Circular 01/2023/TT-VPCP digitalization of results of administrative procedure settlement

CIRCUL AR

Prescribing a number of contents and implementation measures relating to digitalization of dossiers and results of administrative procedure settlement, and performance of administrative procedures in the electronic environment

^{_____________________}

Pursuant to the Government’s Decree No. 79/2022/ND-CP dated October 06, 2022, defining the functions, tasks, powers and organizational structure of the Government Office;

Pursuant to the Government’s Decree No. 63/2010/ND-CP dated June 08, 2010, on controlling administrative procedures; the Government’s Decree No. 92/2017/ND-CP dated August 07, 2017 amending and supplementing a number of articles of the decrees concerning control of administrative procedures;

Pursuant to the Government’s Decree No. 61/2018/ND-CP dated April 23, 2018 on the implementation of the single-window and inter-agency single-window mechanism in the settlement of administrative procedures; the Government’s Decree 107/2021/ND-CP dated December 06, 2021 amending and supplementing a number of articles of the Government’s Decree No. 61/2018/ND-CP dated April 23, 2018, on the implementation of the single-window and inter-agency single-window mechanism in the settlement of administrative procedures;

Pursuant to the Government’s Decree No. 45/2020/ND-CP dated April 08, 2020, on performance of administrative procedures in the electronic environment;

Pursuant to the Government’s Decree No. 42/2022/ND-CP dated June 24, 2022 on the provision of online information and public services by the State agencies in the cyber environment;

Pursuant to the Prime Minister's Decision No. 31/2021/QD-TTg dated October 11, 2021 on promulgating the Regulation on management, operation and exploitation of the National Public Service Portal;

At the proposal of the Director of Administrative Procedure Control Agency;

The Minister and chairperson of the Government Office promulgates the Circular prescribing a number of contents and implementation measures relating to digitalization of dossiers and results of administrative procedure settlement, and performance of administrative procedures in the electronic environment.

Chapter I
GENERAL PROVISIONS

Article 1. Scope of regulation

This Circular defines a number of contents and implementation measures relating to digitalization of dossiers and results of administrative procedure settlement; restructuring of the process of administrative procedures; reviewing and assessment of administrative procedures to meet the requirements for development of online public services according to levels, standardization of lists of online public services; management of information systems for handling administrative procedures at ministerial and provincial levels; integration, sharing, synchronization of data in performance of administrative procedures in the electronic environment.

Article 2. Subjects of application

This Circular applies to agencies, organizations and individuals involved in the performance of administrative procedures, provision of public services, online payment, digitalization of dossiers and results of administrative procedure settlement.

Article 3. Interpretation of terms

In this Circular, the terms below are construed as follows:

1. Digitalization of dossiers and results of administrative procedure settlement means a process of converting the information presenting on paper in dossier components and results of administrative procedure settlement into electronic data.

2. Optical character recognition (OCR) means a technology converting a text image into a text or language format that an electronic device can read or store.

3. Restructuring of the process of administrative procedures means the reviewing, assessment and re-design of the process of administrative procedure performance, from receipt, settlement, return of results for implementation in the electronic environment, ensuring the legitimacy, reasonableness, feasibility and efficiency, on the principle of the satisfaction of organizations and individuals reflecting the quality of services by cadres, civil servants, public employees and competent agencies.

4. QR Code (Quick Response Code) of a administrative procedure dossier means a two-dimensional barcode used to look up the dossier-processing status or online payment for dossier on the National Public Service Portal or in information systems for handling administrative procedures at ministerial and provincial levels.

5. Banks or intermediary payment service providers mean banks or intermediary payment service providers licensed by the State Bank of Vietnam that have been connected to, integrated with, and are providing online payment services on, the National Public Service Portal.

6. Collecting agencies are the agencies issuing decisions on collection of fees, charges and other financial obligations relating to administrative procedures or other collection amounts relating to provision of services to organizations and individuals in accordance with law provisions.

7. CITAD Code of a State Treasury unit or a bank where a collecting agency opens its account means a 8-digit bank code (CITAD code) of the State Treasury unit or the bank where the collecting agency opens its account that is named in the sanctioning decision or in the notice on charge and fee collection.

Chapter II

DIGITALIZATION OF DOSSIERS AND RESULTS OF ADMINISTRATIVE PROCEDURE SETTLEMENT

Article 4. Documents subject to digitalization

1. Documents being components of dossiers submitted by organizations and individuals to carry out administrative procedures, including:

a) Dossier components being results of administrative procedure settlement;

b) Dossier components to be digitalized under specialized law provisions;

c) Dossier components to be digitalized at the management request determined in Decisions of Ministers, Heads of ministerial-level agencies and government-attached agencies, Chairpersons of provincial-level People’s Committees;

d) Dossier components other than those specified at Points a, b and c of this Clause that are digitalized according to the needs of organizations and individuals during the implementation of administrative procedures.

The above-mentioned documents shall be submitted in one of the following forms: original; e-copy granted from the register; e-copy certified from originals; e-copy with the original for comparison during the settlement of administrative procedures.

2. Results of verification and responses to opinions of agencies and units involved in settlement of administrative procedures, unless otherwise provided for by specialized laws.

3. Results of administrative procedure settlement being still valid in accordance with Article 25 of Decree No. 45/2020/ND-CP dated April 08, 2020, on performance of administrative procedures in the electronic environment.

