Songpa-gu Launches Full-Scale Regulatory Reform... Focus on 'Support, Not Regulation'

Comprehensive Regulatory Reform Plan Established in January... Focus on Identifying and Improving Arbitrary Regulations by Public Officials
Three Major Focus Areas: Foundation Building, Field-Centered Task Discovery, and Systematic Maintenance
Mayor Seo Gangseok: "We Will Foster Trusted District Administration by Shifting from Regulatory to Supportive Governance"

Songpa-gu (Mayor Seo Gang-seok) is launching regulatory innovation by establishing the ‘IN&OUT Regulatory Reform Promotion Plan,’ which signifies ‘innovation introduction and deregulation,’ to welcome the new year.

With the launch of the 8th elected administration, the district has been working hard to break down administrative convenience-oriented and arbitrary regulations by improving organizational culture. In particular, since his inauguration, Mayor Seo Gang-seok has consistently emphasized a shift in perception from regulation to supportive administration, urging the district to be armed with the core values of creativity, innovation, and fairness.

Furthermore, earlier this year, the district established a regulatory reform promotion plan and officially embarked on institutional and arbitrary regulatory reforms at the district level. The plan includes three major focus tasks: ▲establishing a foundation for regulatory reform ▲discovering field-centered tasks ▲systematic regulatory maintenance, along with eight detailed accompanying tasks to be implemented.

First, to establish a foundation for regulatory reform, a Regulatory Innovation Task Force (TF) composed of the deputy mayor and key executives will be formed and operated. Through monthly regular meetings, the status of regulatory discoveries will be actively shared, and discussions will be held as needed regarding proposed institutional improvements or related law amendments submitted to relevant agencies. A performance report meeting will be held to grant special rewards to outstanding departments and employees in regulatory reform.

On the 6th, the district will hold training for all employees to discover regulatory tasks centered on field workers. The training will introduce various cases to make the vague and difficult regulatory reform more accessible and cultivate the ability to identify and improve regulations through creative ideas during work.

In addition, aiming to discover field-centered tasks, five major areas of regulatory reform have been set, and each department will work on discovering regulations related to their respective duties. Regulations blocked institutionally will be actively proposed to higher authorities such as Seoul City and the central government, while autonomous regulations such as ordinances and rules will be discovered and simultaneously maintained internally.

In particular, as Seoul City emphasizes regulatory abolition as a key policy topic for the new year, the district expects that a significant portion of its proposals regarding city regulations will be reflected.

The district also listens to residents’ voices to find and amend hidden regulations in daily life. Various residents’ opinions on unreasonable and complicated administrative procedures are collected through highly open social networking services (SNS). Subsequently, among the discovered regulatory tasks, those with high preference will be selected through online voting and improved.

Meanwhile, for systematic regulatory maintenance, the district operates a ‘Regulatory Pre-Review System’ to examine the legality and validity of detrimental policies or autonomous regulations. Newly established or strengthened regulations will be reviewed by the ‘Regulatory Reform Committee,’ composed of internal and external experts, and the district plans to make every effort to ease regulations from multiple angles.

Mayor Seo Gang-seok stated, “Unnecessary habitual regulations are the greatest threat to maximizing residents’ convenience and welfare.” He added, “We will carry out a more trusted district administration based solely on supportive administration that enhances residents’ convenience and welfare, not administrative convenience-oriented and arbitrary regulatory administration.”