New guidance issued by the Party Central Committee’s Organization Commission introduces a mechanism for evaluating officials on a regular and continuous basis, directly linked to personnel management and deployment.

The commission has released guidance on several aspects of quarterly evaluations for leadership and management officials at all levels within Vietnam’s political system.

The move aims to concretize and standardize the Politburo’s policy on quarterly evaluations of officials while continuing to strongly reform and improve the quality of cadre assessment in a direction that is regular, continuous and substantive, tied to outcomes, final work products, practical effectiveness and individual accountability, especially among top leaders.

Under the guidance, quarterly evaluation results will be monitored, updated and accumulated as an important basis for annual assessments and personnel decisions when necessary.

The quarterly reviews are also intended to help promptly identify, cultivate and utilize officials with outstanding capabilities, innovative thinking, creativity and a willingness to take responsibility for the common good, while correcting, screening out and replacing officials with limited capacity, weak responsibility or failure to meet task requirements.

The authority directly assigning tasks and using officials will be responsible for making comments, conducting evaluations and proposing performance ratings. The competent authority managing the official will make the final decision and approve the classification.

The guidance clearly states the principle of ensuring continuity and consistency between quarterly and annual evaluations, reflected through the actual effectiveness of final work products.

It also stipulates that the “excellent task completion” classification should only be considered for individuals demonstrating outstanding performance, high-quality work products and results exceeding assigned requirements.

The evaluation process consists of five steps: determining quarterly objectives, tasks and expected outputs; self-assessment and scoring by the individual; assessment and proposed classification by the competent authority; final classification decision; and notification and storage of results.

Rules on excellent and failed performance ratings

The Party Central Committee’s Organization Commission noted that the proportion of individuals receiving the “excellent task completion” rating each quarter must comply with Politburo regulations.

The performance rating of the head of an agency or unit will be tied to the collective performance results of the organization but will not be counted toward the quota of “excellent task completion” ratings allocated to other members of the leadership group.

The proportion of individuals classified as “excellent task completion” will follow rounding rules, with figures from 0.5 rounded up to one.

Individuals completing less than 100 percent of assigned quarterly tasks will be classified as “failed to complete tasks,” except in cases involving objective or force majeure reasons recognized by competent authorities.

Any individual receiving one quarterly “failed to complete tasks” rating during the year will not qualify for an “excellent task completion” annual rating.

Annual performance classifications will be based on quarterly evaluation results throughout the year and fourth-quarter performance outcomes. In cases where multiple individuals meet the conditions for an annual “excellent task completion” rating, priority will be given to those with a higher number of quarters proposed for the same rating.

The Organization Commission requires the immediate replacement of officials receiving “failed to complete tasks” ratings for two consecutive quarters or more.

Party committees, Party organizations and leadership bodies of centrally managed agencies and units will conduct quarterly and annual evaluations for certain positions that are not leadership or management posts, before periodically reporting consolidated results to the Politburo and the Secretariat.

These positions include assistants to key Party and State leaders and senior officials of the Vietnam Fatherland Front, Supreme People’s Court judges, Supreme People’s Procuracy prosecutors and deputy foreign ministers serving as Vietnamese ambassadors abroad.

The Presidential Office will consolidate self-evaluation and classification results of the Vice President before reporting to the Politburo and the Secretariat for consideration in accordance with regulations.

The Organization Commission also encouraged Party committees and organizations under the central leadership to study and implement suitable forms of publicly disclosing work evaluation results of subordinate agencies and units.

Localities, agencies and units are required to submit reports to the Politburo and the Secretariat before the fifth day of the first month of the following quarter.

Tran Thuong