The Diet is likely to enact a basic bill aimed at reforming institutional matters related to civil servants working for the central government during the current Diet session. The bill is the result of compromise among the ruling Liberal Democratic Party and Komeito and the opposition Democratic Party of Japan. National servants are often said to be more interested in promoting the interests of their ministries and agencies rather than national interests. It is hoped that the bill will help create an efficient and transparent national servant system.
The ruling bloc accepted DPJ demands concerning important parts of the original bill written by the government. The result is a stronger bill that serves as evidence that the divided Diet can reach meaningful compromises.
The central point of the bill concerns how to control personnel affairs related to national servants. The original bill delegated work related to the personnel affairs of high-ranking bureaucrats to individual ministries and agencies. Under the revised bill, a Cabinet Personnel Bureau at the Cabinet Secretariat will have across-the-board power to manage such personnel affairs. Additional bills that give substance to the principles established in this bill must be enacted within a year. The government and the political parties may need to overcome resistance from bureaucrats who want to retain their power.