Chapter 39 Chapter 37 Vertical Management Triggers Central-Local Game

To truly straighten out the relationship between the central and local governments, the key is to pass legislation to rationally divide the responsibilities and powers between the central and local governments. In recent years, the central government has implemented vertical management of some departments, which has played a positive role in preventing administrative intervention and the expansion of local protectionism, and strengthening the central government's ability to macro-control economic operations.However, with the increase of vertical management departments, problems such as tax loss, data falsification, environmental degradation, and production safety in these departments have become more prominent.This means that this reform to improve administrative efficiency at the cost of weakening supervision is already facing another severe challenge.

In this context, on February 27, 2008, the "Opinions on Deepening the Reform of the Administrative Management System" adopted by the Second Plenary Session of the Seventeenth Central Committee clearly stated that it is necessary to "adjust and improve the vertical management system, further straighten out and clarify the relationship between powers and responsibilities. ". Many experts interviewed by the reporter believe that vertical management is not a panacea, and scientific and sound administrative management should have both administrative efficiency and administrative supervision. Responsibilities and powers, improve and improve the supervision system, and put the monster of public power in a "cage".

The so-called vertical management refers to the vertical management of "human, financial, material, and business" to the higher-level competent department, rather than the responsibility of the people's government at the same level.In layman's terms, it is to take back the black hats and money bags of functional departments from the hands of local governments to the hands of higher authorities. It is understood that most of the functional government departments in my country have long been under the "dual leadership" of the superior department and the local government-the competent department is responsible for the work and business, and the local government manages people, property and property.

In the early 1980s, starting from the economic field, the central government gradually delegated power to the local governments.This has largely stimulated the vitality of local governments and promoted the development of local economies.However, while local power has been consolidated, problems such as central government orders being blocked and local protectionism expanding have become increasingly serious. "Central decrees are blocked and local protectionism is prevalent, seriously affecting the authority of the central government and the implementation of laws." Professor Li Chengyan, a doctoral supervisor at the School of Government Administration of Peking University, said in an interview with reporters. The bottom line of policy is that the implementation of the central government's principles and policies is not effective, and it is not uncommon for orders to fail and prohibitions to continue."

Under such circumstances, the central government's macro-control capabilities have encountered severe challenges, and the principles of a market economy with a unified rule of law and a unified market have also been damaged to varying degrees.This forces the central government to take back some local powers, and vertical management is the most direct and convenient means. In recent years, the central government has accelerated the implementation of vertical management of some departments. In 1998, the central government decided to implement vertical management of industry and commerce administrative agencies below the provincial level. In July 2006, the State Council established the national land supervision system, and set up seven local bureaus across the country, which are vertically managed by the Ministry of Land and Resources.From the initial market and economic supervision departments such as industry and commerce, taxation, tobacco, salt industry, customs, etc., to the macro-control departments such as land and environmental protection, they are withdrawing or have been withdrawn from the sequence of local governments and changed to vertical management below the central or provincial level.

It is understood that the current vertical management includes three modes: central vertical management, provincial vertical management and special vertical management.For example, security agencies, customs, state taxation agencies, and foreign exchange bureaus are vertically managed by the central government; industry and commerce, local taxation, and land management are vertically managed by provinces; the State Land Supervision Bureau, special offices of the Audit Office in various places, and environmental protection law enforcement supervision agencies are special vertically manage. "From decentralization of power to some departments, the main reason affecting this redistribution of power is economics." Li Chengyan said, "Vertical management is to free lower-level departments from the intervention of local governments through the control of personnel and finance. Authoritativeness and unity in law enforcement and supervision. At present, this vertical management department has accounted for about 50% of the administrative power department, and the proportion is still on the rise.”

According to the reporter's understanding, the departments implementing vertical management are gradually expanding from the traditional economic management field to the power supervision field.The deep-seated background of these practices is that the game of central and local interests has become increasingly fierce, and the phenomenon of central obstruction has become more prominent. During the investigation, the reporter found that the implementation of vertical management of departments has played a certain role in enhancing the central macro-control ability, eliminating local protectionism, and ensuring the implementation of policies and laws, but the negative effects brought about have also partially weakened vertical management. recognition among the public.

