We hope that by rearranging this bloated organization, the Cabinet as a whole will become a structure better able to perform its operations more efficiently.

The government has adopted a basic plan to streamline the Cabinet Office and the Cabinet Secretariat and review the tasks they are responsible for. Based on opinions put forward by the ruling parties, a total of 20 operations will be abolished, merged or transferred to government ministries within three years. A bill to revise relevant laws will be submitted to the ongoing ordinary Diet session.

Four Cabinet Secretariat departments, including one aimed at promoting postal privatization and one in charge of reforming a system to nurture the legal profession, will be abolished. Control of six departments, including space development and revitalizing regional areas, will be transferred to the Cabinet Office.

Under the plan, 10 Cabinet Office operations will be shifted to the ministry or agency that plays the largest role in handling these issues. For example, measures to prevent suicide and illegal drug use will be handed to the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry, and policies to protect crime victims will be switched to the National Public Safety Commission.

After reorganization of the central government in 2001, about 90 operations were added to the to-do list of the Cabinet Office and the Cabinet Secretariat. This was designed to promote key policies of the Cabinet and policies that cut across ministries and agencies, and boost the leadership of the Prime Minister’s Office by getting rid of a vertically structured administrative setup. The number of personnel at the two Cabinet agencies, including those with joint appointments, swelled from about 3,500 to about 5,900.

Among these operations, many have already been completed, to a degree, and the need for the leadership of the Prime Minister’s Office to tackle them has faded. There also have been serious harmful effects, such as chronic staff shortages at government departments that farm out personnel, and increasing uncertainty as to where responsibility lies among various ministries and agencies on some issues.

Ministers overloaded

Shunichi Yamaguchi, the state minister for Okinawa and northern territories affairs, is in charge of 12 departments — the most among the current Cabinet members. Yamaguchi and others appointed as ministers in charge of special issues have their hands full with a multitude of duties, and they often cannot pay close attention to individual policies. In the Diet, bills are concentrated with the Cabinet Committee, and discussions tend to get bogged down.

The latest reforms attempt to rectify the current situation and allow each Cabinet minister to concentrate on high-priority tasks. This is a reasonable approach, and the planned changes need to be steadily implemented.

There was some streamlining carried out in 2012, but only on a limited scale.

This time, the ministries and agencies to which these operations are being transferred will be given the authority to coordinate overall details for policies, such as the number of personnel and the required budget.

Doing this will, for example, make it easier for the health ministry, which will be in charge of suicide prevention measures, to coordinate policies with the National Police Agency and the Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology Ministry. We think this is an appropriate step.

These reforms must not be allowed to end with just a simple changing of door plates. It is vital that each minister exercise leadership to ensure there is no return to a vertically structured administrative setup arising from ministries being at odds with each other. It is also essential that the right people be placed in the right positions to match this overhaul of government operations.

The plan adopted by the government stipulates that if a new department is added to the Cabinet Office or the Cabinet Secretariat, it will in principle have a time limit specified by law and be reviewed again after about three years. It is important to prevent the Cabinet agencies’ workloads from becoming bloated again.

These changes should be an opportunity to continue organizational reform that enables more efficient leadership by the Prime Minister’s Office.