Pyeongtaek City Prioritizes Resolving Citizens' Needs by Establishing 'Civil Service Bureau'

Pyeongtaek City (Mayor Choi Won-yong) is pursuing an organizational reform that significantly strengthens its civil affairs functions in order to resolve citizens' complaints more swiftly and responsibly.

To realize ‘A Pyeongtaek That Grows Together and Where Citizens Are Happy,’ a key task of the 9th popularly elected administration, the city announced for legislative notice on the 8th a ‘Partial Amendment Ordinance to the Pyeongtaek City Administrative Organization and Staffing Ordinance,’ which includes the establishment of a ‘Civil Service Bureau.’

The most notable aspect of this organizational reform is the creation of the ‘Civil Service Bureau.’ This reflects in the organization Mayor Choi Won-yong's administrative philosophy of making citizens' voices the starting point of administration. The city plans to expand and reorganize the civil affairs functions that previously belonged to the ‘Administrative and Autonomy Bureau’ to create the ‘Civil Service Bureau,’ under which it will place the ‘One-Stop Civil Affairs Division,’ ‘Civil Service Division,’ ‘Building Permit Division,’ and ‘Housing Division.’

In particular, the city will newly establish the ‘One-Stop Civil Affairs Division,’ which was one of Mayor Choi's signature pledges, to build an administrative system that can handle civil affairs more conveniently from the citizens' perspective. The aim is to reduce the inconvenience of having to process complaints across multiple departments depending on the nature of the complaint, and to strengthen administrative services that consider citizens' perspectives from the intake of complaints through to their resolution.

In addition, the ‘One-Stop Civil Affairs Division’ will be placed as the lead department of the ‘Civil Service Bureau’ to create an environment where experienced and capable talent voluntarily gathers. Until now, civil affairs departments have been perceived as departments avoided by employees due to their high workload compared with insufficient personnel rewards, but the city plans to significantly raise the status and role of the new ‘One-Stop Civil Affairs Division’ within the organization by making it the lead department.

Furthermore, the ‘Building Permit Division’ and ‘Housing Division,’ which handle matters closely related to citizens' daily lives such as building permits, conversion of mountainous and farmland, apartment complex management and housing welfare, general house construction, and advertising, will also be moved to the ‘Civil Service Bureau.’

Along with this, Pyeongtaek City will reorganize the ‘Planning, Port and Economy Office’ into the ‘Planning and Coordination Office,’ and restructure the ‘Future City Strategy Bureau’ into the ‘Jobs and Economy Bureau.’ In addition, the ‘Urban Housing Bureau’ will be changed to the ‘Urban Policy Bureau,’ and the ‘Safety, Construction and Transportation Bureau’ to the ‘Transportation, Safety and Construction Bureau.’ The names of the ‘General Affairs Division,’ ‘Korea-U.S. International Exchange Division,’ and ‘Transportation Administration Division’ will be respectively adjusted to the ‘Administrative Support Division,’ ‘International Exchange Division,’ and ‘Transportation and Parking Division.’

The city will also reflect the ad hoc allocation of standard personnel set by the Ministry of the Interior and Safety, increasing the number of general service positions by 7, from 2,390 to 2,397. Accordingly, the staffing at Grades 4 and 5 is expected to increase by 1 each.

Mayor Choi Won-yong emphasized, “Civil affairs are not simply administrative work to be processed, but the starting point of city administration where citizens' voices can be heard most closely,” adding, “Through this organizational reform, we will reduce the inconvenience of citizens having to visit multiple departments and create citizen-centered civil affairs services.”

Meanwhile, this organizational reform is scheduled to be implemented after gathering citizens' opinions through the legislative notice period until the 12th, followed by related procedures such as deliberation and resolution by the Pyeongtaek City Council.