The Research On Difficulties And Countermeasures Of Large Department Reform

China has carried out five times of government institutional reform since its beginning of reform and opening up three decades ago, and has attained great achievements. However, with the progress of era and the development of society, the government system can no longer keep pace with social needs. Bloated sectors, overlapping organizations and functions, and divorce between powers and responsibilities are the current situation of government system which seriously affects administrative efficiency and quality of Service. The sixth government institutional reform—super-ministries reform which aims to transform government functions in order to adapt to the development of market economy; to improve government effectiveness in order to serve the people better, to establish service-oriented government in order to build harmonious society—was launched with the passage of at the first plenary meeting of the First Session of the 11th National People's Congress. This reform is also a response to President Hu Jintao's report of the 17th National Congress of the Communist Party of China in which he proposed to "deepen reform the administrative system and establish service-oriented government".The super-ministries reform was initiated and gradually implemented by countries with relatively developed market economy and mature legal system. Britain was the first to carry out main department reform, and countries like America, France, Japan, Canada etc. followed successively, yielding satisfactory results. China explored super-ministries reform in some areas like Suizhou City's endeavor of "One department with multiple name; one officer with multiple duties", Chengdu City's endeavor of "big agriculture", "big water management", Shenzhen City's endeavor of "big culture", "big traffic", Fuyang district's "4+13 committee system" etc., which were all earlier than the central government. Only from March 11, 2008, has the super-ministries reform been carried out formally, systematically in full swing.No reform is smooth. Although the reform in western countries seems to be very successful now, twist and turns were inevitable in the first place. It's the same in China's super-ministries reform. In fact, every reform results in "a big officialdom earthquake". In overlapping institutions many people are involved with intertwined relationships which will definitely bring some resistance, even greater than past ones, because this is a milestone of administrative restructuring and important stage of further political reform, as well as a key point of transforming government functions. Therefore, the reform has much greater momentum, and involves much wider fields. The resistance includes not only interest obstruction of different departments, and dispersion of staff, which were met in last reforms, but also how to better monitor after the reform, how to coordinate among various institutions, how to take over some of the functions which were released by the government through the reform and how to enhance the reform of supporting measures etc. The appropriate resolve of these problems determines whether the reform will be successful or not. Therefore, this paper analyzes difficulties of super-ministries reform systematically, and offers corresponding solutions, attempting to provide enlightenment with the reform.This paper consists of four parts:The first part is an overview of the super-ministries reform including its definition, historical origin, contents, features, necessities and significance.The second part describes the difficulties mentioned above which the reform was confronted, and makes systematic analyzing to offer clear recognition and help prepare the mind for long-term reform.The third part is mainly about the situation of the reform in developed countries like Britain, America and Japan and in some local governments of our country including Shenzhen City and Fuyang district for the purpose of reference. The author sums up a few general experiences in this part.The fourth part, also the highlight of this paper, suggests related strategy tailored for China based upon the reality of China after drawing lessons from western countries' experiences in the resolve of the difficulties.Two aspects are involved in this part. The first one is guiding ideology which consists of four strategies: (1) specify an overall plan and fulfills the target step by step; (2) persist to the policy of different focal point between the central and local governments, and allow tailored reform for local governments; (3) have a strong determination on reform and respond actively to new problems and challenges brought by the reform;(4) strengthen theoretical research and lay the solid foundation for establishing a modern country.The second aspect is specific operations which contains 7 strategies: (1) enhance administrative legislation and public finance system and restraint the interest of departments effectively. (2) Carry out the appropriate separation of decision making, performing and supervision, and perfect the external control system like National People's Congress. (3) Establish coordination mechanism and achieve good communication and coordination among current departments. (4) Perfect public servant system and settle the laid off staff. (5) Transform the government function and develop the non government organizations. (6) Accelerate the establishment of supporting measurement, and make steady progress of government reform. (7) strengthen the administrative legislation construction, and solidify the achievements that have been made in government restructuring.It's hoped that the exploration of the solution for the difficulties that are encountered in the process of super- ministries reform can have enlightening significance on the practice of the reform, and the super-ministries reform can realize the changing of government from management to service, as have been put forward in the report to the first session of the 11th NPC:" center on transforming government function and regulate administrative power, adjust and optimize the organization structure and division of labor as well as improve the management and service mode of government".