Ministry of the Interior and Safety Replaces 64% of Department Heads... "Breaking Seniority, Major Generational Shift"

The Ministry of the Interior and Safety has conducted personnel changes replacing 64% of its headquarters division and bureau chiefs, far exceeding half. This reshuffle has generally lowered the senior officials' examination cohorts and ages within the ministry.

On the personnel announcement dated the 4th, the Ministry revealed on the 3rd that it newly appointed or replaced 7 out of 8 headquarters division chief positions and 18 out of 31 bureau chief positions.

Previously, the headquarters division chiefs were mainly composed of officials from the 36th and 37th Korean Civil Service Examination cohorts, but this reshuffle placed officials from the 38th and 39th cohorts, as well as the 32nd Public Administration Examination cohort (equivalent to the 40th Korean Civil Service Examination), in key positions. The Ministry expects this personnel change to invigorate the organization and secure momentum to advance the Yoon Suk-yeol administration’s national agenda in a new atmosphere.

The Ministry explained that this move aligns with Minister Lee Sang-min’s policy to move away from a vertical, rigid examination cohort system and seniority-based organizational culture, aiming to create a flexible and horizontal culture.

Additionally, the Ministry stated that it eliminated conventional career paths and organizational silos to select talented individuals with expertise and experience. For headquarters division chiefs, the traditional career path involved serving as deputy heads of metropolitan or provincial governments before appointment as division chiefs; however, in this reshuffle, three bureau chiefs at headquarters were directly promoted to division chiefs.

Seo Bo-ram, Director General of the Digital Government Bureau, was promoted to Director General of the Digital Government Division; Kim Kwang-yong, Director of Personnel Planning, was promoted to Director General of the Natural Disaster Division; and Jin Myung-gi, Director of Local Tax Policy, was promoted to Director General of the Social Disaster Division. Going forward, the Ministry plans to consider promoting bureau chiefs directly from section chiefs at headquarters without requiring prior experience as metropolitan or provincial policy office chiefs.

The Ministry had earlier signaled a major organizational innovation by appointing Ko Ki-dong, former Deputy Mayor of Sejong Administrative City, as the new Vice Minister in an unprecedented personnel move.

In addition to a major overhaul of the Disaster and Safety Headquarters, the Ministry established the Digital Government Division and the Vice Minister for the Local Era (also serving as Director General of the Balanced Local Development Office), while downgrading the Government Innovation Organization Office to the Innovation Organization Bureau, effectively relaunching the organization.

Minister Lee Sang-min stated, "The Ministry of the Interior and Safety must be reborn at the level of a relaunch through this organizational reform and personnel reshuffle. As a central ministry for national governance, we will make every effort to actively promote the Ministry’s three major missions: public safety, the local era, and the digital platform government."

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