Seoul Junior Civil Servants to Receive Education or Community Service Instead of Discipline for Minor Mistakes

Implementation of the 'Alternative Disposition System' for Employees with Less Than Five Years of Service
"Education to Prevent Recurrence Is More Important Than Disciplinary Action"

From now on, junior civil servants in Seoul who commit minor mistakes due to negligence will receive education or be assigned to community service instead of facing disciplinary action.

On November 13, the Seoul Metropolitan Government announced that it will implement an "alternative disposition system," under which civil servants with less than five years of experience who make minor mistakes, such as lack of proficiency in their work, will be required to undergo education or perform community service instead of receiving warnings or admonitions.

Yonhap News Agency

The city explained that it decided to introduce this system because it believes that education to prevent recurrence is more important than heavy disciplinary measures for mistakes caused by a lack of experience among junior civil servants. The city plans to apply this system starting with its own internal audits.

The alternative disposition system is designed to exempt employees who are subject to warnings or admonitions, due to lack of proficiency or minor violations, from such disciplinary actions. It will be applied once to Seoul city employees with less than five years of service.

If the required education (at least 15 hours) or on-site community service (at least 15 hours) is not completed within the designated period, the original disciplinary action (official warning or admonition) will be finalized. However, cases that have been reported to the police or prosecutors, violations of integrity obligations (such as accepting bribes), or fraudulent receipt of various allowances are excluded from this alternative disposition system.

Park Jaeyong, Chairperson of the Seoul Metropolitan Government Audit Committee, said, "We will do our best to make Seoul a city that is both honest and committed to improving the quality of administrative services through flexible systems."

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