4. The digitalization shall not be required for the following documents:

a) Documents that have been shared under data by national databases, specialized databases, the National Public Service Portal, information systems for handling administrative procedures at ministerial and provincial levels and have legal validity;

b) Papers being dossier components for administrative procedure settlement that are submitted in the form of copies or certified copies, except for e-copies certified from the original prescribed in Clause 1 of this Article;

c) Documents only to be presented upon submission of dossiers of administrative procedures;

d) Confidential documents as prescribed by law provisions.

Article 5. Persons in charge of digitalization

Persons in charge of digitalization include:

1. Cadres, civil servants, public employees performing the receipt, settlement and return of the results of administrative procedure dossiers.

2. Cadres, civil servants and public employees other than those specified in Clause 1 of this Article that are assigned to implement the digitalization of administrative procedure settlement results being still valid as specified in Article 25 of Decree No. 45/2020/ND-CP dated April 08, 2020, on performance of administrative procedures in the electronic environment.

3. Cadres and staff of public postal service providers and other persons assigned to perform the digitalization of dossiers and documents as specified at Point b Clause 3 Article 1 of Decree 107/2021/ND-CP dated December 06, 2021 amending and supplementing a number of articles of the Government’s Decree No. 61/2018/ND-CP dated April 23, 2018, on the implementation of the single-window and inter-agency single-window mechanism in the settlement of administrative procedures.

Article 6. Requirements for digitalization of papers and results of administrative procedure settlement

1. The digitalization process must ensure the completeness, accuracy, data integrity of digitalized dossiers and documents and completeness of digitalization contents and process.

2. The digitalization process must ensure the principles of protecting personal data, not infringing or affecting the lawful rights and interests of organizations and individuals.

3. Documents’ e-data must store the metadata fields for reuse in settlement of other related administrative procedures.

Article 7. Digitalization process

Digitalization process includes the following steps:

1. Copy documents, convert into e-forms.

2. Extract data.

3. Grant digitalization result codes.

4. Store digitalization results.

Article 8. Copying of documents and conversion into e-forms

1. Persons performing digitalization shall copy and convert document types into e-forms and use their provided personal digital signatures to sign e-copies before implementing data extraction. The digital signature must ensure the information about names of copying persons and times of copying, the digital signatures shall be shown in the top left-hand corner of the first page of documents.

2. The copying of documents must satisfy the following requirements:

a) Verify the number of original dossiers according to the number of copies to ensure that all original dossiers are digitalized;

b) Ensure that all documents are copied accurately, comprehensively and completely compared to the originals;

c) The number of pictures in a copy must be equal to the number of original pages and the pictures are arranged in the correct order;

d) For pages with sticky notes: make two copies, one with sticky notes and one without the notes;

dd) Ensuring data integrity during the process of transferring and processing;

e) Specifications of a copy must comply with the criteria for input information data of the archival material database as specified in the Ministry of Home Affairs’ Circular No. 02/2019/TT-BNV dated January 24, 2019, defining the criteria for input information data and requirement for and requirements on preservation of electronic archival materials.

3. Cases not subject to copying and conversion into e-forms:

a) Dossiers submitted for performance of administrative procedures in the electronic environment;

b) Documents prescribed in Clause 2 Article 4 of this Circular.

Article 9. Extraction of documents’ data

1. The data extraction shall be carried out via the technology of optical character recognition; in cases the technology of optical character recognition cannot be applied, cadres, civil servants, public employees shall entering data by themselves, ensuring accuracy compared to the paper documents. The data extraction must ensure the information of the documents and results of settlement of administrative procedures to meet requirements of management, exploitation and use.

2. The extracted data includes at least the following metadata fields:

a) Code of document type;

a) Personal identification number/E-identification number of an organization (hereinafter referred to as identification number of organization or individual).

In case the document does not include personal identification number, the following data shall be replaced: full name, date of birth; In case the organization’s e-identification number is not included in the document, it shall be replaced with the following data: The organization’s name, establishment year;

c) Name of the document;

d) Serial number and symbol of the document;

dd) Date of issue;

e) The agency issuing the document;

g) Main contents of the document;

h) Validity period (if any);

i) Effective scope (if any);

k) Other information and data as prescribed by specialized laws.

3. In case of digitalization of the documents prescribed in Clauses 1 and 2 Article 4, if the dossier is accurate, complete and lawful according to provisions, persons in charge of settlement of administrative procedures shall extract the data from e-forms and be responsible for the accuracy of the data after extraction.

When an administrative procedure is determined to be successfully resettled, the administrative procedure settlement result, copies of dossier components and metadata shall be digitally signed in accordance with provisions on making paper true copies from e-documents as defined in the Government’s Decree No. 30/2020/ND-CP dated March 05, 2020 on clerical work.

4. In case of digitalization of administrative procedure settlement results prescribed in Clause 3 Article 4, persons assigned to perform the digitalization shall extract the data from the copies of administrative procedure settlement results and transferred them for digital signature in accordance with provisions on making paper true copies from e-documents as defined in the Government’s Decree No. 30/2020/ND-CP dated March 05, 2020 on clerical work.

Any incorrect information detected in the course of digitalization must be adjusted and amended in accordance with specialized laws.

Article 10. Grant of digitalization result codes

1. The digitalization result of a document shall be stored by code with the following structure: <identification number of organization or individual>.<code of document type>.<serial number and symbol of the document>.

2. For a document being result of administrative procedure settlement, the code of document type defined in Clause 1 of this Article is the code of type of the administrative procedure settlement result on the National Database on Administrative Procedures; in case no identification number of organization or individual is available, leave it blank and supplement the metadata defined at Point b Clause 2 Article 9.

