"Public Institution Management Evaluation, Customized Evaluation Indicators Needed for Each Institution"

National Management Research Institute, Public Institution Management Evaluation Seminar
Calls to Shift to Absolute Evaluation and Appointment of Institution Heads

The Korea Institute for National Management announced on the 6th that it held a seminar on "Directions for the Development of Public Institution Management Evaluation" at the Korea Chamber of Commerce and Industry's medium conference room in Jung-gu, Seoul. The seminar aimed to improve the issues with the evaluation indicators used in management evaluations implemented to enhance public institution management since the enactment of the Public Institution Operation Act in 2007.

Participants of the Korea Institute of Public Administration's seminar on 'Directions for the Development of Public Institution Management Evaluation' are taking a commemorative photo after the seminar. Photo by Korea Institute of Public Administration

Jeong Haebang, Chairman of the Korea Institute for National Management and former Vice Minister of the Ministry of Strategy and Finance, pointed out in his opening remarks that "public institution management evaluations expose many problems such as budget waste and manpower waste due to uniform standards, ambiguity in qualitative evaluations, and relative evaluations."

Professor Kwak Chaegi of the Department of Public Administration at Dongguk University, who gave the keynote presentation, stated, "Going forward, the evaluation indicator system for public enterprises and quasi-governmental institutions should be customized for each institution," and added, "The indicator system needs to be boldly streamlined." He explained that the management evaluation system for other public institutions managed by each relevant ministry should allow the ministries to autonomously decide whether to implement it.

Lee Boksil, former Vice Minister of the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family and chair of the subsequent panel discussion, suggested, "The problems of using management evaluations as a tool for managing public institutions need to be improved," and proposed, "The heads of public institutions should be appointed through a nomination system rather than a recruitment system."

Ra Youngjae, former Director of the Public Institution Research Center at the Korea Institute of Public Finance and a panel participant, said, "Public institutions should be categorized into listed stock companies, unlisted stock companies, public corporation-type public enterprises, entrusted execution-type, fund management-type, medical-type, and research-type quasi-governmental institutions, and differentiated management policies and corporate governance should be applied by type." Professor Lee Wonwoo of Seoul National University Law School emphasized, "Regulating all institutions that meet formal criteria as public institutions can unnecessarily increase administrative costs," and stressed, "The designation of public institutions should be decided by comprehensively considering the nature and scale of the institution."

Professor Noh Seungyong of the Department of Public Administration at Seoul Women's University explained, "From the perspective of 'establishing an autonomous and responsible management system' as stipulated in Article 1 of the Public Institution Operation Act, improvement is particularly needed in terms of autonomous management." Kim Hyun, President of the Central Technology Evaluation Institute at the Korea Technology Finance Corporation, said, "Mutual understanding is essential for management evaluations. Therefore, evaluators should activate communication throughout the entire evaluation process," and added, "In particular, it is necessary to strengthen the explanation of evaluation results and the feedback procedures for improvement."