Process complaints promptly, Beijing Party chief says

Public complaints should be processed without delay, and Beijing's municipal government should discover and deal with common problems before residents complain about them, Beijing Party Secretary Cai Qi told the third session of the 13th Beijing Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference.

Last year, Beijing handled 2.52 million public requests, with a daily workload of 7,000 on average. The rate of resolving the problems rose from 53 percent at the beginning of the year to nearly 75 percent by its end, with the satisfaction rate reaching 87 percent, according to a report released at the Beijing Municipal People's Congress on Wednesday.

"We are expected to deal with small affairs inside the neighborhood while bigger problems can be solved within the community," Cai told the political advisers on Saturday, adding that Beijing should also develop "Fengqiao experience", based on a township in Zhejiang province that focused on the actual needs of urban residents.

Earlier this month, a village committee in Fengtai district received a complaint that the water pipe in a neighborhood had burst. They immediately appointed a water company to repair the pipe and bought six buckets of drinking water to the resident.

"Thank you so much! I couldn't imagine that the maintenance would be done so fast in the freezing winter. We were not affected at all," resident Wang Guiling told officials of the village committee.

Li Fengqin, a political adviser and deputy director of the healthcare security administration in Shijingshan district, suggested in her proposal that the municipal government should guide grassroots authorities to solve the public's problems ahead of complaints or conflicts.

The most common complaints on the 12345 hotline from residents of Laoshan Dongli, a community built in Shijingshan in 1999, were about the lack of parking lots, mis-sorted garbage and lax security checks.

The grassroots authorities responded by raising money for rectification from government, residents, property owners and community advertising.

"Later, a face-recognition system was installed at gates of the community to enhance security checks, while newly built parking lanes and bins to classify trash have greatly improved the environment," Li said.

As a result, the Laoshan Dongli community has ranked in the top 50 of the capital's 333 communities in a list evaluating their performance in dealing with public complaints.

"Now, fewer people in the community complain through 12345 because most of their problems have been solved in advance," Li said.

Yang Zhaoxia, a political adviser and an official at the Shijingshan Public Complaints Office, said that in addition to the hotline, grassroots authorities also collect public opinions and suggestions on community management from their office WeChat account.

"We also solicited public opinions on certain topics, such as how to optimize the bus routes," Yang said. Among the 29 pieces of feedback they collected, one mentioned inconvenient public transport in the new Gucheng East and Gucheng West communities.

"Considering half the residents there are elderly people, we cooperated with Beijing Public Transport, the Beijing Municipal Commission of Transport and other departments involved to do research on bus stations along the route and the site of the bus terminal," Yang said.

A new bus route passing the communities and nearby business was established within seven months.

In order to broaden the channels available to the public to express their needs, districts plan to develop their own online 12345 platforms, including on their Sina Weibo and WeChat accounts, this year.

Dong Minghui, a political adviser and the deputy head of Tongzhou district, also urged government departments and experts to help build a database to support responses to complaints.

"Developing the online platform will strengthen the ability of grassroots authorities to receive, resolve and assess the problems of the public," Dong said.