3. For documents other than results of administrative procedure settlement, the structure of code of document type defined in Clause 1 of this Article shall be <code of the administrative procedure>.<code of document type in accordance with provisions of ministries, sectors or ordinal number of the document in dossier components on the National Database on Administrative Procedures>.

Article 11. Storage of digitalization results

1. Digitalization results of dossiers and documents shall be updated and stored by persons in charge of administrative procedure settlement on national databases or specialized databases in accordance with specialized laws. In case it is not prescribed by specialized law provisions, the digitalization results shall be stored in administrative procedure dossier data warehouses, a part of administrative procedure settlement data storage function of the information systems for handling administrative procedures at ministerial and provincial levels.

2. Digitalization results of dossiers and documents with identification number of organization or individual shall be shown in e-data warehouses of organizations and individuals in the information systems for handling administrative procedures at ministerial and provincial levels.

3. After the document digitalization results are digitally signed by the agencies, stored as specified in Clause 1 of this Article and have legal validity, the extracted metadata of documents shall be valid as information in digitalized documents.

4. After digitalization, paper administrative procedure dossier components shall be stored in accordance with laws on archives and specialized laws, and have the highest verification value in cases of complaints and disputes.

5. The time limit for e-archive of electronic administrative procedure dossiers shall comply with laws on archives and specialized laws.

Article 12. Electronic administrative procedure settlement results

1. Electronic administrative procedure settlement results must be presented in the proper format in accordance with specialized laws or digitalized from paper documents under Articles 25, 26 and 27 of the Government’s Decree No. 30/2020/ND-CP dated March 05, 2020 on clerical work.

2. Electronic administrative procedure settlement results must be handled to ensure the sufficient metadata specified in Clause 2 Article 9 of this Circular and in accordance with provisions on storage of e-message under the Law on E-Transactions.

3. Electronic administrative procedure settlement results shall be stored in national databases or specialized databases or information systems for centralized public service provision of ministries and sectors in accordance with specialized law provisions; and provide links to results of electronic administrative procedure settlement in e-data warehouses of organizations and individuals in the information systems for handling administrative procedures at ministerial and provincial levels with administrative procedure settlement competence.

In case of no relevant national databases or specialized databases or information systems for centralized public service provision of ministries and sectors, electronic administrative procedure settlement results shall be stored in administrative procedure dossier data warehouses, and shown in e-data warehouses of organizations and individuals in the information systems for handling administrative procedures at ministerial and provincial levels with the administrative procedure settlement competence.

Chapter III

REVIEWING, ASSESSMENT AND RESTRUCTURING OF THE PROCESS OF ADMINISTRATIVE PROCEDURES FOR PROVISION OF ONLINE PUBLIC SERVICES

Article 13. Criteria for provision of online public services in performance of administrative procedures in the electronic environment

1. Criteria for wholly online public services in performance of administrative procedures in the electronic environment.

a) The information about the administrative procedures is publicized and provided sufficiently on the National Database on Administrative Procedures and in the information systems for handling administrative procedures at ministerial and provincial levels;

b) Organizations and individuals may download forms of documents on the National Database on Administrative Procedures and in the information systems for handling administrative procedures at ministerial and provincial levels;

c) Allow to fill in and send online forms and declarations, apply digital signatures in cases of request for signatures of organizations and individuals;

d) The entire dossier is submitted in the electronic environment;

dd) Online payment in the online payment platform of National Public Service Portal or in the information systems for handling administrative procedures at ministerial and provincial levels, for administrative procedures with charges, fees or other financial obligations;

e) In the course of handling dossiers and providing services in the electronic environment, there are no regulations on process of performing and handling administrative procedures that organizations and individuals are required to submit, present paper copies for checking or to be present at state agencies or to carry out the process in front of receiving and handling cadres and civil servants; state agencies must conduct on-site verification in accordance with law provisions;

g) Electronic administrative procedure settlement results is provided;

h) Results shall be returned online or via the public postal service, and organizations or individuals are not required to be present or sign in person to receive the results.

2. Criteria for partially online public services in performance of administrative procedures in the electronic environment.

Partially online public services in receipt and settlement of administrative procedures in the electronic environment for organizations or individuals are online public services that do not fully satisfy criteria for wholly online public services but must meet the criteria specified at Points a, b, c, d and g Clause 1 of this Article.

3. Public services only meeting Points a and b Clause 1 of this Article are not determined as online public services in performance of administrative procedures in the electronic environment, but considered as online information provision services for organizations or individuals.

4. The agencies and units performing the administrative procedure control function shall, based on the reviewing results, synthesize the results and report to the heads of ministries, sectors and localities for issuance of decisions on approval of the lists. Such a report includes the following contents:

a) List of administrative procedures, administrative procedure groups satisfying requirements for performance of process restructuring, wholly or partially online public service provision in receipt and settlement of administrative procedures in the electronic environment;

b) List of administrative procedures, administrative procedure groups not satisfying requirements for immediate performance of process restructuring, wholly or partially online public service provision in receipt and handling of administrative procedures in the electronic environment. Proposed plans to amend and supplement provisions in relevant legal documents before implementing process restructuring.

Article 14. Order of restructuring of the process of administrative procedures

The order of restructuring of the process of administrative procedures shall comply with Clause 2 Article 26 of the Prime Minister's Decision No. 31/2021/QD-TTg dated October 11, 2021 on promulgating the Regulation on management, operation and exploitation of the National Public Service Portal.

