Create “playing field” to assess capacity of Customs officers

Capacity assessment for Customs officers to improve their self-learning

Conference at the General Department of Vietnam Customs’ headquarters. Photo: Q.H

On August 21, 2024, Deputy Director General of the General Department of Vietnam Customs Dinh Ngoc Thang chaired an online conference.

The conference drew participation from 500 officers of the General Department of Vietnam Customs’ (GDVC) headquarters and from 35 local customs departments.

The GDVC has implemented capacity assessment since 2018 and 2019 nationwide for about 5,000 officers who do not hold leadership positions in 8 major operational fields, including customs control and supervision, import and export tax, anti-smuggling, post-clearance audit, risk management, handling of violations, inspection and customs verification at the General Department level and the Branch level.

In 2023, the GDVC will continue to expand capacity assessment to team-level leaders of customs branches and equivalent level working in the 8 major operational fields, increasing the total number of assessed officers in the two capacity assessments to more than 10,300 instances of officers.

At the conference, Deputy Director General Dinh Ngoc Thang said that capacity assessment is a regular work that helps leaders at all levels arrange appropriate officers consistent with working position, and grasp obstacles for training. Through capacity assessment, many local Customs units realize that capacity assessment is the key and measure of the quality of customs officers.

“The capacity assessment in the coming time aims to create a “playing field” for officers without feeling pressured through access to legal documents and processes that are materialized by content and handling situations”, the Deputy Director General said.

Deputy Director General Dinh Ngoc Thang requested central customs departments and local customs departments to focus on five major content groups, including capacity assessment (subjects of capacity assessment, implementation method, frequency of capacity assessment); method; test sets; software; and the use of results for capacity assessment of customs officers.

Regarding the subjects of capacity assessment, local customs departments such as HCM City, Hai Phong, Lao Cai, Ha Tinh... proposed a plan to exempt from capacity assessment for officers who have 2-year working before retiring to enjoy social insurance benefits.

Some units also proposed a plan to assign unit leaders to select officers for capacity assessment.

Regarding the structure of the capacity assessment and the building of capacity assessment tests, some units proposed to reduce the questions providing many situations for leadership capacity assessment or providing suggested answers for officers…

The conference agreed on the view that capacity assessment should be performed regularly and annually to ensure that officers regularly study, update knowledge to complete assigned tasks.

The capacity assessment should be associated with personal organization and the results of capacity assessment should be applied to personal organization.

The capacity assessment does not put pressure on officers, the content of the test sets is consistent with daily work of officers under their working position.

The capacity assessment of higher level officer, the content of the capacity assessment needs to ensure comprehensive management of operational fields of the unit (for the head); assess the operational fields directly in charge and general understanding of other fields of the unit (for the deputy head).

When the capacity assessment is finished, officers who meet requirements, need to be recognized and rewarded (through the issuance of certificates of satisfaction and certificates of merit by the GDVC) ...