The Japanese authorities needs to make a technological improve and transfer the 1,741 native municipalities and the central authorities programs right into a authorities cloud platform. But it’s a large endeavor. Taro Kono, Japan’s new digital minister who started the position in August, is tasked with the daunting effort and getting bureaucrats to vary their deeply set methods.
“If it’s something from the 20th century, maybe we should leave it in the 20th century and do something new,” he stated in an interview with The Washington Post. “When automobiles came in and they wanted to pave the road, and those people with horse carriages opposed paving the road, you just still had to do it anyway. Same thing.”
Because of the persistent perception amongst authorities officers that paper-based programs are safer than digital communication, Japan has been proof against transferring to a extra environment friendly, digital system.
The limitations of this strategy turned woefully clear in the course of the top of the coronavirus pandemic, when medical professionals have been required to submit handwritten studies about every new an infection and fax them to the general public well being workplace. It overwhelmed medical doctors and public well being workplaces with paperwork and created delays in updating the general public about new instances and sending pandemic subsidies to companies.
It’s not simply authorities providers. Bank transactions and housing contracts usually require the usage of hanko, a private seal, in lieu of signatures.
Japan, the world’s third-largest economic system and residential to humanoid robots, this 12 months ranked a file low in an annual measure of worldwide digital competitiveness by the International Institute for Management Development, a number one enterprise faculty in Switzerland. Japan ranked twenty ninth out of 63 economies measured by data, know-how and “future readiness,” lagging behind different Asian economies. In 4 of the classes, Japan got here lifeless final.
Last 12 months, Japan established a brand new Digital Agency to digitize the forms and the Japanese society. The company had a gradual begin, confronted with resistance from native governments and even a technical glitch with the rollout of its web site.
In August, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida appointed Kono as the brand new digital minister to hold out the nation’s digital overhaul. Kono beforehand was Japan’s overseas minister, administrative reform minister and a 2021 candidate for prime minister.
A Twitter-savvy Japanese politician talking impeccable English, Kono ruffled feathers in 2021 as administrative reform minister when he pushed to eliminate the forms’s dependence on fax machines. Now as digital minister, Kono has been as staple determine on tv exhibits, at public occasions and on Twitter to greater than 2 million followers, hailing the efficiencies of going digital.
Among Kono’s priorities is integrating Japan’s My Number system, which is analogous to the American Social Security card. The system launched in 2016 in order that Japanese residents can join their medical insurance, financial institution accounts and different providers, together with buying alcohol. It requires folks to acquire the bodily card, however sign-ups have been gradual as a result of residents are nervous about safety considerations and discover the registration course of a trouble.
Another is eliminating 9,000 authorities laws that require the usage of outdated know-how, together with fax machines, and discourage distant work in authorities workplaces. It is troublesome for presidency staff to work remotely due to guidelines and practices that require them to work in particular person. Kono needs these phased out by 2025.
A 2020 survey of 480 authorities staff by a Japanese consulting agency that helps distant work discovered that in covid, 86 % of exchanges with politicians have been performed by fax and 80 % of briefings to politicians have been performed in particular person.
The Digital Agency employs fewer than 700 full-time employees to serve a inhabitants of greater than 125 million, 30 % of whom are over 65 years previous. The objective is speaking the sensible advantages of utilizing know-how to people who find themselves most proof against it, stated Kono.
“It’s not like a big ideology. It’s practical application,” he stated.
The Japanese authorities’s salaries can’t compete with the high-paying engineering jobs in personal firms, so the company provides a revolving-door mannequin for private-sector staff to work part-time two days per week. To stop mind drain, staff from native governments and different central authorities ministries can also work stints on the Digital Agency, which Kono in comparison with a “missionary system.”
The Digital Agency can be trying to make the federal government’s advanced procurement course of for contracts extra accessible for start-ups that would introduce new applied sciences and concepts to the way in which present work is finished.
“When you renew your driver’s license, you have to go to the police station to watch a half-an-hour video. But why do you have to show up? Why can’t you do that online?” Kono stated. The identical idea applies to taking essential authorities exams, he stated, and start-ups providing remote-testing know-how have begun bidding for presidency contracts beneath the regulatory overhaul.
Still, there’s a lengthy approach to go.
Earlier this 12 months, a authorities ministry requested the general public to submit their ideas about the way forward for metaverse platforms and challenges that stop folks from accessing them. Yet the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communication’s effort to assemble suggestions on the rising know-how was extraordinarily analog: People have been required to jot down their concepts into an Excel spreadsheet, then e mail the spreadsheet as a file attachment, including layers of hurdles within the submission course of.
The suggestions mechanism went viral on Twitter, drawing ridicule from Japanese residents. Kono retweeted the viral publish, including his personal remark: “We will use a form [online] next time.”