review and prioritization of government programs

• 2005 Implementation of Project Sorting by “Concept Japan” (FY2005)/Chiba Prefecture

  • The Chiba Prefecture Action Plan for Administrative and Financial System Reform (FY2005-FY2008) aims to achieve a qualitative shift in prefectural government management, and to review all prefectural programs with an outside eye in order to focus budget and personnel on areas that are truly necessary, based on the prefecture’s role as a regional municipality.

  • The project sorting will be conducted by Concept Japan, a private, non-profit policy think tank, for the Commerce, Industry, and Labor Department, the Agriculture, Forestry, and Fisheries Department, the Environmental Living Department, and the Prefectural Land Development Department.

  • “Conceptual Japan” (Representative: Hideki Kato, Professor at Keio University) has so far conducted project screening in 12 municipalities, including Nagano Prefecture, Niigata Prefecture, and Yokohama City, to review the necessity of projects and work methods.

• 2008 Significance and Outcome of the Project Sorting (PDF)
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• November 13, 2009, Business Division of the supercomputer “K computer” (Japanese only)
• 2010 The man who set up the project screening process, and blew the wind of the frontlines into the government — Hideki Kato, Secretary General of the Government Revitalization Unit | Original | Toyo Keizai Online

  • The second round of project screening began on April 23. In the Hatoyama Cabinet, whose approval rating has been plummeting, this project screening is almost the only one that is enjoying public acclaim… Kato was the man of choice for Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary Koji Matsui in Hatoyama’s cabinet. The encounter goes back 13 years. At the time, Kato had just quit the Ministry of Finance (now the Ministry of Finance) and launched a private policy think tank, “Concept Japan. The two met for the first time at the office of Concept Japan in a building in Hirakawa-cho, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo.

• 2013 “Open Government” puts the people in the lead in politics! Hideki Kato, Representative of Concept Japan: FACTA ONLINE

  • Kato: The media is saying that the “sorting” is already over, but the results will only be seen from now on.

  • … Since the first sorting three years ago, I have focused my efforts on embedding the “sorting sikake” into the administrative structure.

• 2024 6/28
  • [“Can’t we come in second?” - I showed AI the minutes of the meeting at the time - https://news.yahoo.co.jp/expert/articles/9b519304311299be202344acd262e9ae 2714f340]

  • Hideki Kato Representative, Concept Japan

  • The Harms of Media “Cutting

  • Perhaps because Renho is running for the Tokyo gubernatorial election, her comment “Can’t we just come in second? This comment was made on November 13, 2009, during the project screening of the supercomputer “K computer,” and during the nearly hour and a half discussion, a one-second report of this comment became a lone voice, prompting a string of “experts” to criticize it.

  • Ten years later, on August 30, 2019, the K computer shut down. The total cost of manufacturing and seven years of operation was approximately 200 billion yen. The K computer was scrapped without any report or media coverage of the realization of the “world’s best research,” the “dream,” or the “economic impact of 3.4 trillion yen,” as claimed by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology and RIKEN (hereafter, RIKEN) during the project screening process.

  • I believe that “checking government projects through the eyes of the outside (private) sector in an open forum” is very effective. In fact, more than 150 local governments have used this method to date with great success, and the national government has been implementing it every year since the return of the LDP administration, although the name has changed to “administrative project review. Furthermore, since the year before last, the Indonesian government has adopted this system, and is now trying to expand it nationwide.

  • In addition, results and discussions of national and local project sorting can be found on the websites “JUDGIT!” and “J Review,” respectively.

  • A major cause of the ineffectiveness of the project screening process is the media’s irresponsible cut-and-paste reporting and the statements of “experts” who easily fall for it.

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