. The person in charge of the Benxi City Federation of Trade Unions and relevant responsible persons have been subject to disciplinary and administrative sanctions and organizational measures, respectively.
Mao Zhaohui, Director of the Anti Corruption and Clean Governance Policy Research Center at Renmin University of China: At the grassroots level, the roots are still at the top. The formalism and bureaucracy of higher-level units are the fundamental reasons for the excessive burden and pressure on grassroots party members and cadres. The various new manifestations of formalism that increase the burden on grassroots not only cause serious internal friction, but also trap grassroots cadres in the "strange circle" of dealing with various meetings, documents, forms, and assessments, lacking time and energy to do practical things for the masses, seriously damaging the relationship between the Party and the masses, and also dampening the work enthusiasm of grassroots cadres.
In addition, some party members and cadres have deviated from their views on political performance and are enthusiastic about carrying out "face saving projects" and "political performance projects". For example, on the eve of May Day this year, the Discipline Inspection Commission and Supervision Commission of Hebei Province reported that the Housing and Urban Rural Development Bureau of Guantao County, Handan City, spent more than 390000 yuan to improve the urban environment and create "beautiful blocks" and "boutique streets" for the production, updating, and replacement of fences and spray painted fabrics. Due to inadequate management and maintenance, fences were damaged and replaced frequently, resulting in financial waste.
Improve relevant institutional measures
Eliminating Traceism
From the recent investigation and punishment of formalism and bureaucracy, it can be seen that in some places, trace management, which should have promoted more standardized and effective grassroots governance, has become "trace oriented", emphasizing "traces" rather than "achievements", leaving "traces" rather than "hearts", wasting a lot of time and energy on grassroots cadres.
The Central Commission for Discipline Inspection and the National Supervisory Commission reported that in June 2021, the Agricultural Ecological Environment and Resource Protection Station in Bijie City, Guizhou Province, based on the village level survey form of the Provincial Department of Agriculture and Rural Affairs's "Rural Household Toilet Inspection Form", added layers of code and required grassroots units to upload photos of household toilets before and after rectification while filling out the survey form, in order to avoid "trace ism" and increase the burden on grassroots units. All relevant responsible persons shall be dealt with accordingly.
"Traceism" is a manifestation of excessive and distorted use of trace management. In some places, requirements are raised layer by layer and traces are demanded everywhere, leading to some grassroots cadres treating leaving traces as their main business and visiting people's homes, spending a lot of time asking the people to cooperate in taking photos and filling out forms; In some places, traces are used as the main criterion for evaluating work performance. Whoever can provide a complete variety and sufficient quantity of trace materials will be more likely to receive recognition from superiors; There are also some grassroots cadres who have weak work abilities and leave traces everywhere to show that "there is hard work without merit", and even lead to fraud and leaving traces.
Mao Zhaohui, Director of the Anti Corruption and Clean Governance Policy Research Center at Renmin University of China, said that "Traceism" is one of the new manifestations of formalism and bureaucracy, with a focus on leaving traces in numbers and a neglect of results management, which increases the burden of grassroots work. Some places leave traces that go beyond the job content itself, leading to a shift and displacement of the work focus, making the grassroots unable to bear the burden. The root cause is the incorrect view on political performance and the unreasonable supervision and assessment mechanism. The governance of "trace ideology" should start from the leadership organs, with a top-down approach and coordinated efforts. By improving relevant institutional measures, the soil where "trace ideology" breeds and spreads should be fundamentally eliminated, allowing grassroots cadres to spend more time and energy on work and implementation.
There are also some formalism and bureaucracy issues that are covered in electronic clothing, making "digital empowerment" a "digital burden" or even a distorted "digital shackle", increasing the burden on grassroots. Some establish work groups with repetitive functions, such as work group forwarding, work group communication, and work group implementation; Some assign online voting as a mandatory task and report rankings daily and weekly; Some officials are forced to pay attention to the official account, praise articles and share them with friends; Some government apps issue unrealistic task targets when promoting them.
For example, in October 2022, Yongshan County Government Affairs Service Management Bureau of Yunnan Province, in order to one-sided pursuit of assessment and bonus points, deviated from the original intention of higher promotion, determined a task indicator of 1.38 million items according to the number of three items handled by the per capita registered residence population of the county through the "one mobile phone service" small procedure, printed and distributed documents to decompose the indicators to the relevant departments directly under the township and county level, and required the annual per capita handling of 150 items by cadres and employees of the county. Within two months of the issuance of the document, cadres and employees in Yongshan County completed more than 1.38 million inquiries, processing, and appointment related tasks through the "One Mobile Service", seriously increasing the burden on grassroots cadres. The person in charge of the Yongshan County Government Service Management Bureau and other relevant responsible persons were respectively subject to party discipline and administrative sanctions and organizational processing.
Sun Dawei, Deputy Secretary General of the China Anti Corruption Research Center of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences: Formalism and bureaucracy are stumbling blocks for us to work hard, start businesses, and serve the people well. Disciplinary inspection and supervision organs at all levels should closely monitor arbitrary use of power and act recklessly, and accurately address formalistic and bureaucratic issues such as failure to respect laws, objective reality, and the needs of the masses, blind decision-making, and irregular decision-making. They should promptly eliminate the real soil of "formalism at the fingertips" and prevent the emergence of more and more groups, endless relay, unnecessary form filling, annoying check-in, and extremely inefficient video conferences. Urge and guide party members and cadres to establish a correct view of political achievements, and form a good atmosphere of truly focusing on practical work and taking responsibility.
