Seoul Citizen Audit Ombudsman Committee, Workshop on 'Creating a Good Local Government'

Citizen Participation Ombudsman, Over 40 Members Including Committee Members Participate

[Asia Economy Reporter Lim Cheol-young] The Seoul Citizen Audit Ombudsman Committee announced on the 15th that it held a 'Citizen Audit and Participatory Ombudsman Workshop' to explore development plans for the committee, together with about 40 participants including participatory ombudsmen and committee members.

The 'Participatory Ombudsman' is a non-standing appointed position that participates in the Seoul Citizen Audit Ombudsman Committee's tasks such as monitoring and evaluating Seoul's public projects, handling audits, and addressing grievance complaints. Last year, 35 citizen participatory ombudsmen observed the contractor selection process 259 times for monitoring, participated in 51 focused monitoring activities of public projects, supported the handling of 12 audit and grievance complaints, and also served as jurors in one grievance jury case.

This workshop was organized to strengthen the job competencies of ombudsman members, share the committee's activity achievements, and enhance mutual communication so that participatory ombudsmen can discover institutional improvement matters across city administration and actively participate in governance in the future.

There was a special lecture titled "Creating Good Local Governments in the Era of Local Decentralization" by Dr. Kim Soon-eun, a professor at Seoul National University Graduate School of Public Administration and former chairperson of the Presidential Committee on Autonomy and Decentralization. Afterwards, a session was held to discuss "Committee Activities and Development Plans."

Established in February 2016 as an independent collegiate administrative body, the Seoul Citizen Audit Ombudsman Committee entered its third term with the inauguration of Chairman Joo Yong-hak in May. The third-term committee is expected to achieve qualitative and quantitative breakthroughs, establishing itself as a representative institution that protects citizens' rights and interests.

Joo Yong-hak, Chairman of the Seoul Citizen Audit Ombudsman Committee, said, "This workshop provided an opportunity to build consensus that active citizen participation and leadership are essential to properly improve wrongful practices or administratively convenient work processes," adding, "The Ombudsman Committee pledges to intensify efforts to oversee and improve city administration from the citizens' perspective."

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