2001 Volume 1 Pages 166-178
This article clarifies the legal definition of “Independent Administrative Institutions” (IAIs), their institutionalization in positive law, and evaluates the strategy of public sector reform. This evaluation includes discussions of implications for the civil service system and accounting principles, as well as the case of the National University System.
Traditionally, the term “Independent Administrative Institution” (IAI) is well established in the discipline of Japan’s administrative law. The concept in this particular reform strategy was originally modeled after the executive agency in the United Kingdom, but the institutional framework was given by this traditional legal concept. While it is designed to make government more efficient, the status of personnel in an IAI has become the biggest issue of contention, and ultimately the decision was made to allow IAI personnel to retain civil servant status. Curiously, however, IAis are also excluded from existing plans to reduce the size of Japan’s national civil service. Furthermore, accounting principles for IAis reveal the public nature of the organization, and its weak independence.
The National University System is also going to be subject to this process of “agencification.” The System will apparently establish a different pattern of IAI. Since the National University System will be the largest part of IAI, it is doubtful whether the original intentions of this reform will be achieved.
The concern of institutional design of IAI shifted from management reform to reorganization, and it may end up being used as a convenient tool for decreasing the number of national civil servants.
