Decree No.175 was issued to institutionalise the Party and State’s guidelines, policies and guidelines on promoting decentralisation along with strengthening inspection and supervision; strengthening digital transformation, applying information technology and simplifying administrative procedures in construction investment activities; focusing on amending contradictory and overlapping regulations that hinder economic development; ensure the unity and synchronisation of the legal system, unified management from the central to local levels and enhance the effectiveness and efficiency of state management.
Strong decentralisation to localities
Deputy Director of Construction Activities under the Ministry of Construction Bui Van Duong said that, implementing Conclusion No.97-KL/TW at the 10th plenum of the Party Central Committee on “building a more decentralised institution” with the motto “locality decides, locality does, locality is responsible”, Decree No.175 has amended many regulations to strongly decentralise administrative procedures under the authority of specialised construction management ministries and the Ministry of Construction to localities for implementation.
Accordingly, regarding the management of construction activity capacity, Decree No.175 has decentralised all authority to issue construction activity certificates and Grade I practice certificates to localities while eliminating the requirement for practice certificates for some fields that are no longer necessary.
At the same time, the Decree also thoroughly decentralised authority to localities to appraise the Feasibility Study Report on construction investment and design implemented after basic design, and inspect the acceptance work of specialised construction agencies.
Specialised construction management ministries only appraise and inspect the acceptance work for projects with special-level and complex works and no regulations or standards.
In addition, it is necessary to minimise unnecessary administrative procedures, such as reducing the types of projects and works that must be appraised at state management agencies by expanding the scope of projects that only require technical economic reports (from a total investment of 15 billion to 20 billion VND, adding maintenance, repair and restoration projects in group C); minimising cases of design adjustments in the following steps that do not require project adjustments.
With the above thorough decentralisation, immediately after the Decree takes effect, the number of administrative procedures from central agencies will be further decentralised to localities to perform about 95% of appraisal, inspection of acceptance work and 100% of issuance of practice certificates and certificates of construction activity capacity; reducing about 10% of project and work dossiers requiring appraisal procedures at state agencies.
At the same time, to ensure the effectiveness and efficiency of state management when implementing decentralisation, Decree No.175 has added regulations for specialised construction agencies under specialised ministries to strengthen inspection of the organisation, management and implementation of specialised agencies at the local level.
Promoting simplification of administrative procedures
One of the new highlights in Decree No.175 is the standardisation of required documents for submission, eliminating unnecessary documents to shorten the time for administrative procedures.
In particular, the requirement to provide information and legal documents already available on the national database system on construction activities and the national database on land (when these systems are put into operation, shared, and connected) is eliminated; the management content overlaps between steps in the investment process; clearly define the list and compliance criteria when conducting assessments in administrative procedures for appraisal, construction permit issuance, and certification, etc.
Along with that, continue to review to eliminate some cases requiring a certificate of construction capacity, extend the validity of individual practice certificates from 5 years to 10 years, etc.
According to Bui Van Duong, to remove difficulties and obstacles in practice, and synchronise the legal system, Decree No.175 has more clearly defined the types of planning or equivalent legal documents used as the basis for project establishment, and at the same time is the basis for granting construction permits to resolve projects formed from many types of planning according to specialised laws as well as the situation where some localities have not yet covered the planning synchronously; supplement regulations on underground works and basements of construction works in sync with the provisions of the Law on Urban and Rural Planning, resolving the problem of lack of information on basements at all planning levels; clearly stipulate the documents, contents, and criteria for appraising the Feasibility Study Report on construction investment, design implementation after basic design, in line with regulations on investment, housing, forestry, and fire prevention and fighting.
The implementation process must be clear and transparent to shorten the time for project preparation and design and enhance the effectiveness and efficiency of management in appraisal work. At the same time, fully and clearly systematise legal land documents as the basis for granting construction permits, in line with newly issued laws and decrees on land.
Currently, the Ministry of Construction is promoting the application of the construction information system (BIM), combining the application of BIM and the database system in construction management to accelerate digitalisation in the construction industry.
According to Minister of Construction Nguyen Thanh Nghi, Decree No. 175 will contribute to improving the effectiveness of state management in the field of construction activities in parallel with strong decentralisation to localities.
In the coming time, the Ministry will continue to review, complete and supplement construction norms to serve key projects; investment capital rates and total construction prices to serve the management of construction investment costs, especially investment capital rates for urban railway and high-speed railway projects. To do this, relevant departments must innovate their approaches in building norms, unit prices, managing investment costs, construction projects, etc.
