The UN General Assembly, in its Resolution 57/277, designated 23 June as Public Service Day (A/RES/57/277). The UN Public Service Day intends to celebrate the value and virtue of public service to the community; highlight the contribution of public service in the development process; recognize the work of public servants, and encourage young people to pursue careers in the public sector. Since the first Awards Ceremony in 2003, the United Nations has received an increasing number of submissions from all around the world.
In 2013 Korea celebrates the UN Public Service Day receiving 6 the most famous UNPSA awards.
The United Nations Public Service Awards (UNPSA) is the most prestigious international recognition of excellence in public service. It rewards the creative achievements and contributions of public service institutions that lead to a more effective and responsive public administration in countries worldwide. Through an annual competition, the UN Public Service Awards promotes the role, professionalism and visibility of public service.
Republic of Korea is the country received the most of awards. It is a great success. The awards will be given at the UN Public Service Forum which will take place in Manama, the Kingdom of Bahrain in June 2013.
In 2013 Republic of Korea will receive six awards in UNPSA competition by following two ministries and one local government.
The Ministry of Strategy and Finance will receive an award for Rank 1 in the Category 4 - Promoting Whole-of-Government Approaches in the Information Age.
The Digital Budget and Accounting System (DBAS) integrates all the existing financial systems and provides “transparent veins” of public finance. The DBAS is an innovative tool that manages the entire fiscal process, ranging from budget formulation to accounting, and integrates fiscal information by linking fiscal information of all public entities. The most distinctive feature of the DBAS is that it allows a holistic view of public finance. It consolidates fiscal processes of 44 central government agencies and links 63 external systems and local governments, public entities and subordinate organizations, fulfilling the requirements of the IMF’s 2001 Government Finance Statistics (GFS) Manual. The system is also known as “dBrain,” because of its function as the digital brain for fiscal management. The system also introduced the unique mechanism named ‘Project Management System (PMS)’ in order to manage all the government activities. Through the PMS, all government activities were aligned to 700 programs and 8,000 projects according to the purposes of their policies, which prevents overlapping and waste of the budget. The third attribute is that all fiscal processes are now conducted online. Eventually, the leakage of resources caused by bureaucracy are dramatically reduced and relocated to the welfare programs for social minorities such as women, children, migrants and the vulnerable.
The DBAS initiative has transformed public governance from the ground up. Korea has conducted its Business Strategic Plan, an unusual process for the public sector, and had public servants with thorough knowledge of fiscal affairs design business processes. Its efforts to maintain consistency in reform strategies helped it fully achieve the initial goal of the system. It has also kept a record of the reforms that can be utilized as teaching material to boost understanding of the system and its history.
The Ministry of Security and Public Administration will receive an award for Rank 2 in the Category 4 - Promoting Whole-of-Government Approaches in the Information Age.
The Korea whole-of-government enterprise architecture, named GEA, approach was applied to provide integrated services to citizens, businesses corporations and government agencies. The GEA recognizes the information resources available at government organizations and the structure of the resource. This approach made it possible to improve the service quality by integrating the information resource, and making them more transparent among all governments. The GEA analyzed the e-government services and planned target service architecture for citizens. As a result, processing times have been shortened and quality of services has been improved. In the past, it took four weeks and seventy-five different stages for businesses to complete the international trade process. However, since the service integration using the GEA, the business procedures were reduced to only fifteen stages and only took one week to complete. The GEA reduced the information technology investments by reusing hardware and software and saved the public budgets for new investment opportunities. As a result, approximately 240 million US dollars were saved over the last 3 years by eliminating unnecessary investments (88 million in 2009, 98 million in 2010, and 54 million in 2011), which helped secure financial resources for new investments. As of October 2012, information on about 15,000 e-government systems of more than 1,400 institutions is shared through the GEAP.
The initiative has improved transparency and accountability of e-government investments. It has reduced time to deliver services, enhanced efficiency and transparency and diminished investments in technology utilizing and sharing what was already available. As of October 2012, information about 15,000 e-government systems of more than 1,400 institutions is shared through the GEAP, thus through a single window. It has entailed elaborate collaboration across departments and different levels of government through the use of human resources capacity-building, new institutional frameworks and technological solutions.
The Seoul Metropolitan Government will receive four awards as follow:
1) Rank 1 in Category 3 - Fostering Participation in Public Policy Decision Making through Innovative Mechanisms
The city administration of Seoul has prepared new welfare directions for the city and named the document the Seoul Citizens’ Welfare Standards. These standards are a new charter that asserts welfare benefits are a basic right of citizens. They are the guidelines for any future welfare policies of the city. The standards present the goals of Seoul’s welfare programs in five major areas on income, education, health, housing and care, with respect to the minimum and ideal levels of percentage of income spent on those necessities, with the income thresholds indicating what level of income is necessary to live a decent life in Seoul. Citizens actively participated in the policy making processes for the first time in Korea, mainly through meetings and online discussions. They had a variety of opportunities to take part through a diversity of communication means and occasions. Citizens’ opinions were collected by welfare expert researchers and reflected in the new policies.
Through the announcement of the new welfare standards, the city of Seoul has had a paradigm shift regarding welfare. Both welfare providers and receivers have begun to see welfare as a universal right, not a favor granted by the government. The fundamental directions of the city administration have changed. As a consequence, Seoul’s welfare budget will account for more than 30% of the city budget in 2013. Priority of the city administration has clearly shifted to welfare.