Article 15. Criteria for selection of administrative procedures subject to reviewing and assessment for provision of online public services

1. Suitability of provisions on administrative procedures for the performance of them in the electronic environment.

2. Number of subjects, frequency of implementation of administrative procedures.

3. Connectivity, interoperability, and data sharing for administrative procedure settlement among agencies in the course of consideration and handling of administrative procedures.

4. Effectiveness of the provision of online public services.

Article 16. Reviewing of the process of administrative procedure performance

1. The agencies and units performing their administrative procedure control function shall, based on the approved lists of administrative procedures, coordinate with specialized agencies and units to review the process of administrative procedure performance by two types of separate administrative procedures and interconnected administrative procedure groups.

2. The reviewing of the process of administrative procedure performance must be based on the order of performance of administrative procedures or interconnected administrative procedure groups, responsibilities and specific task contents to be implemented of related agencies and units in the process.

3. For a separate administrative procedure, the process-reviewing agency shall formulate an overall diagram by the following steps:

a) Study regulations on administrative procedure to determine the sequence of administrative procedure performance steps, from the time on which the organization or individual carrying out the administrative procedure submits a dossier until the organization or individual receives the settlement result;

b) Identify agencies, units and individuals participating in the process of receiving and handling dossiers, returning results and specific responsibilities and tasks to be performed;

c) Develop and complete the diagram.

4. For an interconnected administrative procedure group, the reviewing agency shall formulate an overall diagram by the following steps:

a) Determine the sequence and connection of administrative procedures in the group and responsibilities of agencies and units for each administrative procedure;

b) Determine the current performance order of each separate administrative procedure in the group;

c) Develop and complete the diagram.

Article 17. Assessment and restructuring of the process of administrative procedures

1. The restructuring of the process of administrative procedures aims to one or several of the followings:

a) Simplifying unnecessary administrative procedures;

b) Reducing travel and direct contact of organizations and individuals performing administrative procedures;

c) Reducing dossiers and papers to be provided of organizations and individuals performing administrative procedures;

d) Reducing steps requiring direct or manual processing by agencies and units in the course of receiving and settling administrative procedures.

2. Criteria for restructuring of the process of administrative procedures:

a) Connectivity, data sharing and digitalization of dossiers and papers;

b) Electronic interoperability among agencies in the course of reviewing and settling administrative procedures;

c) Effectiveness of the development of the online public service provision system;

d) Performance of the online public service provision system.

3. Methods of restructuring the process of administrative procedures:

a) Identifying systems and databases related to the process of performing administrative procedures, and the connectivity, data sharing and exploitation of data;

b) Assessing the simplification of administrative procedures, dossier components, process and procedures for performing administrative procedures according to the restructuring criteria;

c) Building electronic process diagrams.

4. The review and standardization of application and declaration forms for setting up e-forms shall comply with Chapter IV of this Circular.

5. Depending on the requirements, the process restructuring shall be carried out by each administrative procedure or interconnected administrative procedure groups. Based on the restructuring result, the agency in charge of review and assessment shall complete the electronic process after restructuring it to provide online public services. In case of necessity, the agency in charge shall review, summarize, and propose or, within the competence, amend and supplement regulations of legal documents to complete the legal grounds to maximumly satisfy results specified in Clause 1 of this Article when providing online public services.

Article 18. Calculation for cost efficiency

Based on the plan for process restructuring, the agency or unit in charge shall review and calculate the cost efficiency of the simplified contents in accordance with regulations on control of administrative procedures.

Article 19. Development or completion of systems, integration, testing and provision of online public services

1. Based on the result of reviewing and developing the restructuring plan, the agency in charge shall review and submit it to the Ministers, heads of ministerial-level agencies, government-attached agencies, Chairpersons of provincial-level People’s Committees have the competence for approval and announcement for provision or completion of online public services.

2. Integration, testing and provision of online public services on the National Public Service Portal, ministerial- and provincial-level information systems for handling administrative procedures. The testing is encouraged to be organized with the participation of subjects performing administrative procedures.

Article 20. Testing online public services integrated on the National Public Service Portal

1. Testing online public services declared on the National Public Service Portal and requesting publicity.

Cadres of agencies and units that control administrative procedures at ministries, sectors and localities shall use accounts on the National Public Service Portal to check the online public service declared on the National Public Service Portal in the public service directory lookup; to check the information and request the publicity of public service proposal displayed on the National Public Service Portal for testing. Incorrect information must be requested to the competent agency to correct it fully and accurately before requesting publicity.

The information to be checked includes: Name of public service; code of administrative procedures ensuring accuracy with the type of public service declared; implementation level; implementing agencies and units; links to public services; application level.

2. Testing online public services on the National Public Service Portal.

After the online public service is publicized on the National Public Service Portal, within 05 working days from the date of publicity, the online public service must be tested by ministries, sectors and localities as service users and send the summary of the test results on the administration system of the National Public Service Portal at the website: quantri.dichvucong.gov.vn.

Testing contents include:

a) Testing the single sign-on mechanism from the National Public Service Portal to the system providing online public services;

b) Submitting dossiers online. In case during the submission process, there is a step that cannot be completed or the dossiers or documents contain incorrect information according to the content of the administrative procedure announcement and publicity, it is requested to check and adjust;

c) Testing the integration of online payment for public services that allow online payment, including:  Technical transparency of the payment process; integrated payment method, using the online payment system of the National Public Service Portal.