Invisible variation of illegal eating and drinking "wheel corruption" methods
In the first half of this year, a total of 25172 cases of hedonism and extravagance were investigated and dealt with nationwide. Based on recent reports from various regions, there have been some new manifestations of violations in eating, drinking, equipping, and using public vehicles.
In terms of illegal eating and drinking, the problem of using various forms of public funds to eat and drink often occurs. In addition to not eating the boss with public funds and illegally transferring food and drink expenses, some party members and cadres use methods such as inflating projects and inflating quotations to embezzle public funds for illegal eating and drinking. For example, Fu Qiang, Deputy Secretary and General Manager of the Party Branch of Shanghai Fengxian Oriental Cable Network Co., Ltd., hosted a banquet to entertain private friends. After full payment was made, he requested the hotel to split two invoices and arrange for the company's administrative staff to fabricate business entertainment reasons for reimbursement of public funds.
In terms of location selection, illegal eating and drinking behaviors are becoming increasingly covert. In addition to internal canteens and private clubs in government agencies, some private business owners have set up internal small canteens in office buildings, and some have converted self built houses into private clubs, limited to providing dining services for a very small number of leaders and cadres. For example, Li Chaoming, former Secretary of the Party Group and Director of the Council of Guangdong Supply and Marketing Cooperative Society, requested private business owners to rent houses in high-end residential areas and open "private canteens" for their personal gatherings and receptions, with related expenses paid by private business owners.
Sun Dawei, Deputy Secretary General of the China Anti Corruption Research Center of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences: From the cases investigated and dealt with in recent years, the problem of illegal eating and drinking has a higher risk of rebounding among various "Four Winds" issues. Many party members and cadres still believe that only corruption and bribery are violations of discipline and law, and that eating and drinking are common and not a big deal. Some party members and cadres are willing to be hunted down, further consolidating their interests through food and drink, and carrying out interest transmission, each taking their own needs.
In terms of the management and use of official vehicles, there have also been new problems such as luxury modified public cars and private cars refueling after official cars. For example, the Logistics Service Center of Yongsheng County, Lijiang City, Yunnan Province, conducted 22 modifications to the purchased research official buses, including seat replacement and installation of on-board refrigerators, with a total modification cost of 193800 yuan.
Some party members and cadres either rent cars for personal purposes under the guise of official vehicles, or reimburse private car maintenance costs under the guise of public car repairs, and even operate public cars.
Song Wei, Deputy Director of the Beijing Clean Governance Construction Research Base: These phenomena have a certain degree of concealment and complexity, appearing to be some small and petty gains. But in essence, it is a major issue that violates the spirit of the central eight point regulations. So, in the process of discovering these problems and investigating these cases, disciplinary inspection and supervision organs at all levels must work hard for a long time, always with the spirit of nailing nails, persistently rectify them, and form a strong deterrent effect.
Improve fault tolerance and error correction
Clarify the mechanism of name correction
While maintaining the high-pressure situation of rectifying the "four winds", disciplinary inspection and supervision organs at all levels also strictly follow the requirements of "three distinctions", improve the mechanism of fault tolerance, error correction, and clarification, take responsibility for the responsible parties, and stimulate the enthusiasm of party members and cadres to work and start businesses.
Not long ago, on the banks of the Fuchun River in Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province, the Discipline Inspection Commission and Supervision Commission of Fuyang District held a clarification meeting to publicly clarify the four party members and cadres who have been falsely reported and accused since the beginning of this year. Shen Hongxiang, Secretary of the Party Branch and Chairman of the Shuangxi Stock Economic Cooperative in Xindeng Town, was also one of the objects of clarification this time. Previously, he was anonymously reported for embezzlement of parking lot electricity bills. After verification by the Discipline Inspection Commission and Supervision Commission of Fuyang District, it was found that the financial reimbursement procedures for the parking lot electricity expenses paid by the cooperative were complete, the direction of the funds was clear, there were no corruption issues, and the report was false.
Jiang Jin, Director of the Letters and Visits Office of the Hangzhou Municipal Commission for Discipline Inspection and Supervision: Clarifying that name correction work is an important measure to adhere to the combination of strict management and kindness, and it is also a powerful lever to implement incentives, responsibility, diligence, and integrity. By formulating work guidelines, conducting centralized clarifications, organizing centralized follow-up visits, and standardizing the order of letters and visits, we regularly carry out work on clarifying names and investigating false accusations and framing. We adopt a "one case, one discussion" mechanism for false accusations and accusations, and comprehensively use various methods such as face-to-face meetings, briefings, etc. to clarify, continuously creating a good atmosphere for supporting and encouraging cadres.
Since the beginning of this year, the disciplinary inspection and supervision organs have adhered to the principle of "combining strict management with benevolence, and placing equal emphasis on incentives and constraints". For problems discovered, they have comprehensively considered subjective motives, problem nature, procedural methods, performance status, and consequences, and strictly grasped the boundaries between errors and dereliction of duty, daring to act and disorderly behavior, serving the public and favoritism, and subjective and objective factors. They have accurately made mistakes and corrected them, and are prudently held accountable. At the same time, we will strictly investigate false accusations and framing behaviors, improve the mechanism for clarifying and correcting names, reasonably determine the methods and scope of clarification, and enable party members and cadres who work hard and start businesses to eliminate their ideological concerns and take action lightly.
Sun Dawei, Deputy Secretary General of the China Anti Corruption Research Center of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences: Establish and improve a scientific and effective mechanism for error tolerance, correction, clarification, and rectification. The most direct positive effect is to stimulate the enthusiasm, initiative, and creativity of party members and cadres in their work and entrepreneurship. It is also conducive to making supervision, discipline and law enforcement both powerful and warm. It is also conducive to creating a good environment and political ecology for those who are responsible and responsible.
