Six key tasks of government innovation 2019 and ACRC’s innovation plan

February 26, 2019

Anti-Corruption and Civil Rights Commission

Ministry of Interior and Safety

The Republic of Korea

At a cabinet meeting presided over the president on March 26, the government finalized the Government Innovation Master Plan 2019 reflecting the administration’s governmental innovation directions and commitments.

The Government Innovation Master Plan 2019 succeeds the vision, goals and three major strategies of the Government Innovation Mater Plan 2018※ adopted last year at the first Government Innovation Strategy Meeting, and complements or advances uncompleted projects under the 2018 master plan.

※ (Vision) Realizing ‘a Government of the People’, (Goal) Promote the Public Interest through Participation and Trust-Building, (Strategies) ① Social-value-oriented government operation; ② A government performing its duties through participation and cooperation; ③ A trustworthy government by eradicating improper old practices

Under the 2019 master plan includes six new key areas for innovation which reflects new policy conditions for 2019 will be discovered and be pushed with a great focus.

【 2019 Plan to implement Government Innovation】

The focus of Government Innovation Master Plan 2019, under the goal of realizing ‘A Government of the People’, will be placed on (a)realizing inclusive public administration which underpins a innovative and inclusive nation; (b)generating achievements in governmental innovation that benefits citizens in their everyday life; (c)making sustainable differences to the public sector.

With a fully furnished Government Innovation implementation system and the basis for social-value oriented government operation, the government has layed a strong foundation for Government Innovation. This, however, has not led to meaningful achievements that can give real benefits to the people.

So, this year, the government, with an aim to build an innovative and inclusive nation, will implement social-value-oriented policy tasks and push Government Innovation Master Plan to generate achievements experienced and felt by citizens in their daily lives.

【 Six key areas & tasks of government innovation 】

<Personnel Management>

The government will reform personnel management system in ways that public officials could pro-actively perform their duties from the perspective of citizens and public sector could be equipped with expertise and professionalism.

Public officials will receive a training for filed-understanding and psychological therapy to nurture their abilities to understand and emphasize with people on the filed, forming public officials’ image as citizens’ friend.

By fostering talent and improving civil servant rotation system, public officials with professional skills could be nurtured and front-line public officials will be encouraged to ly respond to requests of citizens, delivering public services preemptively, and therefore contributing to the creation of proactive and creative public sector.

<Audit>

The government will facilitate the use of Consulting & Pre-audit System by central and local government agencies in public projects, and ease requirements for the exemption from disciplinary measures for public officials who delivered administrative services pro-actively. This will encourage front-line public servants in charge of permit and approval to deliver administrative services in a proactive manner.

<Organization>

In case where a new organization should be set up in the process of handling urgent issues on such as public safety (Emergency Response Task Force) or challenging tasks (Venture-Type Organization), eased requirements for organization-setup will be applied, making it possible to swiftly handle such urgent and important issues.

Emergency Response Task Force, which will be operated as a pilot basis this year, will be guaranteed autonomy to swiftly respond to urgent issues such as public safety related issues.

Venture-type organizations are allowed to be operated in projects that can promote innovative growth and provide convenience for the people.

<Budget>

The system of citizen and resident participation in government budget will allow more citizen participation and will be operated in a more substantive way. Important budget execution information such as operation expenses and expenses for overseas business trip will be disclosed to the public in ways to enable organization comparison.

Government-wide cooperative projects will undergo assessment on cooperative network and cooperation level, and standardized process for cooperation will be developed for pan-government cooperation.

In addition, in areas requiring close inter-agency policy cooperation and coordination, employees will be dispatched to each other and provide stronger incentives for cooperation.

The government will use part of government purchases worth of 123 trillion won to support innovative technologies entering into a new market, and therefore achieve innovative growth using innovative technology development.

Under an ecosystem of risk sharing and learning from trial-and-error, the public procurement area would be equipped with full of innovation and expertise.

In such an environment, a public organization, a purchaser, will suggest upgraded innovative technology, then a company, a provider, could provide customized innovative products, realizing social value.

A resident association model tailored to local areas’ different environments will be developed to spread regional forums for innovation to resolve local problems, jointly by residents, local governments, and public agencies.