For online public services with full registration, which require payment of financial obligations but have not yet allowed online payments, it is recommended to review and integrate online payments to ensure that they meet the requirements for the quality of wholly online public services;

d) Checking the online processing of dossiers, the synchronization of the status of the dossiers, electronic results of the settlement of administrative procedures. After successfully submitting the dossier, the dossier must be checked for the smoothness in rotation, professional operation of processing dossiers among agencies, units, and departments, and the synchronization of the processing status according to each step in the internal and electronic processes with the National Public Service Portal.  In case the electronic administrative procedure settlement results contain digital signatures, the signing and display of digital signatures shall comply with the Law on Electronic Transactions and specialized laws;

dd) Summarizing test results.

After completing the testing, the ministries, branches and localities shall summarize the test results and send the tested public service and dossier codes on the administration system of the National Public Service Portal for the system to check the implementation results.

3. After 5 working days from the date of publicity for testing on the National Public Service Portal, if the ministry, branch or locality fails to perform the test and fails to send the test results as prescribed, the system shall automatically stop the publicity of registered online public services.

Chapter IV

REVIEW, STANDARDIZATION OF APPLICATION FORMS, DECLARATION FORMS FOR SETTING UP E-FORMS

Article 21. Reviewing and standardizing application and declaration forms

1. Ministries, agencies and localities shall review application and declaration forms according to the annual plan on review and evaluation of administrative procedures and the focus specified in Circular No. 02/2017/TT-VPCP dated October 31, 2017, guiding the control of administrative procedures.

2. Requirements for application and declaration forms.

a) For administrative procedures that require an application or declaration, the application or declaration must be sampled;

b) The application or declaration form must be reasonable, each information content in the application or declaration form must be clear and concise, really necessary for the settlement of administrative procedures, increasing the responsibility of individuals and organizations with respect to the contents of the application or declaration;

c) In case the application or declaration needs to be certified by a competent agency or person, it is required to clearly specify the agency or person competent to certify and the certification content.

3. Review of application and declaration forms.

a) Reviewing information content in application and declaration forms according to the provisions of administrative procedures;

b) Reviewing and assessing the need for information, content and certification competence and the ability to share data to support automatic filling and confirmation of information on application and declaration forms from national databases, specialized databases, and establishing relationship diagrams of information fields of application and declaration forms;

c) In case of detecting unnecessary fields of information and content required for certification in the application or declaration form, the ministry, branch or locality shall amend it according to the competence or propose the competent authority to amend it according to regulations;

d) Reviewing the relationship between the composition of the dossier and the information in the application or declaration form.

In case the dossier component is the settlement result of a previous administrative procedure, it can be searched and exploited on national databases, specialized databases or e-data warehouses of the organization or individual, the ministry, branch or locality shall amend it according to the competence or propose competent authority to amend administrative procedures in the direction of reducing the dossier component, and at the same time supplement basic information on administrative procedures in the application or declaration form to support search in the process of settling administrative procedures.

Basic information on the composition of the dossier includes: name of the document type; identification number of the organization or individual that is granted the document; document number; issuing agency and granting time. In case the document number has fully shown the agency information and the time of issuance, this content is not required to be shown in the application or declaration form.

Article 22. E-forms

1. Responsibility for providing e-forms.

a) Ministries, ministerial-level agencies, Vietnam Social Security shall develop and provide e-forms for online public services to settle administrative procedures:  within its scope of settlement; as assigned by competent authorities to give solutions to provide centralized nationwide; group of related administrative procedures in the field of state management of many ministries and agencies;

b) The People's Committees of provinces and centrally-run cities shall develop and implement solutions to provide e-forms for online public services to handle administrative procedures within the scope of localities’ settlement, or interconnected administrative procedure groups that are piloted locally, except for those mentioned at Point a of this Clause.

2. E-form setup process.

a) On the basis of the results of reviewing application and declaration forms, to develop e-forms for each online public service to meet the requirements of simplicity and convenience, maximizing data exploitation to automatically fill-in and confirm, while remaining the data-reusability of the form.

The basic information format of an e-form includes:  Application or declaration form number; identification number of the organization or individual; basic information about organization or individual; other information (if any).  The information format of e-forms is encouraged to meet the maximum requirements of data extraction and digitization as prescribed in Article 9 of this Circular;

b) An e-form includes the following parts:  Information content of the application or declaration form according to the provisions of administrative procedures; additional information to assist in finding, integrating or posting the dossier component.

In case the dossier component of administrative procedures has not been reduced or simplified, the People's Committee of province or centrally-run city shall make e-forms in the direction of allowing organizations and individuals to search for dossier components in e-data warehouses of organizations and individuals or search through connection and integration with national and specialized databases;

c) The testing and use of e-forms shall be carried out in conjunction with testing and providing online public services.

3. An e-form must at least meet the following requirements:

a) The information format must comply with the data regulations of the National Population Database, National Database on Business Registration and be integrated from these databases.

b) The form code is determined according to the structure:  <administrative procedure code>.<symbol of application, declaration form>.

The administrative procedure code is uniformly applied according to the code issued on the National Database on Administrative Procedures.

The symbol of the declaration form shall comply with the provisions of administrative procedures.

c) Allowing automatic filling and confirmation of digitized and shared information and data.

d) Allowing organizations and individuals to digitally sign as required by online public services.

dd) The publication of e-forms must ensure consistency with the requirements on the format of the administrative application or declaration form as prescribed.

