As Seoul Mayor Oh Se-hoon presented ‘deregulation’ as the main topic of this year’s Seoul city administration and declared that he would boldly eliminate unnecessary systems, the Seoul Metropolitan Government announced on Friday the 3rd that all departments and employees will participate in intensively identifying unnecessary regulations that should be eliminated or improved and proposing ideas for them during the month of January.
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▲[Korean Today] 2025 Deregulation Creative Idea Contest Poster © Reporter Byun A-rong |
The intention is to increase effectiveness and driving force by having employees on the front lines, who are most knowledgeable about the need for regulations and the problems they face, directly discover regulations and proactively suggest improvement ideas.
Mayor Oh Se-hoon emphasized on Facebook on the 2nd (Thursday), “I named it ‘deregulation’ directly because I have a stronger will than regulatory reform,” and “The uncertainty that citizens experience during the permitting and licensing process and the risk-averse passive administration of working-level officials are the biggest enemies of the people’s livelihood, and revitalizing social and economic vitality through regulation is not a matter of choice, but an essential task.”
The city emphasized that the purpose of this idea-finding effort is to proactively uncover unnecessary regulations that public officials encounter in the field, reorganize ordinances and regulations, and reform administrative processes to establish the formula of “regulatory abolition = restoration of people’s livelihoods,” and to restore vitality by clearing citizens’ breaths.
As a first step toward eliminating unnecessary regulations, Seoul City has selected ‘deregulation’ as the core theme of ‘creative administration’ in 2025 and has designated the month of January as a special proposal period to intensively collect employee ideas. Ideas can be proposed on an ongoing basis even after January.
The proposed topics include all regulatory areas that place unnecessary restrictions on the creative and free activities of Seoul citizens, including ▴livelihood economy, ▴transportation, ▴welfare, ▴environment, and ▴construction and development, as well as all regulations that cause inconvenience in citizens’ daily lives, such as laws, ordinances, rules, and Seoul city guidelines or procedures.
Employees who propose ideas to boldly eliminate or reduce unnecessary regulations that have continued and expanded due to passive administration will be motivated through strong incentives. First, the award for creative proposals will be increased from the existing 5 million won for the best award to a maximum of 8 million won by creating a new top-level award, and opportunities for creative administration awards and special promotion (for those who have contributed to regulatory reform) will also be provided.
In addition to discovering and collecting ideas for deregulation, we will also comprehensively review approximately 4,100 creative proposals received over the two years of the 8th elected government. The goal is to discover ideas related to regulatory reform and deregulation that were not previously discovered.
In addition, to prevent civil servants who take the lead in regulatory reform and lead proactive administration from being disadvantaged by shifting responsibility or unnecessary audits, ‘active administration pre-consulting’ will be applied from the idea discovery and selection stage. The plan is to utilize the proactive administration exemption system so that civil servants can confidently and actively engage in regulatory discovery and abolition.
Meanwhile, Seoul City is also operating a ‘Citizen Intensive Reporting System’ for reporting unreasonable and unnecessary regulations in all areas of city administration for 100 days from the 3rd to April 12th. The relevant department will reexamine the necessity of maintaining regulations reported by citizens from the beginning, and if it is determined that there is a high need for improvement, it will be brought to the Mayor’s Regulatory Abolition Meeting and boldly abolished if it is determined to be unnecessary. Regulation reports can be made through the Regulatory Reform Newspaper (www.sinmungo.go.kr).
Song Gwang-nam, Seoul City’s policy planning officer, said, “Civil servants on the front lines of regulation will proactively discover and eliminate unnecessary regulations, which will directly contribute to revitalizing the economy and restoring people’s livelihoods.” He added, “In addition, we will provide clear incentives to civil servants who lead regulatory innovation to actively eliminate or reduce unnecessary or excessive regulations and rationally readjust necessary regulations, thereby drastically changing the way Seoul city members work.”
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