City officials score last but one in efficiency
Beijing ranks second-to-last in government staff efficiency among 273 cities surveyed in China, a 2009 city management efficiency report shows.
Data from the 2008 Statistical Yearbook of China shows Beijing has 326, 600 public servants out of a population of 12 million. This means one in every 37 Beijingers is a government employee.
The survey was jointly issued by the World Economy Research Center of Beijing Technology and Business University and the China Economy Index Center of Beijing Circulation Industry Research Base.
Staff efficiency in the survey is calculated by dividing the total number of government employees by the city's total population, and then checking it against an index.
Just behind Beijing was the southern city of Zhuhai, with one in 35 residents a government employee. Comparatively, Hong Kong has one of 76.
"To put it simply, there are too many civil servants in Beijing compared with the total population," Ji Zhu, a professor at the Beijing Technology and Business University and the lead researcher of the research, told METRO yesterday.
He said it is a paradox that when better government efficiency is required, more officials are needed. This explains why the top 10 staff-efficient cities are located in less-developed areas. The top three cities in the list are Bozhou in Anhui province, Ziyang in Hunan province, and Yulin in the Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region.
"I'm afraid such an index can not reflect the real situation in Beijing, because Beijing civil servants have more responsibilities than any other cities in China," Wang Yukai, a professor at the National School of Administration, told METRO.
"For example, the 7,000 traffic police officers we have in Beijing don't just work for the municipal government, but also for the central government," Wang said.
But the inefficiency of Beijing civil servants does seem to be a headache for residents. Zhang Peng, a 30-year-old engineer in the aerospace industry, told METRO he spent one month transferring his wife's documents into the Beijing human resources agency.
"After my company succeeded in applying for a hukou (permanent urban residence certificate) for my wife, I was told to transfer her documents from her hometown to Beijing. This should make it easier for her company to handle the security insurance. But I got really angry when numerous government officials asked me to complete endless forms. Things should be more convenient," Zhang said.
Government staff efficiency was one of six areas tested in the survey, alongside economic efficiency, structural efficiency, social efficiency, development efficiency, and environmental efficiency.
In spite of the low rank in government efficiency, Beijing was ranked first in overall efficiency with an index of 0.6822. Unusually, Hong Kong shot right out of the index range of between 0 and 1, and scored 1.1650. Ji attributed this to an unworkable formula.
"Generally speaking, Beijing still is a more efficient city than most others in China," said Ji.
The top five cities in the survey were Beijing, Shenzhen, Sanya, Guangzhou and Shanghai.
The overall weighted average of the 273 cities is 0.281, an index that has fallen for four years straight. According to Ji, despite the fact that all of cities have grown in economic terms, the social security, education, and environmental situations have actually deteriorated.
(China Daily 10/28/2009 page26)
