Moon Jae-in administration announced “Comprehensive Action Plan for Governmental Innovation”

To push forward with governmental innovation that helps raise the quality of people's lives, going beyond internal administrative reform

March 20, 2018

Anti-Corruption and Civil Rights Commission

The Republic of Korea

On March 19 (Mon.) in the afternoon, the government hosted the first governmental innovation strategy meeting presided over by president Moon Jae-in, to confirm the ｢Comprehensive Action Plan for Governmental Innovation｣ that contains details about switching the focus of government operations to people.

At the meeting, the government decided to carry out full-fledged pan-governmental innovation, in order to enter top 10 in OECD's "Better Quality of Life Index" and government reliability index, as well as top 20 in Transparency International (TI)'s Corruption Perception Index by 2022.

The new ｢Comprehensive Action Plan for Governmental Innovation｣ reflects president Moon Jae-in's strong will for the innovation of the government for a better quality of life for people, which has been expressed in the new year's presidential press meeting of this year (Jan. 10), the state council meeting (Jan. 16), and ministers and vice-ministers' workshop (Jan. 30) so far this year.

【 Vision and three major strategies for governmental innovation】

As already being highlighted in president Moon Jae-in's new year's speech in January, the basic direction for the governmental innovation is all headed for the people.

The vision for the governmental innovation is realization of "a government of the people" which is one of the five main policy goals of the Moon administration. Three main strategies have been established for realization of the goal .

① The focus of "government operation is switched to social values."

- The priority for policy and resource distribution is put on social values that contribute to public interest and community development. For such purpose, the budget, personnel management, organization, and evaluation system of the government will be drastically changed to provide the infrastructure for such shift.

② A "government that properly performs its duties based on participation and cooperation" is realized.

- Under the principle that the beginning and end of policy is always the people, people directly participate in the entire process of policy suggestion, decision, execution, and evaluation, endeavoring to realize participatory democracy where the will of the people is better realized.

③ A "government trusted by reforming old practices" is realized.

- Public servants will have an awareness that they are the driver of innovation and fundamentally change existing practices and way of working that undermine people's trust in the government, to realize a government trusted by people.

【 10 core projects for governmental innovation 】

1. Expansion of public investment for realization of social values such as human rights and safety

From 2018, social values will be reflected in the guidelines for budget planning of central government departments and the criteria for budget compilation and operation of local governments, to expand public financial investment in projects that aim realization of the values of human rights, safety, environmental preservation, and care for socially-disadvantaged people.

In 2019, an element of "social impact assessment" will be introduced to preliminary feasibility study, while projects that aim realization of social values will be favored in assessment for public fund investment.

2. Introduction of 10/20/40 target for employment of women in public sector

By 2022, the 10%, 20%, and 40% target for the ratio of women in the Senior Executive Service, executives of public organizations, and government committees, respectively, will be reached.

The proportion of women in high-ranking public posts will be raised to the level of that of advanced countries, by ameliorating factors of discrimination against women in the entire process from entry into a public post to advance to a managerial post.

* Senior Executive Service: (‘17) 6.1% → (’22) 10% / executives of public organizations: (‘17) 11.8% → (’22) 20% /government committees: (‘17) central government departments 37.8%, local governments 30.2% → (’22) 40%

In addition, the proportion of members from non-capital areas in government committees (27.2% as of February 2018) will be heightened to 40% by 2022, to reflect balanced perspectives from different regions in government policies.

3. Operation of "Gwanghwamun First Street" which is always open for public discussions

"Gwanghwamun First Street" that drew more than one million visitors and received as many as 180,000 policy suggestions over the 50-day period right after the launching of the Moon Jae-in administration in May last year will be open as a permanent window for public discussions. It will be operated as an "easily accessible window for people's policy participation" which can be conveniently accessed by people who want to participate at any time and any place, in connection with the participation mechanisms of different public organizations.

First, off-line Gwanghwamun First Street will be established at the annex of the Government Complex-Seoul in May, 2018, to be operated as the window for public opinions where the government and the people discuss policies.

