Each of the government's ministries and agencies has its own deliberative council. Before the fiscal 2001 ministerial reorganization — on April 27, 2000 — the government adopted the basic plan for abolishing and integrating these councils and the like. (The expression "and the like" was added because a handful of deliberative bodies did not include the word "council" in their name.)
With the adoption of this basic plan, a large majority of the councils were abolished or combined with others. A total of 121 councils were abolished and replaced by 29 councils to deliberate on basic policy matters and by 49 others whose primary missions are to enforce laws.
Under the successive administrations of the Liberal Democratic Party, the councils for many decades served as a cover for bureaucratic control over administrative affairs. That's why the basic plan says at the outset that the councils would be streamlined to resolve problems that arise "out of criticism that they were being used as cover [for a bureaucratic control]."
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