To respond to the major administrative issues in the 21st century, the Ministries have been restructured according to their organizational purposes. This section explains the concept of this restructuring and the new system of policy coordination.
- Restructuring according to Organizational Purposes
- New Systems
1. Restructuring according to Organizational Purposes
Reviewing the role of the national administration based on the principle of "from the public sector to the private sector" and "from the central government to the local governments," the administrative reform at this time has reorganized the Ministries according to their main "purposes" in a way that they can perform as synthetic and coherent a function as possible, in order to properly respond to the main administrative issues in the 21st Century.
Accordingly, the National Government Organization Law has been revised in the way that each Ministry's "purposes" and "functions" are what its existence depends upon, and the existing provisions defining the Ministry's authority, which appear to grant overly extensive discretion to each Ministry, have been eliminated.
For the creation of the new Office and Ministries, the laws have been enacted to establish the Cabinet Office and ten Ministries. Laws such as the Police Law, providing the establishment of the National Public Safety Commission, and the Law to establish the Defence Agency have been revised.
In the stipulation and the revision, the "purposes," which are the administrative objectives for each Office and Ministry, and the "functions," which are required for the completion of those purposes, have been defined according to the Basic Law on the Administrative Reform of the Central Government.
Needless to say, while each Office and Ministry performs its administrative activities within its jurisdiction in order to swiftly respond to various complicated administrative demands, legal bases are required individually, for example, when restrictions are imposed upon citizens' rights.
Whatever measures are taken for the reform, the government shall be determined to make efforts to prevent overly extensive discretion in administration, and maintain just and transparent administration.
2. New Systems
The following new systems have been created along with the restructuring of the Office and Ministries.
- Inter-Ministerial Coordination System
In order to prevent sectionalism, which has been pointed out for its detrimental effects and respond to issues flexibly and cohesively, systems of policy coordination have been constructed so that related administrative organs, in light of their purposes, hold deliberations on their inter-Ministerial measures.
In particular, the National Government Organization Law, setting the standards for administrative organs, has been revised in a way that it provides the basic principle that each Office and Ministry must coordinate its policies in light of its purposes and with the policies of other related Office and/or Ministries. The revised law also invigorates and smoothes inter-Ministerial policy coordination by providing fixed procedures for such consultation as requests for material and the submission of opinions.
Moreover, the function of comprehensive coordination, which is conducted at a higher level than the policy coordination between Ministries, has been enhanced by the establishment of the Cabinet Office within the Cabinet, in addition to the existing Cabinet Secretariat.
- Policy Evaluation
It has been pointed out that the executive branches have been putting too much priority on legislation and winning the allocation of a budget, whereas tending to regard policy evaluation less significant; that is to say, the review of implemented policies in light of their effects and changes in the socio-economic circumstances was not sufficient.
With this point in mind, a system of policy evaluation has been introduced for the government itself to evaluate the effects of its policies before and after implementation, and to utilize the result of evaluation in the planning and drafting of policies.
In this system, each Office and Ministry first evaluates its policies by itself as an organ most responsible to them. To ensure comprehensive and strictly objective evaluation, retain consistency and rigid subjectivity, the Ministry of Public Managemant, Home Affairs, Posts and Telecommunications then conducts policy evaluation, utilizing a third party organ (tentatively named the Committee for the Evaluation of Policies and Independent Administrative Institutions), which will be established in the Somusho and consist of knowledgeable persons outside the government.
From the viewpoint of the accountability of the government to the people, efforts will be made to disclose the information concerning policy evaluation.
- Others
It will be able to place Director-General-level positions on special missions in each Office and Ministry for timely operations that respond to changes in the internal and external circumstances or in administrative demands and issues.
Organizational elasticity of the agencies, whose main functions are the implementation of policies, is to be enhanced, so that their operations can be carried out more efficiently and with increased autonomy.