On-line Gwanghwamun First Street will be built by July 2018 and it will play the role of connecting existing communication windows including e-People, the petition bulletin board on the web-site of the presidential office, conversation with the ministers of central government ministries, etc. The on-line and off-line platform will be connected* in order to raise the synergy effect.

* Invitation to off-line discussion on on-line web-site, real-time broadcasting, notification of the result, etc.

4. Reinforcement of people's participation in key policy processes including budget and legislations

The system of people's participation in national budget will be introduced in earnest from this year and the scope of people's participation in the budget system will be expanded. "People's Watchdog for Proper Use of Government Budget" will be newly created for each metropolitan city government in order to make the local people directly watch how the local government budget is used. Also, the incentive for reporting to budget waste report center will be increased.

The system of "Legislation Examination by People's Participation" will be applied to legislations in which people have a high-level interest and that require collection of people's opinions. The system of people's on-line application for the enactment and opening/closing of ordinances will be introduced and the requirements for the application (number of signatories) will be alleviated. In addition, people's participation in the entire process of policy suggestion, decision, execution, and evaluation will be expanded.

5. Expanded opening of public resources such as parking lots

Public resources that had been monopolized by administrative institutions will be returned to the people.

Public resources such as meeting rooms, parking lots, and auditoriums of the central government, local government, and public institutions will be open and shared with the people. After implementing pilot operation for local government resource sharing programs to be launched at the end of June this year, a system of real-time on-line reservation and payment will be established by the end of 2019 and nationwide, more public agencies will share more resources with the people.

Old public buildings in state-owned land will be developed into「public office+for-profit facilities+public rental housing」complexes, to be used for the public interest such as alleviation of housing cost burden of socially-weak groups including young people.

Public data will be also fully open, except for data related with national security and personal information.

The principle of public data's negative opening will be strengthened and by 2022, 128 key national data closely related with the lives of people and 100 key new industry data that supports innovative growth will be identified and opened.

From April this year, the current status of public data held by all public agencies will be identified by carrying out an all-number inspection And then, the "National Data Map" which visualizes the location of public data and correlation between them to be recognized at a glance will be created and open to the people.

6. Restructuring of personnel, organization, evaluation, and system to facilitate pan-governmental collaboration

The system of collaboration will be reinforced for performance improvement and prevention of policy confusion.

From this year, the "public post for strategic collaboration (tentative)" will be added to the posts of the Senior Executive Service that require collaboration. Also, the system of collaboration quota between public workers of government departments that have close working relationship will be introduced.

From the government performance evaluation for 2018, the collaboration, efforts for coordination, and performance of each government department will be newly introduced. "Cloud On-Nara System" that offers joint electronic approval between government departments and mutual access to other departments' official s will be expanded to all government departments by the end of 2018.

7. "One Strike-Out" for employment irregularities, bribery, and improper solicitation, with zero-tolerance

Employment irregularities in the public sector will be cut off by applying a zero-tolerance principle.

Upon revelation of an employment irregularity, the one who had been employed in an unfair manner will be kicked out and investigation into people involved in the case will be requested. Follow-up measures such as criminal investigation and disciplinary action against those involved in employment irregularities will be thoroughly monitored.

The current temporary joint countermeasure headquarters will be restructured into a system of continuous management by the ACRC and the employment irregularity report center will be operated as a permanent institution, to implement stronger management of the issue.

A public official who actively demanded and received graft or who intentionally performed his/her duties following an improper solicitation will be subject to a severe disciplinary action such as expulsion or dismissal. In addition, a rule of restricting mitigation of such action will be introduced.

Plus, criminal prosecution of a public official who performed his/her duties following an improper solicitation will be obliged. In addition, revision of the "Code of Conduct for Public Officials" (enforced in April '18) will be implemented to include a disciplinary action against public officials' unfair power tripping to private organizations including businesses and financial institutions.

For the purpose of resolving corruption committed by retired public officials, people will be obliged to make prior reporting about contact to retired public officials related with their business. Even small companies will be included in the group of organizations to which retired public officials cannot get employed, in the fields regarding national security and defense industry.

