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On July 20, 2018, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe held a meeting of the Ministerial Council on the Management of Administrative Documents and Related Matters at the Prime Minister’s Office.
 
Based on the discussion, the Prime Minister said,
 
“Today, we approved the measures to prevent the recurrence of the series of problems concerning government documents.
 
Public records are the most fundamental infrastructure for linking citizens with the Government. It is important above all that each and every government staff member always bears in mind this point and becomes more mindful of compliance in the management of them. We will instill this mindset into the culture of civil servants by making them thoroughly aware through face-to-face trainings and other programs targeting everyone from newly recruited staff to senior officials and incorporating this aspect into personnel evaluations.
 
To materialize effective management of public records and archives across the whole of government, we will appoint the Government Chief Record Officer (Government CRO) to the Cabinet Office and an inspector-general for public records management in each ministry (CRO for each ministry). With this, we will further clarify the line of responsibility related to public records and archives management and significantly strengthen audit functions and governance.
 
With regard to electronically approved documents, we will change the system so that revisions cannot be made retroactively. Furthermore, we will promote fundamental reforms in order to manage administrative documents in a more systematic and efficient manner based on the underlying concept of managing administrative documents electronically. To this end, we will formulate a basic policy by the end of this fiscal year regarding the establishment of mechanisms for electronically managing administrative documents from drafting to saving, disposing and transferring.
 
It is an extremely difficult task to regain the public’s confidence which has once been lost; nevertheless, we must achieve it. We will exert every effort to prevent any recurrences with a sense of urgency. I would like to ask all ministers to take the lead in implementing all of the matters approved today accordingly and take all possible measures to ensure the appropriate management of public records.”