Police officers at all grass-roots police stations in the capital city will hold a face-to-face meeting with the residents within their precinct and report on their work and swear to uphold honesty in performing their duties, according to Beijing Municipal Public Security Bureau officials.

The meeting is slated for December 1 and is expected to last 10 days.

At present, many local governments in China require their officials to organize such meetings, usually at the end of each year.

But this is the first time for police at the grass roots to report on their work.

Two times each year, police should organize such meetings to report on their work and listen to comments and concerns from audiences.

The bureau has preliminarily set June 1-10 and December 1-10 as the proper times for the meetings.

After half a year's pilot project which was carried out in the stations in four city districts, the system was officially adopted by the bureau and promoted city-wide earlier this month.

Police leaders are required to report on their area's situations concerning public order, criminal cases, permanent and floating populations and household registration management.

And most important, how to provide good and fast service for residents and listen to the feedbacks from them are listed as a "must" for reports.

Oaths of honesty and instances in which police may have abused power by taking bribes or acting for the benefits of their relatives or neglected their duties, whether they had fined or collected money without appropriate reasons are also on the list of topics.

The aim is to achieve fairness and transparency, with the bureau demanding each meeting be attended by no less than 50 people, consisting of representatives from all walks of life, such as teachers, ordinary workers and representatives of local People's Congress.

The audience are welcome to raise questions and cast doubts on the reports on the spot.

And finally, questionnaires will be widely distributed among the residents in the affected areas.

Each resident is called to give a mark on the work of the station and put forward suggestions for future improvements.

(China Daily November 11, 2004)