Chapter V

SHARING DATA BETWEEN MINISTERIAL- AND PROVINCIAL-LEVEL INFORMATION SYSTEMS FOR HANDLING ADMINISTRATIVE PROCEDURES AND NATIONAL PUBLIC SERVICE PORTAL

Article 23. Professional requirements for the ministerial- and provincial-level information systems for handling administrative procedures

Ministerial- and provincial-level information systems for handling administrative procedures are consolidated and upgraded from the Public Service Portal and the ministerial- and provincial-level single-window e-information systems to meet the following professional requirements:

1. Providing information on administrative procedures and online public services.

2. Authenticating users by integrating with the National Public Service Portal's authentication system.

3. Receiving wholly or partially online public service dossiers performed by organizations or individuals on the System or through connection with the National Public Service Portal.

4. Managing the entire process of handling administrative procedures received from the Single Window section, the National Public Service Portal, ministerial- and provincial-level information systems for handling administrative procedures; automatically generating administrative procedure dossier numbers, digitized document codes to track the processing of dossiers, return results on the basis of recording each step of the process in real time and store log information on performance of administrative procedures;

5. Looking up information by authentication levels:

a) Level of not requiring authentication:  Information about the administrative procedure dossier number and the level of completion of settling the administrative procedure;

b) Level of authentication:  Providing information on the state of settlement of administrative procedures of users to specialized departments and divisions; situation and results of settlement of users' reports and recommendations; information and e-dossiers of users provided on the National Public Service Portal, ministerial- and provincial-level information systems for handling administrative procedures.

6. Guiding and supporting the performance of administrative procedures.

7. Receiving complaints and recommendations from people and enterprises on handling administrative procedures.

8. Evaluating the settlement of administrative procedures, the settlement of complaints and recommendations of state agencies according to the results of receiving and processing dossiers recorded ministerial- and provincial-level information systems for handling administrative procedures.

9. Publicizing the administrative procedure settlement status, providing the administrative procedure settlement status for the National Public Service Portal to publicize in accordance with the law.

10. Storing data on settlement of administrative procedures in the e-data warehouse of administrative procedure dossiers, including data on:

a) Dossier of receipt and settlement of administrative procedures;

b)  Log information on performance of administrative procedures;

c) Results of digitalization of dossiers and documents for handling administrative procedures performed by ministries, agencies and localities themselves;

d) The result of administrative procedure settlement falls under the handling competence of the ministry, ministerial-level agency or locality in charge of the system in case these results are not saved in the national database, or specialized database;

dd) Result of authentication of an electronic copy from the original in case the localities do it themselves;

e) Information in the form of links for data related to organizations and individuals with accounts on the system that is stored in national database or specialized database.

11. Provide an e-data warehouse of organizations and individuals according to their accounts to assist organizations and individuals in monitoring, managing and storing information and electronic data related to administrative transactions of such organizations and individuals.

12. Making statistics and summarizing the supply and handling of administrative procedures.

13. Publishing data, converting dossiers, results of settlement of administrative procedures in electronic form into dossiers, results of handling administrative procedures in paper form for storing and comparing information or presenting to agencies competent to check information on dossiers and results of handling administrative procedures or providing to organizations and individuals wishing to search and verify information within the scope of law provisions.

14. Connecting, integrating and sharing information according to the requirements specified in Clauses 1 thru 8, Clauses 10 and 12 of this Article with the National Public Service Portal.

15. Connecting and sharing data with the document management and administration systems to support the settlement of administrative procedures, extracting the data resulting from the settlement of administrative procedures as electronic documents.

16. Connecting and integrating with the national reporting and information system in order to provide information on the situation and results of performance of administrative procedures in the reporting period.

17. Connecting and sharing revenue data with the Information System of the State Treasury and Taxation to make online payment of fees, charges and financial obligations in performing administrative procedures, providing public services.

18. Other professional requirements under decisions of ministers, heads of ministerial-level agencies, chairpersons of provincial-level People's Committees.

Article 24. E-data warehouse of organizations and individuals on the ministerial- and provincial-level information systems for handling administrative procedures

1. An e-data warehouse of an organization or individual refers to a way of organizing data, managing and storing data of the ministerial- and provincial-level information systems for handling administrative procedures, with the display interface helping to manage the electronic data of each organization and individual according to the user account.

2. The data shown in the e-data warehouse of an organization or individual shall comply with Clause 3, Article 16 of Decree No. 45/2020/ND-CP dated April 8, 2020, on performance of administrative procedures in the electronic environment, including:

a) Data on information about the person performing the procedures, the dossier owners, stored in the form of specific data to identify the dossier owners such as: People's identity card/Citizen identity card (for individuals) or passport number (or international travel document number) of the foreigner, tax identification number/enterprise ID number (for enterprises);

b) Data about dossiers for handling administrative procedures and public services that have been successfully received and processed;

c) Data on the process, processing history, content, files in the process of processing dossiers;

d) Results or links to e-results of administrative procedures;

dd) Result of authentication of the electronic copy from the original;

e) Other specification data of documents and results of administrative procedures that are digitized;

g) Files that are actively updated by organizations or individuals with digital signatures.

3. The delegation of rights to access and exploit data of organizations and individuals shall comply with the operation regulations of the ministerial- and provincial-level information systems for handling administrative procedures. The data of organizations and individuals must be displayed in accordance with the level of data exploitation decentralization to ensure the principles of privacy protection, personal data protection and regulations on responsibility, prohibited acts in receiving and handling administrative procedures in the electronic environment.

