State Council members at the Sept 13 executive meeting heard a report on the fourth nationwide State Council inspection, the third-party assessment of implementation of key policy measures on promoting mass entrepreneurship and innovation, and boosting private investment.

State Council inspection is the government’s important measure in improving supervision and enhancing policy effectiveness, while third-party assessment plays a positive role in improving public policy, acting as a supplement to the inspection work.

The inspection is to examine every region and department’s implementation of key policy measures and important tasks made by the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and the State Council. Guided by the appeals of market players, third-party assessment introduced a neutral party to evaluate whether market players’ know these policies and how they benefit from them.

To summarize, the State Council inspection centered on the implementation of policies, while third-party assessment focused on the sense of gain from market players. The latter can be seen as a yardstick to test the implementation of policies.

Premier Li Keqiang, when delivering the Government Work Report in 2015, proposed that China build a service-oriented government. The inspection and third-party assessment, as an innovative move by the government, is done as part of building such a government.