A Study On The Government 's Responsibility In The Equalization Of Basic Public Services In Urban And Rural Areas In Guangdong Province

With the sustained and rapid economic development, China has started its transition from the survival type society to the developing type society. During this period, unequal problems in the basic public services among regions, between urban and rural areas and among different social groups have become increasingly prominent, which has caused a series of social problems and contradictions. The implementation of equal access to basic public services in urban and rural areas is a strategic move to change the ruling ideas according to the current stage of social and economies development of ear country. Research on the equalization of basic public services between unban and aural areas in a systematic way and waking dear governments responsivities at all levels not only have theoretical significance and practical valve, but also are full of pioneering and challenging.Equalization of basic public services in urban and rural areas refers to the urban and rural residents enjoying relatively equal basic public services. aliens to achieve the above object include realizing longitudinal balance through the supply powers in and achieving lateral balance through the equalization of public service abilities. The legal guarantee of the equalization of basic public services in urban and rural areas includes the constitutional guarantee and other related guarantee concerning basic public services. The system security mainly includes the public finance system, income distribution system, the system of coordinated develop mint of urban and rural areas and public service type government etc. External government’s responsibility in the equalization of basic public services includes the legal responsibility, political responsibility, social responsibility, moral responsibility and liability of safeguarding fairness and justice, while the internal responsibility lies in improving the financial management system, lifting the township financial difficulties, reforming the demand expression mechanism and performance evaluation mechanism.There are still large differences between urban and rural people in the sharing of the fruits of reform and development in Guangdong. Unbalanced development between urban and rural areas is the biggest problem restricting the development of Guangdong. Therefore, Guangdong provincial Party committee and government attach great importance to promoting the equalization of basic public services. Beginning in Dec. 2009, Guangdong vigorously promoted the planning and construction of the equalization of basic public services. The first stage(2009-2011) has achieved expected results. In the second stage(2012-2014), Guangdong, with Huizhou for the practice of the pilot, strengthened government’s responsibility in the equalization of urban and rural basic public services, providing a gored sample for the whole province to follow.At present, the lack of government’s responsibility in Guangdong in the urban and rural basic public service equalization is mainly manifested in the lack of external and internal responsibility of the government. The reason for that mainly lies in the error of the performance evaluation standard and the lack of supervision, the “two structures in urban and rural areas” leading to the rural public service supply shortage, farmers’ demand expression mechanism deficiency leading to the asymmetry of supply and demand information, the single public service supply mode leading to the imbalance between supply and demand and the lack of norms of and responsibility. To deal with the effect to the equalization of urban and rural basic services, owing to the loss of government’s responsibility, and to achieve the good put forth in “the outline of the plan”, Guangdong can improve the government’s external liability by setting up and improving local laws and regulations in the equalization, transforming government’s functions, changing the “two structures in urban and rural areas”, promoting social cooperation’s and strengthening the supervision over public service supply. It can improve its internal liability by rationally dividing responsivities of governments at all levels in basic public services, building up a public finance system in which financial resources match supply powers, metalizing the diversification of the main supply of public goods, perfecting the cadre performance evaluation system and improving the level of decision-making and other aspects of basic public services.