The Noda administration has drafted a plan to transfer regional bureaus and offices of central government ministries to regional administrative bodies, and is expected to submit a related bill to the Diet in May. If such transfers are carried out in a genuine manner, they would promote devolution since about 200,000 of some 300,000 national public servants are working at such bureaus and offices.

But the plan is studded with mechanisms to preserve central bureaucratic power and cannot be regarded as a serious attempt to promote decentralization of power.

In 2010, the government decided to gradually abolish or transfer regional bureaus and offices of central government ministries to local governments. The land, infrastructure and transport ministry's regional development bureaus, the trade and industry ministry's regional economic, trade and industry bureaus and the environment ministry's regional environment offices have been picked as the first to be transferred.