Article 25. Connecting and sharing digitized results between the ministerial- and provincial-level information systems for handling administrative procedures and the National Public Service Portal

1. Ministerial- and provincial-level information systems for handling administrative procedures are synchronized with the National Public Service Portal as follows:

a) Synchronized digitized results include: Results of settlement of administrative procedures falling under the handling competence of ministries, ministerial-level agencies and localities; the results of digitalization of the administrative procedure dossier components that have been successfully received and resolved by the competent authority; electronic copies from the master books or certified electronic copies from the originals made by ministries, agencies and localities; other information (if any);

b) The synchronization must ensure the following information and data fields:  Document number; the name of the document; attachments or links to files; other specification data according to the level of management, handling administrative procedures and providing public services;

c) The synchronization of digitization results must be conducted in real time.

2. The National Public Service Portal shall share with the ministerial- and provincial-level information systems for handling administrative procedures in the process of handling administrative procedures as follows:

a) Synchronizing the list of results of administrative procedure settlement in the e-data warehouse of organizations and individuals on the National Public Service Portal with ministerial- and provincial-level information systems for handling administrative procedures at the request of ministries, branches and localities;

b) Sharing data on documents for the ministerial- and provincial-level information system for handling administrative procedures in case ministries, agencies or localities request inspection to settle administrative procedures.  Based on the digitalized document number provided by the ministry, agency or locality, the National Public Service Portal shall share:  The document number, the name of the document, the attachments or links to the file;

c) The synchronization shall be done automatically according to the frequency suitable to the capacity of the National Public Service Portal and synchronized according to the request at the time of inspection by the organization or individual in service of receiving and handling administrative procedures, online public services.

3. The reuse of digitalized results shall be carried out in the following order of priority:

a) Exploiting from ministerial- and provincial-level information systems for handling administrative procedures, information systems and databases under the management of ministries, agencies and localities;

b) Exploiting from information systems, databases with bilateral connection with ministerial- and provincial-level information systems for handling administrative procedures;

c) Exploiting from data shared through the National Public Service Portal.

Article 26. Application of QR codes in receiving and handling administrative procedures

1. The provision of QR codes in receiving administrative procedures must comply with Vietnamese standards TCVN 7322:2009 (ISO/IEC 18004:2006) on Information technology - Automatic identification and data capture techniques - QR code 2005 bar code symbology specification.

2. QR codes that are printed in the upper left corner of documents published from the data of ministerial- and provincial-level information systems for handling administrative procedures for organizations and individuals must provide the minimum data as follows:

a) Code of the dossier for settlement of an administrative procedure;

b) Code of an administrative procedure;

c) Identification code of the organization or individual performing an administrative procedure;

d) Name of the document to be published;

dd) Name of the information system providing the data;

e) Time of publication;

g) For a receipt and an appointment to return results, the QR code must provide additional data on the date of the appointment;

h) For administrative procedure settlement results, the QR code must provide additional data on the validity period and scope (if any).

Article 27. Revenue data

1. The collecting agencies must ensure the identification of specific revenue as follows:

a) The revenue identification number that is determined by the administrative procedure dossier number or the decision number for other revenues issued by the agency handling administrative procedures or providing public services, ensuring its uniqueness nationwide;

b) Collecting agency code:  The agency's electronic identification number that is updated by the ministry, branch or locality on the National Database on Administrative Procedures;

c) Name of the collecting agency;

d) Administrative procedure code on the National Database on Administrative Procedures;

dd) The fee or charge code or the code of the type of collecting penalties for administrative violations according to the State Treasury’s list of fees and charges for handling administrative violations.

In case the fee and charge code is unavailable, it shall be replaced with the payment transaction type code specified in Clause 4 of this Article.

e) Receivables;

g) Types of receivables;

h) Name of the individual or organization with financial obligations;

i) Time limit for payment (if any);

k) Tax identification numbers of individuals and organizations with financial obligations (if any);

l) CITAD code;

m) Account number of the collecting agency at the State Treasury or a bank;

n) Account name of the collecting agency;

o) Other information content according to the regulations of the industry or field.

2. Payment documents

Payment documents of banks or intermediary payment service providers created during the settlement of administrative procedures, public services or other revenues through the National Public Service Portal must comprise all the information specified in Clause 1 of this Article.

3. When making a payment order to transfer the collected amount of fees and charges, penalties for administrative violations to the fee and fee collection accounts of the charge- and fee-collecting organizations opened at the credit institutions, or an account of charges awaiting remittance into the state budget of a fee-collecting organization opened at the State Treasury or to the state budget, banks and intermediary payment service providers must ensure that the “Content” field of the payment order is structured as follows:

<Transaction code>+<Receivable identification number>+<CITAD code>+<Administrative procedure code>+<Collecting agency code>+<amount>+<Fee/charge/administrative sanction code>

4. The National Public Service Portal shall automatically issue transaction codes in the following format:

G22.99.X-YYMMDDZZZZZZ.

In which, G22.99.X is the type of payment transaction, including: G22.99.1: Collection of fines; G22.99.2: Collection of charges and fees for administrative procedures; G22.99.3: Tax collection; G22.99.4: Collection of social insurance and health insurance; G22.99.5: Electricity bill payment; G22.99.6: Payment of hospital fees; G22.99.7: Court fee advance collection; G22.99.8: Payment of tuition fees and other types of payment transactions.

YYMMDD is the number representing the year, month, and date of the transaction.

ZZZZZZ is the transaction number of the day.

The list of code types of payment transactions via the online payment system of the National Public Service Portal is uniformly implemented according to the instructions on technical standards for connection, integration with the online payment system of the National Public Service Portal when developing new public services.

5. Other forms of collection using a unified transaction code generated by the information system for handling administrative procedures and providing public services under the structure <Electronic identification number of collecting agency>.X - YYMMDDZZZZZZ are encouraged.

