Voices of the people heard by Qingdao government

Grassroots workers make suggestions and appraise performances of departments' heads

Qingdao in East China's Shandong province is making efforts to listen to the voice of the people and deepen interactions between the government and the people, in order to modernize its governance system, and promote the city's high-quality development during the 14th Five-Year Plan (2021-25).

On Dec 18-19, Qingdao held an online event about the reporting of government work, which focused on not only government departments reporting to the public, but also listening to public opinion and inviting comments.

Heads of the city's 38 government departments finished their work report during the two-day event, and 3,200 citizen representatives listened to the reports online and did an appraisal.

The annual event is an important platform for political and civilian interaction in Qingdao, pooling the wisdom of all parties, improving government decision-making and promoting the implementation of government work, according to the city government.

As some suggestions put forward by the public are turned into action to solve problems and new measures to benefit the people, Qingdao, through the annual event, is opening up new prospects for social development and enhancing the people's sense of fulfillment, happiness and security.

The event has aroused and stimulated the residents' sense of participation. As more people become concerned about the economic and social development of Qingdao, they are willing to participate in the city's governance, local officials said.

Since its launch 13 years ago, the annual event has been committed to innovate and make breakthroughs. At this year's event, people's well-being was highlighted.

The heads of Qingdao government departments－including the development and reform commission, science and technology bureau and commerce bureau－reported to the public on their progress in implementing key livelihood tasks.

According to the Qingdao bureau of human resources and social security, by the end of October, 330,700 new urban jobs had been created and 50,400 new businesses had been started with policy support.

The Qingdao education bureau reported that so far this year, 50 primary and secondary schools and kindergartens have been built, renovated and expanded, receiving 38,600 students.

For this year, one of Qingdao's top 10 targeted actions in areas related to people's livelihood is to strengthen the investigation and punishment of road traffic violations such as the overloaded trucks, speeding, traveling on the wrong side of the road and running red lights.

The Qingdao public security bureau reported that they investigated 486,000 such cases of vehicle traffic violations this year. The results were achieved by the city's refined governance applied around its 83 key areas of hospitals, scenic spots, schools and kindergartens.

During this year's event, the heads of all departments were also interviewed by the media to respond to concerns of the public, focusing on such aspects as the consumer market, food security and urban construction.

The event organizer conducted big data analysis on more than 400 million messages from the government service hotline, to extract the issues that the public are most concerned about.

The organizer also sorted out 61 key issues from mainstream media and public opinion supervision platforms, which were responded to by the heads of various departments during the event.

By paying more attention to public opinion, this year's event increased the proportion of enterprise representatives among the public-appraisal representatives, especially private, small- and micro-sized ones.

The number of business representatives in this year's event increased from 878 in 2020 to 978, accounting for 30.6 percent of the total from 29.2 percent last year.

An additional 100 town and community representatives were added, covering all towns and communities in Qingdao, to allow more grassroots workers to participate in the appraisals.

Over the past 13 years, the event has organized 60 reporting sessions and 26 forums for soliciting opinions. More than 120,000 people have participated in the government work appraisals.

It has collected more than 65,000 valid opinions and suggestions from the public. A large number of high-quality opinions and suggestions have been incorporated into the city government's annual work and relevant planning programs, bringing the wisdom of the people into the government's decision-making.