Although judging from the trend of gradual separation between the state and society, the trend of "small government and big society" and the embarrassing situation of the street office itself, it is inevitable to put forward the problem of canceling the street office.
However, in the period of social transformation in contemporary China, grass-roots organizations and intermediaries have not really grown up, and the model of residents' autonomy is not mature. Today, the measures to abolish street offices can be said to have both advantages and disadvantages.
On the one hand, the abolition of sub-district offices has the following advantages: first, the reduction of levels has improved work efficiency. Community neighborhood committees can handle affairs directly with the district government without going through the street office as a "setter", which greatly shortens the process and theoretically improves efficiency. The second is to reduce the financial burden. More state finance is allocated to the community, so that the community has enough funds to do good things for the residents. Third, the function of autonomy has been enhanced. Before revoking the subdistrict office, we should ask the subdistrict office for instructions on major issues and minor issues. The function of community autonomy has been significantly enhanced after the abolition of the sub-district office.
On the other hand, there are also unfavorable factors in revoking the sub-district office: First, it is easy to cause various problems in resettling the staff of the sub-district office. If this problem is not solved properly, it may lead to cancellation and re-establishment, "old wine in new bottles" and other similar situations, and the practice of "letting people and resources sink into the community" is certainly not a long-term solution. Second, community autonomy is not perfect, and it is difficult for grass-roots governments to connect with communities. After the abolition of the subdistrict office, there are several solutions to the responsibilities and powers originally assumed by the subdistrict office: all of them are recycled to the district government, all of them are delegated to the community, and distributed between the district government and the community. In any case, it is difficult for grass-roots governments to establish contact with communities. All recycled to the government, it is difficult for the community to carry out its work; All delegated to the community, the community may be administrative, which violates the function of community autonomy; When allocating between government and community, it is difficult to distinguish which functions belong to government and which belong to community. Third, the revocation of sub-district offices is prone to legitimacy problems. Although the "Regulations on the Organization of Urban Sub-district Offices" was abolished by the National People's Congress in 2009, the current laws and regulations also stipulate that sub-district offices enjoy certain administrative powers and give them some specific functions.
Can the abolition of sub-district offices bring about residents' autonomy?
A key point of the debate caused by "Tongling model" is whether the revocation of sub-district offices can really bring about the development and progress of residents' autonomy. The abolition of sub-district offices is put forward as an exploratory measure of social management innovation. Then, we need to ask a question: how many factors that lead to the unsmooth social management can be solved with the cancellation of the street office? I'm afraid this is the essence of the problem. With the deepening of reform and opening up, social subjects are increasingly diversified, social structure is increasingly loose, social interests are increasingly complex, social affairs are constantly accumulating, and social contradictions are constantly intensifying. Faced with this drastic social change, government agencies can't keep pace with the times to respond to social needs and follow-up services, organizational management can't operate efficiently and standardize and absorb people's wisdom, rules and regulations can't change and release social vitality in time, and many civil servants don't act or act indiscriminately. The whole society shows the phenomena of insufficient control, excessive internal consumption, insufficient tension, insufficient services to strengthen control, excessive aftermath and insufficient anticipation. These problems are not only caused by the contradiction between the inertia of rapid economic and social development and the lag of institutional reform, but also by subjective reasons such as the lack of overall design of reform, the slow transformation of government functions, the inability of institutional reform to keep up, and a large number of government inaction. Obviously, these problems cannot be solved by canceling the street office.
In this sense, the practical value of "Tongling Model" cannot be overestimated. The view that the promotion of Tongling model can bring about immediate and great changes in social management is suspected of simplifying or even vulgarizing complex problems! In addition, there are some conditions for revoking the sub-district office:
On the one hand, the revocation of street offices must have corresponding material, humanistic and natural preconditions. For example, an important premise that Tongling's community reform is easier to achieve than Beijing, Guangzhou, Shenzhen and other cities is its small scale.
On the other hand, the revocation of sub-district offices should also have a certain realistic basis, mainly including the maturity of community autonomy, the cultivation of social organizations, the sense of identity in community life, the cooperation of relevant legal systems, and the enhancement of residents' awareness of democracy and the rule of law. If these realistic foundations are not solid or yet available, the impact of abolishing sub-district offices on community reform may be counterproductive. In fact, after the abolition of the sub-district office, many tasks that should have been undertaken by government functional departments have to be delegated to the community. There will be more and more signs at the door of the neighborhood Committee. It takes up most of the working time to sort out the ledger and meet the inspection and assessment. It can really be used for community service, and the time to solve problems for residents is numbered. Tongling City, which abolished the neighborhood office and established a large community, has also set up a number of institutions such as community party working committees, community neighborhood committees and community service centers in the integrated new community, which is equivalent to overlapping the original simple community neighborhood committees. Whether this reform is effective remains to be seen.
The key is to adhere to the correct direction of social management function innovation.
At present, there is a worrying tendency in many practices of social management function innovation in various places: according to the so-called reform idea of doing more addition and less subtraction, many places use innovation as an excuse to continue to "fatten" and "lengthen" government management institutions, increase staffing, extend organizational systems, expand public institutions, recruit social personnel and various "help" and "co-management" personnel with financial funds, and expand government institutions in disguise. The Tongling model is not like this. It looks for the causes of the problems from the government's own system and mechanism, and carries out reforms according to this idea. Although it has not yet involved the deep-seated government system, it has taken a gratifying step in the right direction. In this sense, "Tongling model" is a useful attempt to innovate the government's social management function.
Reform can't become a fashion, and it can't simply stay on the addition, subtraction and merger of institutions. Instead, we should use a systematic project to design the whole project, especially focusing on the separation of politics and society, changing the concept and mode of government governance, relaxing social control and improving social supervision. Relevant departments should follow the evolution of "Tongling Model" and conduct more directional guidance, policy planning and overall scheme design for the innovation of government social management functions from a macro perspective!