6. E-payment between a commercial bank or an intermediary payment service provider to the beneficiary account of the agency or unit providing public services opened at the bank or the State Treasury for fees, charges and other financial obligations in carrying out administrative procedures shall comply with Clause 12, Article 1 of Decree No. 107/2021/ND-CP or specialized laws.

Article 28. Updating transaction information and documents on the National Public Service Portal, information systems for handling administrative procedures

1. Banks and intermediary payment service providers shall fully and timely update payment transaction status on the National Public Service Portal to serve the administration, review, comparison and support of accounting payment transactions on the National Public Service Portal.

a) Transaction status, including initialization, failed initialization, processing, failed payment, successful payment, failed transaction, successful transaction;

a) Accounting status, including success and failure.

2. Banks and intermediary payment service providers shall review payment transactions with the “processing” status up to date T-1 (the day before the reviewing date); ensure the synchronization, update the status of the end of the transaction (success or failure) on the National Public Service Portal.

3. Ministries, branches and localities shall regularly review and compare payment transaction status and accounting status through accounts authorized to monitor and check payment data on the National Public Service Portal.

In case a payment transaction through the Payment System of the National Public Service is recorded as successfully done, but the e-documents have not been synchronized to the ministerial- and provincial-level information systems for handling administrative procedures, ministries, branches and localities shall use the administrative accounts to send requests for coordination in synchronous processing of e-documents to banks and intermediary payment service providers. When the processing is completed, the status “Documents received” shall be updated on the National Public Service Portal.

4. Ministries, branches and localities shall synchronize the status of “Money received” when payment transactions through the National Public Service Portal are accounted to the beneficiary account of the collecting agency located at the commercial bank.

The State Treasury shall synchronize the status “Money has been transmitted to the State Treasury” when payment transactions through the National Public Service Portal are accounted to an account at the State Treasury.

Article 29. Reviewing, comparing and supporting the accounting of payment transactions on the National Public Service Portal

1. Failure to transfer money to the collecting agency’s account.

Banks and intermediary payment service providers fail to refund money to customers in case of successful transactions, and e-documents have been sent to the National Public Service Portal, ministerial- and provincial-level information systems for handling administrative procedures, except for the case of obtaining the collecting agency's approval.

Based on revenues that have not yet been accounted into the collecting agency's account at the State Treasury or bank, the collecting agency shall review, send requests to commercials and intermediary payment service providers. Within 1 working day, commercials or intermediary payment service providers shall receive requests, send feedback and prepare a plan to accounting such amounts into the collecting agency's account.

2. In case of failure to accounting when a bank or intermediary payment service provider detects and notifies that the accounting information of the collecting agency is inaccurate, the collecting agency shall coordinate with the bank or intermediary payment service provider in updating and making adjustment on the National Database on Administrative Procedures, ministerial- and provincial-level information systems for handling administrative procedures; at the same time, send requests for accounting to the bank or intermediary payment service provider to make accounting to the collecting agency's account.

Article 30. Refund of collected charges, fees and fines

1. If a citizen makes a request for a refund of the overpaid or mispaid amount, the competent agency shall receive and settle the application dossier for refund as prescribed.

2. The refund of payment transactions for collected charge, fee or fine amount already accounted into the collecting-agency's account opened at the State Treasury on the National Public Service Portal shall be carried out as follows:

a) Cadres assigned to “make documents for refund of state budget revenues” shall make documents at the administrative function for the payment transaction code on the National Public Service Portal. In case where the competent agency sends refund documents to the State Treasury, the refund form stipulated by the Ministry of Finance shall be applied;

b) Cadres assigned to “approve documents for refund of state budget revenues” shall approve documents at the administrative function;

c) Transfer the refund order to the State Treasury. Assigned cadres shall make documents, approve and monitor the settlement result and situation of the State Treasury on the administrative function of the National Public Service Portal.

Chapter VI

IMPLEMENTATION PROVISIONS

Article 31. Implementation responsibility

1. Ministers, heads of ministerial-level agencies, heads of government-attached agencies, chairpersons of People’s Committees of provinces and centrally-run cities, and related organizations, agencies and individuals shall implement this Circular.

2. The Administrative Procedure Control Agency, the Government Office shall assist the Minister and Chairman of the Government Office in monitoring, urging and examining the implementation of this Circular.

Article 32. Effect

1. This Circular takes effect from May 25, 2023, the provisions of Point dd, Clause 1, Article 27 of this Circular shall be synchronously implemented from January 1, 2024.

2. The assessment of the quality of settling administrative procedures shall comply with the Prime Minister's Decision No. 766/QD-TTg dated June 23, 2022, approving the set of indicators in reference to the direction, administration and assessment of the quality of services provided to citizens and enterprises in the performance of administrative procedures and public services in real time in the electronic environment.

To repeal provisions on reviewing and assessing the conformity of administrative procedures and provisions relating to administrative procedures with the implementation of online public services specified at Point i, Clause 2, Article 25, Clause 2, Article 28 of the Government’s Office’s Circular No. 02/2017/TT-VPCP dated October 31, 2017, guiding the control of administrative procedures; to repeal Articles 13, 14, 15, 17, 21, Clause 2, Article 16 of the Government Office's Circular No. 01/2018/TT-VPCP dated November 23, 2018, guiding the implementation of a number of provisions of the Government’s Decree No. 61/2018/ND-CP of April 23, 2018, on implementation of the single-window and inter-agency single-window mechanisms in performance of administrative procedures.

4. Any difficulty arising in the course of implementation should be promptly reported to the Government Office for consideration, supplementation and amendment./.