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2023 (2023) Second Policy Evaluation and Administrative Project Review Expert Meeting

Overview

  • Date and Time: Friday, April 21, 2023 (2023) from 13:30 to 12:00
  • Location: Online
  • Agenda:
    1. Opening
    2. Proceedings
      1. Direction of solutions for each business
        1. Government Common Website (1 Project)
        2. Common System for Internal Management of Travel Expenses, etc. (SEABIS) (1 project)
        3. Information System for Services Related to Personnel Affairs and Remuneration (1 business)
        4. Employee Authentication Service, Attribute Information Management Infrastructure for Government Employees, etc. (2 projects)
      2. Provisional Report on Policy Evaluation and Administrative Project Review (draft)
      3. Selection of projects subject to the disclosure process
    3. Other (future plans)
    4. Adjournment

Materials

Summary of proceedings

Date

From 1:30 p.m. to 4:00 p.m. on Friday, April 21, 2023 (2023)

Location

Held online

Attendees

Member

Chairman Sato, Committee Member Iwasaki, Committee Member Sasajima, Committee Member Mito
*Committee Member Shimada was absent on the day. However, opinions were expressed in writing.

Summary of proceedings

After the opening declaration from the Secretariat, Masaki Okushi, Senior Vice-Minister for Digital, delivered an opening address, and the meeting proceeded under the chairmanship of the Chair.
First of all, the secretariat read the written opinion of Commissioner Shimada, who was absent on the day, on behalf of him. After that, based on the order of the meeting, it was divided into seven frameworks of deliberation: "Policy Objectives," "Target Setting," "Approach (Policy Measures)," "Date and Period," "Budget and System," "Stakeholders," and "Management Process," and questions and answers were sequentially held.

The greetings and main questions from the Senior Vice-Minister for Digital are as follows.

Greetings from Senior Vice-Minister for Okushi
I am OGUSHI Masaki, Senior Vice-Minister for Digital.
I was unable to attend the first conference last time due to my official duties, but I have heard that you are having a productive discussion. Thank you again.
I look forward to working with you today.
As explained by the Secretariat last time, last fiscal year, since Digital Agency was just established, the Policy Evaluation and Administrative Project Review reported on the outline of the projects that have been promoted so far, and I heard that you sent messages of support for the contents of the reports.
This fiscal year, we would like to take a step further and aim for a win-win relationship between those who are evaluated and those who evaluate them, while clarifying the Issue and receiving useful advice for promoting policies, for projects that have a Issue that is difficult to solve only with the efforts of each person in charge, although there is room for improvement.
In this way, Digital Agency would like to summarize the direction of improvement measures and specific reviews while borrowing the wisdom of experts, and lead to changes in related plans and their reflection in the budget and quota requirements.
I understand that we were unable to fully exchange views last time due to limited time.
I would like to ask all of you who are gathered today to have a positive discussion leading to the resolution of the problems that the person in charge is in trouble for the compilation of the report. Thank you very much.

1. Government Common Website (1 Project)


Member: , under the title of Standardization and Unification of Government Websites, it is stated that standardization and unification will be achieved. Standardization and unification are also important, but I believe that it is possible to further spread the accumulation and update of know-how and best practices related to convenience on websites, or to review the concept of the plan. Please tell us your recognition.

Person in charge: to, for example, create one website and put all of them there. However, I believe that individual elements such as ease of viewing, ease of reaching necessary information, and ease of moving to necessary information must be firmly realized on the websites of each ministry and agency.
We will move forward together by sharing the experience we have gained through Digital Agency's own website and the experience of other ministries and agencies, and we will move forward based on the knowledge we have, which may reduce the costs of each ministry and agency and increase the convenience of users.

Member: Policy Goals should not necessarily be considered to be uniform, but should include elements such as improvement of convenience and best practices. I understand that this is a common recognition between the members and the person in charge. I believe that this is also related to the creation of administrative project review sheets. Please tell us whether the set goals will be reviewed in terms of improvement of convenience and setting of best practices.

Person in charge: I would like to consider how to change it a little more. We have also been working on creating a single website in the context of standardization and unification, but it is not necessarily a good goal. However, I believe that the burden on each ministry and agency will be reduced and the burden on the user side will be reduced by continuing to create standardization of how to do it and unification of parts.


Member: Currently, the documents related to the website seem to be independent, but I believe that the positioning of the documents is difficult to understand depending on the person in charge of each ministry and agency. With the establishment of Digital Agency, I assume that the person in charge of each ministry and agency thinks that it is easier to understand if Digital Agency clearly positions the documents. Please tell us your recognition of your thoughts.

Person in charge: government has established a unified basis for government in the form of guidelines or accompanying documents.
Ministries and agencies are currently considering the construction of necessary websites based on the guidelines, but due to the characteristics of the guidelines, I think there is a considerable range, or rather, there is a lack of "how to create a website according to the guidelines."
Therefore, we would like to follow up on this and have each ministry and agency refer to it, so we are working on additional documents, and in the form of reference documents, for example, if we are designing, it will be easier to communicate if we incorporate this way of thinking.
Of course, outsourcing is also expected, so we would like to advance the materials to be easy to understand for the contractor.

Member: public authorities, unlike that in private sector, must provide information in a sustainable manner. To put it in an extreme sense, it is necessary to ensure that information can be used properly even after it has been archived. Please tell us your recognition of whether the characteristics unique to the administration will be addressed in the future.
In addition, since the administration is required to provide information on a continuous basis and over a fairly long period of time, I believe that efforts related to this will be made in the future. Please also tell us about this point.

