In the offices of the Heilongjiang provincial Department of Housing and Urban-Rural Development, staff members are busy with their quiet, orderly work.

That scene was unimaginable two years ago.

"The department is responsible for administrative approvals in 11 categories, including more than 100 items that involve construction, real estate development and qualifications of personnel," said Yang Chunqing, director of the department. "In the past, applications were only accepted at the corresponding office."

"It wasn't unusual for some applicants to have large pieces of luggage full of application materials," he said. "It was inconvenient for both the staff and the applicants."

Conditions have changed dramatically since those days. A streamlined administrative examination and approval process－h(huán)andled by a single office－was established last year for all approvals.

Applicants submit materials and retrieve certificates in the same place, cutting approval time from 20 workdays to 15.

"It's a result of the reform," Yang said. "Responsibilities have been clarified. Now, all staff members can focus on maximizing their professional and technical expertise, which greatly improves their enthusiasm."

Heilongjiang's efforts followed decisions made at a meeting of the central committee for deepening overall reform－led by Xi Jinping, general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee－in May last year. A key guideline on implementation of institutional reforms was approved.

Several days after the meeting, the Heilongjiang government issued its plan to implement reforms of public institutions, focusing on the elimination of redundancy, inefficiency, overstaffing and other prominent problems.

In the past, the total number of staff members at public institutions was often not adjusted based on the local population, geography or level of economic development.

"Some offices have been disbanded or integrated with other offices to achieve an optimum distribution of employees," Yang said.

Before the reform effort, some offices were small and redundant.

In the provincial department of education, there had been 17 subsidiary offices, 11 of which had fewer than 10 staff members. In the reorganization, seven of those were combined with others into a single new entity, the provincial Institute of Teachers' Professional Development.

"To maximize teacher development in a new and modern Heilongjiang, we are combining small subsidiary offices," said Zhao Guogang, director of the department.

The reform cut the number of education-related public institutions by more than half, from 17 to seven, while staff positions decreased from 1,420 to 941, he said.

"Figuratively speaking, it's the equivalent of a person losing weight or strengthening his tendons and bones," said Li Dongmin, director of the executive office of the provincial leading group for promoting institutional reform.

"We have greatly reduced the unreasonable number of institutions, strengthened public service functions, promoted synergy, optimized efficiency and solved the problems that resulted in a failure to constrain the propagation of such institutions."

At the same time, he said, the province has continued to focus on the development of education, medical care, social security, veterans' programs and other areas involving people's livelihoods.