In random interviews with reporters, 20% of the people believed that vertical management is not the fundamental solution to the problem, 5% did not express their views, and 75% supported the central government’s implementation of vertical management of some departments in order to balance the frequent occurrence of bad records local powers.Many supporters interviewed believe that some departments withdraw from the local administrative sequence and carry out vertical management, which can better implement the policies and laws of the central government. "Vertical management effectively avoids the interference of local governments, and ensures the smooth flow of government orders. It is also conducive to resource allocation." Regarding the benefits of vertical management, Professor Yu An from the School of Public Administration of Tsinghua University is very representative among supporters. sex.

However, some people are skeptical.They believe that high expectations cannot be placed on vertical management.Because vertical departments are out of supervision, the power of local people's congresses is weakened, the responsibility of higher-level governments is increased, and the integrity of local government functions is damaged, and the relationship between the central government and the local government has not been completely straightened out. Some interviewed experts believe that among the deep-rooted problems that vertical management is difficult to solve, the most critical is that the problem of the rule of law has not been fundamentally solved.If there is no complete system design, more and more departments implement vertical management, institutions are stripped, financial rights are collected, and personnel are allocated, local governments may become more and more overhead and their functions will be weakened.In this way, it will inevitably lead to the incompleteness of the organizational functions of local governments, which will affect the performance of their administrative effectiveness to a large extent.

According to the reporter's investigation, judging from the operation of some vertical management departments, they did not achieve the expected results.Although the vertical management department is not under the jurisdiction of the local government, it is inextricably linked with the local government, making it impossible to achieve true detachment in law enforcement. In fact, after some departments are vertically managed, the problems in law enforcement are no different from those in local management.For example, the quality and technical supervision and management departments have not fundamentally reversed the occurrence of adulteration and fraud, and the industrial and commercial administrations have not fundamentally reduced the existence of counterfeit and shoddy products in the market, and the taxation department has already managed vertically, tax evasion and tax evasion The problems never stopped.