2) Rank 2 in Category 1 - Preventing and Combating Corruption in the Public Service
The first strategy for the anti-corruption clean construction system was to establish a system preventing fundamental construction corruption. The city wanted to ensure that construction work was completed as planned, false reporting on the input of materials was prevented, and shoddy construction work did not occur. The system also wanted to ensure that payment was made to subcontractors and workers on time, and that nobody should be allowed to exploit the construction funds for any other purpose
The result was the creation of a system composed of two pillars:
1. The New Subcontractor Payment System
The city of Seoul decided to make separate payments for prime contractors and subcontractors, and also made an online system to check if a payment has actually been made to a subcontractor. This new measure can protect the weakest link in the chain, improve construction work efficiency and increase citizens’ convenience through easy access to critical information. It applies to projects of more than 500 million KRW (about $460,000). The new computerized system makes the payment information available to anyone as soon as a payment is made.
2. Construction Allimi & One-PMIS
The city of Seoul has established One-PMIS (Project Manager Information System), whereby all stakeholders in a project can monitor project information in real time. The client, contractors and consulting engineers will post key information on the project such as the project outline and progress reports. The Construction ALLIMI (informer in English) website provides the public with all the necessary information about projects happening in the city. As a result, construction resources can be managed effectively and corruption during the project implementation stage is prevented.
3) Rank 2 in Category 3 - Fostering Participation in Public Policy Decision Making through Innovative Mechanisms
The Eco Mileage Card System was set up to offer mileage on energy conservation, the purchase of environment-friendly products and the use of public transportation. The mileage benefits have become possible through the city administration’s MOU with BC Card, Korea’s biggest credit card company, and six commercial banks, such as Woori Bank, SC (Standard Chartered) Bank and NH Bank. If citizens become Eco Mileage members and take part in energy conservation efforts, they can monitor their conservation efforts in figures, while also receiving economic incentives. The incentives are given in goods and facilities that significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions or improve energy efficiency. The incentives have worked as a significant motivating factor for energy conservation for many citizens. Along with the provision of incentives, the Eco Mileage program promotes two-way communication with citizens. The Eco Mileage Web site posts citizens’ energy conservation tips and experts’ advice as well as informs citizens of various new arrangements by the city administration like the Energy Clinic that pays visits to households or buildings to offer energy diagnosis service.
The city promoted the benefits of the mileage card system and as a result, 3,249,252 cards have been issued nationally. The card mileage system benefits citizens remarkably and enhances their commitment to environmental protection. The benefits are a result of the collaboration of the city administration, a card company, financial institutions, manufacturers and retailers. The system costs the city administration very little while bringing about significant effects. During 2012, members have voluntarily reduced 100,715 TOE in electricity, water and city gas (1 TOE is approximately 107 kcal). They have also reduced 119,947 tons in CO2 emissions during the same period. In terms of eco-rights and energy cost reduction, the above figure is equivalent to the monetary gains of 69.394 billion won. The Eco Mileage System is the first citizen-participating greenhouse gas reduction program implemented by a local government in Korea.
4) Rank 2 in Category 5 - Promoting Gender-Responsive Delivery of Public Services
The ‘Comprehensive Support Initiative for Women of Single Person Household’ actively responded for the first time to this social change. Its strategy categorized single women’s needs into six sectors including housing, safety, health, job, community activities, resolving inconvenience and anxiety to establish separate initiative corresponding to each major need. For each policy sector, it has created and implemented subprojects: supplying housing to women of the single person household, (such as expansion of small-sized rental housing) creating safe environments from violence and crime, providing customized health care service, creating more specialized jobs, promoting local community activities, and rendering general service to relieve inconvenience, etc.
It helped about 2,000 women of single person households move into a safer housing environment. It has created ‘safety zones’ around campus or Gosichon (residential area packed with small-sized studios) where women of the single person households are populated. It has set up security devices, such as security grille & key, emergency bell, etc., in districts vulnerable to crime. It introduced guideline for crime prevention for future application upon public rental housing construction. As well, street lamps were placed in streets susceptible to crime and alleys were broaden for safety. In particular, it signed MOU with the National Police Agency in September 2012 to realize ‘Violence-free Seoul for Women’ and engage in developing preventive measures, including reinforcing patrol around districts populated with women of single person households. It has also improved women’s health via customized health-care programs. As well as holding job fairs and creating new jobs for these women.
The United Nations Public Service Forum, Day and Awards Ceremony will take place in Manama, the Kingdom of Bahrain, from 24 to 27 June 2013. Focusing on the theme of “Transformative e-Government and Innovation: Creating a Better Future for All”, the Forum is organized by the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UNDESA), Division for Public Administration and Development Management (DPADM) in partnership with the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women (UN Women), and the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (UN ESCWA), in collaboration with the hosting Government of the Kingdom of Bahrain.
In line with the Millennium Development Goals, the United Nations is dedicated to promoting the exchange of experiences, ideas and best practices (including Korean Best cases) concerning innovations in governance and public administration in order to contribute to social development, economic growth and environmental protection. The General Assembly itself has reiterated, in resolution 57/277, that particular emphasis should be given to the exchange of experience related to the role of public administration in the implementation of internationally agreed goals, including those contained in the Millennium Declaration. In resolution 50/225, it also underlined the importance of enhancing international cooperation in the field of public administration, including South-South and inter-regional cooperation.
