Chapter 1152: Advance to Retreat

There are always a lot of activities before and after the day. The government is also very busy. After Fan Xin had a careful discussion with Fan Danbing, he asked his think tanks to conduct in-depth research and finally came up with a new institutional reform plan, which was contrary to the previous plan for withdrawing personnel from merging ministries and commissions. Instead of following the old path, we chose to conduct a comprehensive review of administrative approval authority based on market demand to determine those administrative approvals that are outdated and need to be abolished.

Under this operation, Fan Heng proposed his own draft of institutional reform, listing more than 680 administrative approval items that need to be withdrawn and abolished, and citing a large number of facts to explain. The only way to solve the problem first is to Only when these problems are addressed can institutional reform have practical significance.

Fan Heng's move immediately shocked the entire senior management. No one expected that Fan Heng would make such a big fuss. After all, although such a move did not threaten the interests of any individual member, it actually Locally, the authority of the entire government has been greatly reduced.

The most important thing is that this move also reflects part of Fan Heng's attitude. Although I, Fan Heng, had no background before, I am now a real member of the Standing Committee and a national-level leader. I can do my job, but He refuses to take the blame.

Aren’t you going to talk about some institutional reform? Aren’t you going to make me responsible? Then I will treat you at the root and see who will have the headache in the end. Anyway, I, the Fan family, have no desires and do not care about the consequences of this kind of thing.

In fact, every new government is often the best time to carry out administrative system reform. Since 1983, the central government has made some adjustments to government departments at every other stage. A brief review shows that this is a difficult and long road to reform.

Why implement a large department system?

Data can be used to illustrate how many government departments there are in China.

After the reform in 1982, the number of ministries and commissions under the State Council once reached one hundred.

Since then, the government has carried out several administrative system reforms, each of which focused on streamlining institutions and reducing personnel.

In 1982, thirty-nine departments were streamlined at once, and in 1998 another large-scale organizational reform was carried out. Eleven of the forty departments of the State Council were cut, leaving only twenty-nine. Most of the departments directly responsible for industry were abolished.

The intensity of this kind of institutional reform is not small. The continuous major operations on government agencies undoubtedly reflect the extremely abnormal administrative system at that time.

However, the goal of previous reforms was basically to adhere to the principles of streamlining, unification, and efficiency, and it was difficult to fundamentally solve the shortcomings of the existing administrative agencies. After each reform, there will be a trend of institutional expansion.

Institutional reform has been described as a numbers game, with simplification and expansion followed by simplification and expansion.

Today, in addition to the General Office of the State Council, the State Council still has twenty-eight departments, one ad hoc agency, eighteen directly affiliated agencies, four service agencies, ten national bureaus managed by ministries and commissions, and fourteen directly affiliated public institutions. “There are also more than a hundred deliberative and coordinating bodies.

Compared with mature market economy countries purely in terms of quantity, China has too many government departments.

There is a folk song that compares the scene of overcrowded government meetings: "The ministers sit in the auditorium, the bureau chiefs stand in the corridor, and the division chiefs crowd in the square."

There is a cabinet meeting, and ministers are sitting in a room. How can we discuss matters? Who should be listened to?

The incompleteness of previous reforms also reflects the heavy historical burden of domestic administrative system reform. Because it was transformed from the planned system, and a distinctive feature of the planned economy is that there are many departments and the implementation of segmented management.

The current structure of government agencies is based on the planned economy era, and its functions still emphasize command and control. This will inevitably lead to overly detailed organizational structures, and the management of government agencies will be too microscopic, specific, and too unified.

There are too many government agencies and too many details. Overlapping agencies, overlapping functions, and coordination difficulties are very common, which has become a major difficulty in the current reform of government functions and agencies.

In addition, too many institutions also bring about an inevitable by-product, which is high administrative costs.

One of the more obvious manifestations of Yan is the large number of civil servants.

Relevant surveys show that nearly 70% of the public believe that China has too many civil servants. According to the ratio of civil servants to female employees, the number of civil servants in China has greatly exceeded that of the country.

Comparatively speaking, the large-department system is the institutional product of the public service-oriented government in modern society, and it is also a government system model commonly adopted by countries with mature market economies. The idea of ​​​​this institutional reform is still to follow the principle of step-by-step, and let some departments first. Get moving.

