A devolution strategy conference headed by Prime Minister Naoto Kan on Dec. 16 endorsed a draft action plan to transfer local bureaus of central government ministries to local governments. The government will submit relevant bills to the Diet in 2012 for transferring such local bureaus to bloc-wide federations of local governments. The government aims to achieve the transfer in fiscal 2014.
But the plan lacks concreteness. At this stage, there are no bloc-wide federations above prefectures and no sufficient discussions have been held on the shape of such federations. There is a federation in the Kansai region. But not all the prefectural governments in the regions have taken part in it.
There are about 300,000 national public servants. Of them, some 200,000 are now working at local bureaus of central government ministries. These bureaus are mainly managing and supervising public works projects pushed by the central government and engaged in the work of issuing various types of licenses. There is criticism that the work of many of these bureaus overlaps that of local governments.