All Beijing police officers will be asked to report directly to the public on their work and receive feedback from them twice a year.

Face-to-face reports to local residents will be given at meetings held between the 1st and 10th of June and December, and officers will be evaluated and rated by citizens. Satisfaction levels will then be included in police personnel records.

This system has been on trial in four of the city's districts (Dongcheng, Chaoyang, Daxing and Shunyi) for six months. One police officer said it has been good for inspiring greater public confidence, even though he thought they already had strict enough internal controls.

Reports will consider how well officers keep locals updated on the outcomes and progress of cases as well as the quality, speed and convenience of the service provided. It also aims to help prevent malpractice and corruption, including the misuse of public money, bribery, abuse of power, and random fine charging.

The scheme comes after outcry followed an announcement earlier this year that retiring police officers in the city of Huzhou, Zhejiang Province, would receive pensions of about 370,000 yuan (US$44,704) as a reward for having unblemished 40-year records.

The decision became the target of much public criticism: a poll of over 2,000 people on Sina.com.cn resulted in 60 percent voting against the pension and 73 percent saying it would not help to reduce corruption.

Opposition was largely on the grounds that a clean record should be a basic expectation, not a bonus to be rewarded, and that the system would involve spending a lot of additional money without reducing levels of corruption.

According to sources at Beijing's Public Security Bureau there are no plans to replicate the pension system in the capital, though local police thought it would be a good idea, saying, "It is not only a prompt but an award for honesty and duty."

Ren Jianming, vice director of the anti-corruption research center at Tsinghua University, said that, although the pension system may have some benefits, making use of direct feedback from the public is often the best way to root out social problems such as corruption and malpractice.

(China.org.cn by Wang Ruyue November 12, 2004)