8. Working environment without worries over sexual harrassment and violence and without fear of revenge

Eradication of sexual harrassment and violence that has emerged as a hot issue recently will be strongly enforced, being included in the key tasks for governmental innovation.

All sexual criminals among public officials will be subject to automatic resignation* if they are sentenced to a monetary penalty over a certain amount and introduction of regulations will be reviewed to limit those who received a disciplinary action for sexual harrassment, etc. from getting designated as a public post of director general/director or higher.

Furthermore, a legal ground will be laid to take the manager responsible in an event of concealment of a sexual harrassment case or secondary harm. Active remedial action such as protection of the victim or informant will be defined as the duty of the heads of public organizations. Victims of sexual harrassment will be protected by measures such as transfer to another assignment, and so on.

9. Innovation of data-based digital administrative service

Data analysis capabilities will be strengthened in order to raise the quality of people's lives by implementing optimal deployment of fire engines and reducing the golden time for rescue through optimization of 119 safety centers' locations, based on the analysis of big data. "Public Big Data Center" will be established by 2019, in order to support data-based decision-making.

A digital service for mobile exchange of diverse certificates issued by the government, which does not require paper printing, on paper, will be developed by 2019.

The use of " 24" that enables exchange of official s between the people and administrative institutions through the Internet instead of mailing or visiting will be expanded to all administrative work from 2018. In addition, "comprehensive mobile administrative service innovation plan" will be established and implemented in cooperation with each government department.

10. Realization of innovative administration that breaks old practices and precedents

A "venture-type organization" that materializes innovative ideas into policy and service will be pilot-operated. "Failure Expo" that discovers cases of policy and public projects' failure and analyzes the cause of failure will be hosted for the first time in 2018, to promote an innovative administrative culture.

Exemption of disciplinary action against faults that take place in the process of active implementation of public tasks will be expanded. The legal ground for refusal of clearly unlawful orders and instructions from superiors will be established, in order to lay the institutional foundation for public servants to keep principles when performing their public duties.

【 Nature and meaning of new governmental innovation 】

In consideration of the success and limitation of the governmental innovation of past administrations, the Moon Jae-in administration shifted the paradigm for governmental innovation to "Innovation with the people", "Voluntary and bottom-up innovation", and "Innovations that pursues improvement of the quality of life for people."

For the purpose of new governmental innovation, the new ｢Comprehensive Action Plan for Governmental Innovation｣ was established through a new process.

First, opinions on governmental innovation were collected from 2,143 people through "Governmental Innovation Forum" hosted for a month, to be reflected in the action plan.

In addition, the first "Governmental Innovation Hackathon" with 100 working-level public officials under grade 5 from 60 central and local governments was hosted in February this year, to put ideas from front-line administrative workers together and to discover and discuss innovation tasks.

Opinions of diverse government departments were heard in the way of collecting their own plans and establishing a comprehensive plan with them in order to reflect opinions of diverse departments, breaking away from the previous way of establishing a comprehensive plan by the central government and delivering them to each department in a top-down manner.

The first governmental innovation strategy meeting was hosted in the form of candid debate among the president, working-level public officials, and ordinary people.

【 Future plan 】

In order to secure a strong driving force for pan-governmental innovation, the presidential "governmental innovation strategy meeting" will be held twice a year and the allotting of marks for governmental innovation will be greatly increased in evaluation. Plus, agenda for innovation from the perspective of the people will be consistently discovered through the private-public joint governmental innovation task force and people will actively participate in the process of evaluation.

According to the comprehensive action plan announced on the day, detailed plans will be supplemented and established by each subordinate public institution by April. From the second half of this year, "Pan-Governmental Performance Management Inspection Group" will be formed to inspect the performance on a regular basis and the performance of governmental innovation in all public institutions will be evaluated at the end of the year.

Kim Boo Kyum, Minister of the Interior and Safety said, "We will do our best to achieve a government innovation that can be actually experienced and felt by the people based on active cooperation between the central government agencies, local governments, and other public organizations, so that governmental innovation does not be only words. I would like to ask the people to take part in the process of making our government into a better one."