In addition, resident-participation programs such as Living Lab will be further promoted in solving community-specific issues, under which residents suggest issues to be resolved in their daily lives and lead the efforts to resolve such issues.

The government will build an evidence-based administrative system designed to enhance risk-handling capabilities and predictabilities by building database of administrative knowledge, and survey, diagnosis and research results and conducting big data analysis.

In particular, database of 335 sets of safety check information in key areas such as building, fire-prevention, and electricity will be built first to ensure public safety and prevent disaster and accidents.

The government will also support data-driven policy decision in predicting major economic and social issues and simulating policy alternatives, and thereby run the state from the future perspective.

Moreover, National Data Map will be created to visualize information on where public data is located and how such data is related to each other. Public data will also be standardized and open to the public to the fullest to ensure better access from the private sector.

The government will provide public services to citizens in a proactive manner even before citizens’ requests, and thereby prevent any inconveniences citizens might experience in advance.

To that end, public services customized to people in each life cycle will be expanded, and service period will be ed in advance.

The underprivileged will get better access to public services, and related laws and regulations will be improved based on social value, ultimately removing gray area in public service.

2019 key areas for improvement concern the issues such as child protection, children outside school, old people living alone, families under crisis, and physically challenged people. The government will carry out various measures in those key areas to remove such gray areas within this year.

【Future plan】

In order to secure a strong driver for the government-wide implementation and move away from the practice that innovation are not applicable to work, each government institution will be encouraged to push its key policies and projects as government innovation projects to link innovation with work.

Innovation tasks involving multiple-agencies will be managed as major cooperative tasks and be monitored on a regular basis to generate concrete results within this year.

Interior and Safety Minister said, “it is time to make tangible results of government innovation for the people.” He added, “the government will make efforts to empathize with citizens and understand their difficulties by reaching out to areas in difficulties and strive to build an innovative inclusive society.

【 ACRC’s plan for innovation 】

Based on the Government Innovation Master Plan 2019, the ACRC developed its own Action Plan for Government Innovation in line with the government’s goal of achieving social values and realizing inclusive growth.

ACRC’s Action Plan for Government Innovation includes a total of 46 actions, consisting of 18 actions for social-value-oriented government, 11 for participation and cooperation, 17 for trusted government, to be implemented within this year.

The plan complements and advances actions successfully implemented before while adding new actions reflecting this year’s focus.

First, living up to people’s enhanced expectation, stronger ethics codes for public officials will be adopted to tackle public sector power abuse and stop the practice of imposing lenient punishment on corrupt public officials.

In addition, with an aim to meet the rapidly changing administrative environment and heightened public expectation, strategies for active administration, emphasized in the entire government of the current administration, was included. Under these strategies, public officials will be exempted from audits if they handled complaints according to the recommendation issued. There will be a menu to report public officials’ passive administrative service in the e-People website to end passive administration.

The ACRC will also pro-actively provide services to those who report corruption and public interest violation. It will build next generation national integrity information system which allows for providing information on public interest whistle blower protection system in a more proactive manner, and thereby prevent ordinary citizens without much knowledge on every detail of the reporting system from suffering any disadvantage. After a protection measure is issued, regular monitoring will be conducted on the implementation status of the protection measure. With theses measures, the ACRC will build water-tight protection system for the public interest reporters.

In order to build a government armed with problem-solving capabilities, the ACRC will operate Complaint Big Data at a Glance to facilitate the sharing of public data. The program will visualize complaint big data analysis results and open them to the public.

The ACRC will push government innovation through “improvement of four major areas related to the stabilization of the livelihood of citizens” focussing on job and stable livelihood, “removal of irregularities and unfair privileges in daily lives” through government-wide cooperation as government innovation brand tasks. Government innovation brand tasks refer to each government agency’s representative innovation task which results in achievements felt and experienced by citizens.

The ACRC will also operate state-appointed counsel to remove any gray area of civil rights protection, come up with measures to remove public safety risk factors, and conduct more on-site outreach visit by its outreach complaint bus. By practicing innovation in our work, the ACRC will take a leading role in protecting people’s rights and interests and achieving government’s innovation goals.