But this still did not change the past practice of sewing and mending. Fan Heng saw this very clearly, and Fan Wubing saw it even more clearly. As for the people across the country, they actually saw it most clearly. It is not that it is not difficult to change, but everyone They are all afraid of offending others.

Fan Heng naturally had complaints in his heart. It's not a big deal for me to do this kind of thing: Why don't you think of me when something good happens? So since you all let me take the blame, I will admit it. Not only do I want to stand up to the thunder, but I also want to stand up to the big thunder. I will simply solve this problem for you from the root and see if you really have the courage to pass this bill? "Boss Zhu, who was still in charge of the State Council at this time, said this immediately after seeing Fan Heng's proposal on institutional reform, but there was a smile in his eyes. It was obvious that he thought this was not a problem.

The secretary on the side did not dare to pick up the conversation, because the Mr. Fan that Boss Zhu was talking about, whether it was Executive Vice Premier Fan or Mr. Fan Wubing, the father and son were not easy to mess with, especially the boss of the same episode. We have a very good relationship, and if you talk about them casually, it's hard to imagine that any problems will arise.

However, he also very much agreed with Boss Zhu's view. Regarding this matter, Mr. Fan and Mr. Xiao both had reasons to be angry.

The struggle for power among the top management is also very serious, but it is not obvious to outsiders. This time everyone recommended Fan Heng to stand up for the scandal. Who knew that Mr. Fan actually ignored the dispute at all and was immediately hit. After all, it would be shocking to cancel 680 administrative approval items.

For example, the number of administrative approval projects in a provincial city in China is actually around a thousand. Fan Heng used such a ruthless move to cut off almost 60% of the criminal investigation approval power.

In fact, objectively speaking, this is a very effective reform plan.

The reason is also very simple. The scope of power is reduced, the scope of making money is smaller, the competition for power is concentrated, and the number of bureaucrats is reduced. In this way, because the final decision-making power is reduced, based on the three The principle of a monk having no food to eat is that there will be fewer officials who are able to compete, and the number of agencies will naturally decrease. Even if the departments without benefits do not need to be abolished, they will die automatically. Even if they do not die automatically, the entire system will gradually be rolled out. The bureaucracy has become a decoration.

The truth is actually very simple. There is a cost in cultivating bureaucrats.

At the grassroots level, it is basically difficult for a county-level official who has actual power to get ahead if there are no special circumstances and operating costs of more than one million yuan. This is because everyone is trying to control everything. It may be the driving force behind the movement of the right department to approve many administrative projects.

Only by mastering other people's sore feet can you make money. If you don't have this attraction, then with the little dead salary of department-level cadres, the ghost will be willing to do such laborious things. I really think that people Everyone just wants to serve the people, right? When this is said, only the onlookers who have no judgment and do not know the truth are likely to believe it.

Therefore, when Fan Heng proposed this solution and cited a large number of facts as evidence, no one could find any reason to refute it. The only thing that could stop it was the so-called principle of stability over everything.

Therefore, Chief No. 1, who still had not completely withdrawn, stepped forward to act as the peacemaker and said that although Comrade Fan Heng's plan was a solution, the consequences might be difficult to predict, so it was better not to act too hastily at this time. .

In this way, the matter of institutional reform was naturally put on hold.

After all, this matter is obvious. You let others have full authority to handle this matter. Fan Heng came up with a radical solution, but you said it is not possible. This is not in line with the national conditions. Isn't this making fun of others? The state-level leaders don’t lose face like this!

When Fan Heng returned home and mentioned the matter to Fan Wubing, he said, "If this matter is not announced, it will be the New Year soon. After the New Year, it will be the Two Sessions. If it cannot be passed at the Two Sessions, proposal, then the matter of institutional reform will be delayed for another five or ten years.

Fan Wubing understood what his father Fan Heng was thinking very well. After all, Fan Heng was a man of action. This time he resorted to the magic weapon of advancing while retreating. In fact, he was probably instigated by him. In addition, he had deep feelings in his heart. I was dissatisfied with some people and some people, so I made such an unexpected move this time.

Normally, even if Fan Heng was a little wronged, he would not have openly rebelled against the high-ranking officials. This was not in line with his usual rules of conduct, and was the biggest reason why everyone was shocked.

"However, things always have to be done by someone, and institutional reform is indeed very important." Fan Heng finally expressed his attitude.

"That's not to say there's no way to deal with this matter. Fan Qiangbing has already had a suspicion in his mind."