The Korea Forest Service Natural Recreation Forest Management Office Wins 'Encouragement Award' at Service Innovation Sharing Conference

The Korea National Arboretum announced on the 22nd that it received an Encouragement Award at the ‘2024 Service Innovation Sharing Competition for Responsible Operating Agencies’ hosted by the Ministry of the Interior and Safety.

The Forest Recreation Management Office won the Encouragement Award at the 'Responsible Operating Agency Service Innovation Sharing Conference' hosted by the Ministry of the Interior and Safety. Photo by National Natural Recreation Forest Management Office

The competition was conducted by having 33 responsible operating agencies submit 59 innovation cases, which were then reviewed and evaluated to select outstanding cases. After a preliminary review by experts, 12 excellent cases advanced to the finals, where the final rankings were determined through evaluations by 50 onsite judges composed of online public reviewers, experts, and youth.

The Arboretum submitted a case on expanding fee reduction benefits for multi-child families and received an Encouragement Award at the competition.

In particular, it was positively evaluated for eliminating the required documents when multi-child families apply for reservations at the Korea National Arboretum to enhance user convenience, and for establishing its own verification process to improve the previous situation where benefits were not received due to separation between parents and children’s households, thereby addressing service blind spots.

Previously, the Arboretum consecutively received Encouragement Awards for cases such as ‘Realizing Social Value through Talent Donation Activities by the Maintenance Task Force’ in 2022 and ‘Zero Safety Accidents for Visitors through Rapid Response to Disaster Situations’ last year.

Kim Myung-jong, Director of the Arboretum, said, “By expanding fee reduction benefits for multi-child families, the number of beneficiary households increased more than sixfold from 340,000 to 2.24 million households. The Arboretum will continue to strengthen public interest as a responsible operating agency so that all citizens can equally enjoy forest recreation service benefits.”

Meanwhile, responsible operating agencies refer to institutions that have expertise in their administrative affairs and require strengthened performance management, or institutions that provide direct services to the public, to which administrative and financial autonomy is granted and held accountable for their performance.