"The staff of the vertical management department are mostly native-born locals, and they must ask the local government for help in terms of children's schooling, land, water and electricity." A person in charge of a vertical management department in a city in Yunnan Province told reporters, "If you want to To carry out the work smoothly in the local area, without the support of the local government, it is almost impossible to move an inch. Therefore, when investigating local violations of laws and regulations, many problems are always reduced to minor ones. Even though vertical management is implemented, we dare not offend the local government too much.” It is understood that the current vertical management departments rely entirely on the supervision of the superior authorities, and the internal supervision and control mechanism is not perfect, and the local government is inconvenient to supervise. The "top leaders" at all levels are often in the blind spot of supervision, and corruption is extremely prone to occur . "Because vertical management makes power highly concentrated and closed, it is easy to form a community of interests within the vertical management department." Yin Yungong, a researcher at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said in an interview with reporters, "Now the principals at all levels of many vertical management departments, They often keep their promises, local governments are unable to supervise, and higher-level competent departments are beyond their reach, and supervision is a mere formality. Therefore, corruption is not easy to be discovered, and it is easy to form the consequence of 'a nest of rotten'." In recent years, corruption cases in vertical management departments have been on the rise, and some places have even become "severe disaster areas" for corruption.For example, in 2003, Ma Zhaode, the former party secretary and director of the Hainan Provincial Industry and Commerce Bureau, was sentenced to 11 years in prison and deprived of political rights for 3 years for taking bribes.Zheng Xianyu, the former deputy director of the provincial industrial and commercial bureau who replaced Ma Zhaode, and Wu Yan, the former director of the industrial and commercial bureau of Tunchang County, were also "sacked" for accepting bribes. This series of cases involved the industrial and commercial bureau chiefs of eight cities and counties in Hainan province. . In 1998, as soon as Zheng Xiaoyu became the director of the State Food and Drug Administration, he launched the reform plan of the drug supervision and management system of the State Food and Drug Administration, implemented vertical management below the provincial level, and transferred the approval authority to the provincial level. GMP (Good Manufacturing Practice) certification, without money, even qualified companies cannot get it. In order to survive, companies can only use money for transactions.As a result, the incidents of fake medicines of Qi Er and inferior medicines of Xinfu happened one after another, which shocked the society. On July 10, 2007, Zheng Xiaoyu was sentenced to death for taking bribes and dereliction of duty. "Some departments are actively striving to implement vertical management, and it is not ruled out that there are profit motives behind it." Li Chengyan believes, "Because after the vertical management of the department, it integrates administrative management, law enforcement and discipline, and economic supervision, and can have greater administrative discretion in its hands. If supervision is weak, it will be more convenient for power rent-seeking.” Of course, as part of the staff of the vertical management department, there is also an inexplicable sense of superiority.An extreme example is: On October 29, 2008, Lin Jiaxiang, the former party secretary of the Shenzhen Maritime Safety Administration, a vertical management department of the Ministry of Transport, was suspected of molesting a girl. When the girl’s parents approached him, he said: “I am They are sent by the Ministry of Communications, they are as high as your mayor, to fight with me, you people are nothing!" According to the current financial management system, the funds for vertical management departments are provided by the superiors of the system.However, during the interviews, many people reported that some vertical departments not only get funds from the competent departments, but also get a lot of "financial support" from local governments.Therefore, working in the same area, the wages, housing and benefits of many vertical management department staff are much higher than those of local non-vertical management department staff. “Some vertical management departments receive almost the same funds from local finance as those allocated by their superiors, and most of these funds are used to distribute bonuses and benefits to cadres and employees.” A county-level leader in a county in Yunnan Province told reporters helplessly, "These vertical management departments have privileges. Although they are in their own territory, they can't manage others. In order to improve the relationship with them, they have to allocate some funds from the local finance every year, which is also to enable them to better cooperate with local work. .” Some interviewed experts believe that vertical management is not a panacea. To truly resolve the contradiction between departmental management and local management and straighten out the relationship between the central and local governments, the fundamental solution lies in passing legislation to rationally divide the responsibilities and authorities between the central and local governments. "To completely solve the problem of the administrative execution capacity of the central administrative decision-making at the local level, it involves the overall adjustment of the administrative system and the restructuring of power, which is far from being completely solved by the direct control of several fields." Yu An said. "If vertical management is implemented only for the purpose of improving control, it is likely to solve some old problems and create some more difficult new problems at the same time." Yin Yun believes, "The relationship between the central government and the local government is actually the relationship between power and government. Resource allocation relationship. When dealing with this issue, we must fully weigh the three relationships, namely, the relationship between overall interests and local interests, the relationship between group interests and individual interests, and the relationship between long-term interests and temporary interests, and find a central position according to law. A balance of power that reconciles oversight with efficiency." "The purpose of vertical management is to prevent local protectionism, ensure the smooth flow of government orders, and safeguard the unity of the market and the overall interests of the country. Vertical management is not a simple transfer and merger of institutions and functions. And improve many supporting systems, such as cadre and personnel system, administrative supervision system, funding source and use system, etc., to prevent the phenomenon of "what can be seen but not managed, and what can be managed is not seen." Professor Gong Weibin of the National School of Administration accepted the reporter Caishi pointed out, “The fundamental solution to the problem of central-local relations lies in reducing the power of the government, that is, reducing unnecessary administrative intervention, correctly performing the functions of the government under the conditions of a market economy, returning power to the people, returning power to the society, and returning power to the people. At the same time, it is necessary to carefully study and correctly divide the administrative and financial powers of governments at all levels." The basic principle of the division of authority between the central and local governments was discussed in the common program in the early days of the founding of the People’s Republic of China and Mao Zedong’s "On Ten Major Relationships" in 1956: "Under the unified leadership of the central government, the local governments should adapt to local conditions and take into account the enthusiasm of the central and local governments. Paragraph 4 of Article 3 of the "Constitution" also stipulates: "The division of powers between the central and local state agencies follows the principle of giving full play to the initiative and enthusiasm of the local governments under the unified leadership of the central government." "Legalizing the powers of the central and local governments is an effective means to correctly handle the relationship between the central and local governments. my country's current "Constitution" has made corresponding provisions on the powers and powers of the central and local governments, but due to the relatively broad provisions and the lack of supporting laws and regulations, so The operability is not strong." Du Liyuan, a lawyer from Beijing Zhongsheng Law Firm, said frankly to the reporter, "The law on the relationship between the central and local governments should be formulated as soon as possible, and special provisions should be made on the relationship between the central and local governments and the authority of the local governments. The government’s horizontal two-way supervision and assessment mechanism.” Many interviewees believed that the local people's congresses could take strict measures to supervise the "one government and two houses" and their elected appointees, such as questioning, organizing investigations on specific issues, dismissing or dismissing them, and so on.However, for vertical management departments, there seems to be a lack of such rigid supervision measures, because the appointment and removal of leaders of vertical management departments is not decided by the standing committee of the local people's congress.Therefore, the local people's congresses should further strengthen the supervision and restraint of vertical management departments. Only under the premise of rule of law and institutionalization can the relationship between the central and local governments move towards the road of scientific management and maintain a stable and balanced state of functional relations between the central and local governments.