North Jeolla Special Self-Governing Province announced on the 24th that it will implement improvements to the evaluation system for public enterprises and affiliated agencies starting next year. The province aims to enhance the reliability of evaluation results and strengthen the capacity and accountability of the institutions.

This improvement comes as a response to the issue of 'imbalance in grades A and B' raised during the process of reporting the 2024 performance-based evaluation results to the provincial council. In response, the province has addressed six areas including evaluation targets, evaluation criteria, evaluation indicators, evaluation methods, compensation system, and mid-term dismissal of executives.

The province has excluded Gunsan and Namwon Hospitals, which have a strong public nature and do not receive performance-based pay, from the evaluation targets to reduce their workload and focus on their role in public healthcare. The remaining institutions will be maintained as evaluation targets considering their alignment with provincial policy directions.

The evaluation system will continue to be based on absolute scores for grade calculation, but will significantly incorporate evaluation indicators from the model proposed by the Ministry of Public Administration and Security to assess the overall operation of the institutions. The plan is to measure business performance more objectively through difficulty evaluation, upward adjustment of targets, and diversification of customer satisfaction surveys.

The committee for deliberating on investments and contributions will be empowered to adjust grades in case of bias towards higher grades, and new grounds and procedures will be established to assign the lowest grade to institutions that engage in irregularities such as corruption in recruitment, personnel affairs, or major accidents causing social controversies. A committee for indicator improvement will also be established to continuously review evaluation criteria.

Compensation system improvements will also be pursued. In the short term, efforts will be made to increase the salary range for lower positions and decrease it for higher positions, and through outsourcing, the entire compensation system will be re-examined to address unreasonable wage and allowance payments and disparities compared to other cities and provinces.

To strengthen the accountability of executives, it will be mandatory for newly appointed officials to submit a commitment letter to complete their term, and if they retire prematurely due to reasons such as running for elected office, it will affect their performance-based pay according to the evaluation indicators.

Cheon Yeong-pyeong, Director of the Planning and Coordination Office of North Jeolla Province, stated, "Affiliated agencies are partners in promoting the core policies of the province," and said, "Through institutional improvements, we will establish a culture of responsible management and enhance the capacity of the institutions."