'National Proposals Reflected in Policy' Plan to Activate Citizen and Public Official Suggestions Established

Providing Proposal Maturation and Public Deliberation Procedures to Allow Opportunities for Supplementation and Revision
Extension of Reconsideration Deadlines for Rejected Proposals, Quarterly Self-Inspections Implemented

[Asia Economy Reporter Lim Cheol-young] From now on, a maturation and public deliberation system will be implemented to develop public proposals into policies, and grounds will be established to disclose proposal contents to prevent plagiarism and unauthorized use.

On the 18th, the Ministry of the Interior and Safety announced that it has established and will announce the "2021 Public and Civil Servant Proposal Activation Plan" containing these details. Reviewing the "2020 Public and Civil Servant Proposals," out of a total of 92,437 proposals, 7,304 were adopted, and the policy reflection rate was 40.8% (2,979 cases).

The "2021 Public and Civil Servant Proposal Activation Plan" to be implemented this year includes: ? Enhancing policy reflection of proposals together with the public, ? Strengthening policy reliability by expanding disclosure of the proposal system, and ? Establishing a proposal culture.

Public proposals will be carefully reviewed, and proposals with potential to develop into policies will be given opportunities to be supplemented through a "maturation and public deliberation process," thereby increasing the policy reflection rate of proposals. In particular, for public proposals requiring various review opinions or inter-ministerial consultations, the proposal regulations will be revised to conduct maturation and public deliberation within six months before carefully deciding whether to adopt them.

Additionally, a "collaborative proposal system" to activate civil servant proposals will be pilot implemented. The collaborative proposal system allows related departments or other civil servants to supplement proposals made by civil servants so that they can be adopted as policies.

Going forward, plans will be considered to expand the collaborative civil servant proposal system to public proposals by reflecting improvements after implementation. Each ministry will designate a public proposal coordinator to establish a "multi-ministry operation system," enabling continuous sharing and prompt consultation of public proposals.

The re-examination period for proposals not adopted will also be extended from the current one month to three months, and for proposals not adopted, self-inspections will be conducted every three months (quarterly) and reported to the proposal review committee.

To prevent plagiarism and unauthorized use of proposals, proposal contents will be disclosed, and prior public notice will be mandatory when selecting excellent proposals. To prevent cases of plagiarism and duplication in public proposals, regulations will be revised to disclose proposal contents in principle, and institutions must publicly announce excellent proposals for a certain period (14 days) before finalizing the award.

Furthermore, regulations allowing cancellation of awards if plagiarism or unauthorized use is discovered afterward will be newly established, and a system requiring proposers to submit an ethics pledge will also be introduced. The proposal management departments of each institution will monitor the process of public proposals becoming policies quarterly, strengthen evaluation by checking the review of adopted proposals and execution status.

Meanwhile, efforts will be made to establish a proposal culture where anyone can participate regardless of time and place. Cases such as central excellent proposal awardees and proposal policy masters will be produced as content and used for case-based education. In addition, to increase public and civil servant awareness and understanding of proposals, and through notification of proposal regulations, use of the National Sinmungo (online petition system), and online public forums, a "proposal culture" will be fostered where the public can easily express opinions on policies.

Han Chang-seop, Director of Government Innovation Organization at the Ministry of the Interior and Safety, stated, "Looking at public proposals, we can hear various voices ranging from everyday systems that are easy to overlook to improvements in unreasonable policies," and added, "We will carefully review public proposals and reflect them in policies to improve the quality of life of the people."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.