Online public services bring benefits in reducing administrative procedures. Photo: Thùy Linh

With the goal of building a modern State Treasury, strengthening administrative procedure reform in association with modernizing the information technology system, the State Treasury has basically completed the implementation and provision of online public services at level 4 to budget-using units nationwide. At the same time, coordinating with units of the Government Office to integrate online public services of the State Treasury into the National Public Service Portal for online payment and fulfilling financial obligations in handling administrative procedures.

According to the Information Technology Department - State Treasury, in order to complete these tasks, the State Treasury has focused on directing specialized units at Central Government and State Treasury units throughout the country to carry out research, review, formulation and modification of policies, mechanisms, and professional processes; building and upgrading information technology systems; training for staff; coordinating with party committees and local authorities to communicate about the benefits of using online public services to budget-using units.

The State Treasury has focused on improving and perfecting software functions, strengthening technical infrastructure to meet the deployment for about 95,000 budget-using units participating in the system with daily transaction documents from 150,000 to 200,000 vouchers. Currently, there are about 9,500 concurrent users on average; it reached nearly 14,000 people on peak days. For example, there are over 20,000 people using online public services on the peak day at the end of 2020.

The State Treasury has also built and provided an application on a mobile platform, allowing account holders and chief accountants of transaction units to receive and look up information on changes in account balances, processing transaction records via smartphone.

The implementation of online public services has formed an additional electronic transaction channel of the State Treasury, which is a great step forward in the formation of an electronic treasury.

For units, organizations and individuals that are customers of the State Treasury, online public services bring benefits in reducing administrative procedures and modernizing operations of units, organizations and individuals because they do not have to bring documents directly to the headquarters of the State Treasury agency, thereby reducing transaction time and saving travel costs.

Electronic transactions of the State Treasury also contribute to increasing transparency in providing relevant information about administrative procedures, data, as well as progress in processing records, etc. The unit takes people, enterprises and as the center, thereby increasing the ability to monitor, check and evaluate individuals and organizations and the responsibilities of the State Treasury in performing tasks. At the same time, meeting the strategic orientations, business items in accordance with the structure of the e-Government system.

Notably, in the context of the Covid-19 pandemic, the implementation of online public services has brought into play its roles and functions, helping the State Treasury system to fulfill the dual goals of social distancing and ensuring smooth operation. Customers do not have to gather at the State Treasury but they still make transactions for state budget expenditures normally through the online public service system.

According to the plan, the State Treasury will upgrade the remaining public services at level 2, 3 to level 4 in 2021, thereby completing 100% of administrative procedures provided through online public services at level 4.

At the same time, the State Treasury will also deploy connections between the administrative accounting system with the online public service system to form an electronic connection between the unit and the State Treasury. In parallel, it is an electronic connection with electricity, water and telecommunications suppliers complying with Decree 11/2020/ND-CP in order to make periodic payments based on the supplier's invoices and authorization of the unit.

The State Treasury will also study the operational mechanism and implement the interoperability of electronic contract data and state budget expenditure records between the State Treasury's online public services and the national bidding network.