| Abstract | According to the 11th National Congress of the Communist Party of Vietnam, the evaluation of governmental officers is weak and improper. This is a result of the slow reform of the evaluation mechanics, methods and procedures. Although the weaknesses have been pointed out, the evaluation process has been maintained and applied in the state administrative units nationwide.
Dong Nai Province People’s Committee Office (DPCO) makes no exception: The annual evaluation of officers has revealed many shortcomings in the processes, methods and content of the evaluation of officers. As DPCO is an agency of the state administrative apparatus, it needs to identify the major reasons and to look for solutions to enhance efficiency and effectiveness of annual evaluation of officers.
In this research study, the current evaluation system applied in DPCO was reviewed and analyzed. To have a sufficient scientific basis and gain practical knowledge the author used both quantitative and qualitative methods to collect data from reports, legal documents, studies, interviews, and survey. He carried out a full survey among the 138 officers working in the Office of People’s Committee (the feed back was 58%) and the respondents were asked for their opinion regarding the evaluation system, the content and the procedures.
The analysis of the current evaluation system shows that i) the quality of officers' evaluation in DPCO has certain limitations, especially as it does not fully reflect and evaluate the complete task of each individual nor of each collective; ii) the recording of the assessment report may be not filed seriously and responsibly; iii) the evaluation report is not good enough regarding matters of human resources.
Among the major findings are that more than 75% of the respondents agreed that the current evaluation system is acceptable. However, the rest is concerned about the evaluation system in terms of process, content and effectiveness. Details of the survey also show that i) 25% of the respondents agreed that the evaluation process should be seriously investigated into, modified and improved to promote the best performance; ii) 22% of the respondents agreed that the content of evaluation should be clearer, openness and fully reflects the qualifications of officers; iii) and 22% of the respondents agreed that effectiveness of the evaluation does not entirely convince the officers who are evaluated.
Based on the major (and many detailed) results of the study, the two most important recommendations are as follows: First, rebuilding the appraisal system in which duties and responsibilities of each division as well as individual officers are clearly assigned, thereby also complementing for and making up the general legal stipulations of evaluations issued by the Government. Second, improving the content of the evaluation of officers developing to be more specific implying that the content-related evaluation criteria also include the performance of the officer which implies efficiency, accuracy and punctuality of the activities carried out. |