Person in charge: In terms of data structure, I think one of the main points is that it can be thoroughly referred to or reused as data in the future. Digital Agency is building a website in a way that distinguishes between web expression and internal data, and the text or content inside can be used as it is even if it is submitted to another system in the form of an API.
In addition, there is a problem that the link is broken when the website is updated. We are conducting an experimental effort to maintain a state in which it can be viewed at a lower cost by archiving the portal site called CIO Portal. What we were careful about at that time was that the link was not broken and the same information was left in the same URL. I think we need to continue to send out old information while paying attention to maintenance costs. In that sense, I think Digital Agency's effort was successful as an experiment, and we would like to share it with each ministries and agencies.

Member: , I think it is a trend of many people today to enter from the place of "What kind of information do you have?". It is a method of marketing in the Internet age in private sector, and there is a word "AISAS." Consumers first pay attention to it, recognize it, then become interested in it, search it, take action, and purchase goods and services. Not only that, but they also share it, evaluate it, and send it out to their friends and acquaintances through SNS. I think it is good to design design by positioning the government common website in the AISAS, and the "S" in the middle is Search, but I also think it is good to be aware of the Attention and Interest part in the previous stage. Please tell us your recognition.
In addition, I believe that it is related to convenience as a slight modification of standardization and unification of policy objectives and what are the best practices. Please tell us your recognition.

Person in charge: , the business-related procedure system plays the roles of "S" and "A" in searching for procedures and then performing procedures. However, it is not enough, and as you pointed out, I think we need to do it firmly with "A" and "I". In addition, the transmission of "S" on SNS is also important, and we ourselves, as a website, have the aspect of "I" our own AISAS, so we will connect it to what we need as our own media. We have placed emphasis on "S" and "A" so far, so we will consider "I" part of "A" and "Share" part of "S" as one of the roles in realizing the owned media, so we will continue to consider it firmly in the future based on what you pointed out.

Member: Active Learning, it is said that there is an active learning effect when people in the field actually learn while taking on the roles of teachers. I think there is also a way to develop human resources by participating as much as possible in projects by the Cabinet Office and each Ministry and accumulating knowledge from the field. Please tell us your recognition.

Person in charge: I think it is very important to point out, and we also recognize that the scope of what we can do is limited only by doing it ourselves, and it is necessary to develop human resources with a certain level of power in each ministry and agency.


Member: Government Common Website is not necessarily a strong system. I think that it is quite difficult to support the ministries and agencies website under the current system. If the system cannot be strengthened, I think that it is necessary to consider it, including reviewing the priorities and the content of the project. Please tell us your recognition.

Person in charge: Two people are engaged in this project, but both of them are also working with other teams, and the current situation is that none of them can be engaged professionally. So far, we have been conducting trial and error on how to correctly convey information from each location through the website and how to properly deliver it to users. I think we will continue to work steadily on what kind of place we will focus on, and we will not do everything right away, but we will do it little by little.

Member: Web, design is "in fashion and out of fashion." It seems to utilize open source, but open source projects die very quickly when there are no people to maintain them or no people to use them. Considering the government website, I think it may be provided for a long time, but please tell us your recognition of whether it can be provided for a long time.

Person in charge: One of the most important points about design is that it looks good from the perspective of various people, rather than how it looks. In this regard, there are parts that are difficult to do without specialized knowledge, so even if we entrust it to a business operator, it does not necessarily mean that we have sufficient knowledge. We have been working on it because we want to support it and create an environment in which information can be properly delivered to the people who need it.
In addition, since frameworks are "in fashion and out of fashion," even if we move to a new framework, the data can be used as it is.

2. Common System for Internal Management Services for Travel Expenses, etc. (SEABIS) (1 project)


Member: I think that you mentioned two things in "Target Setting", which are the utilization rate and the reduction of expenses, and I think that it is also important to be able to use without stress. It may be difficult to set numerical KPIs, but I think that there are various ways such as increasing the number of satisfied people by conducting a questionnaire, so I would like you to list the indicator of improving the satisfaction level. Please tell us your recognition.

Person in charge: We are currently conducting Cloud transition, but if it becomes a new system, what we aim for next is as you pointed out, and I think we should further improve the convenience of users.


Member: routes and the unification of travel expenses, but the operation is different or complicated at the work site. I believe that it is necessary to analyze the fundamental cause of the problem and take measures. Please tell us your recognition.

Person in charge: In order to improve the convenience of users, I believe that the current situation analysis is a must. In addition, special factors such as sudden events may be involved, so variations in operation may naturally occur in some ways, but I would like to eliminate local rules that are inefficient in similar cases.

Member: system and the part related to the systems. In some cases, it may be said that the order of precedence is wrong, but I believe that it is important to align the legal system with the system. Please tell us if there is a fact that you have already committed to the government agency in charge of the Travel Expenses Act.

Person in charge: Basically, our SEABIS system aims to be a simple system, which we have repeatedly informed to the relevant government agencies.

Member: System and the Operation Manual are under separate jurisdiction, and the management and operation of the system is under separate jurisdiction from Digital Agency. I am afraid that the fact that the persons concerned with the stakeholders are not included in the project promotion team may cause the project to fail. In order to become one team, I think it is good to have the competent ministries and agencies participate in the project promotion system and obtain their opinions. Please tell us your recognition.

Person in charge: We have already exchanged various administrative matters, and we would like to continue our cooperation.

3. Information System for Services Related to Human Resources and Remuneration (1 business)

4. Employee Authentication Service, Attribute Information Management Infrastructure for Government Employees, etc. (2 projects)

* It was decided to discuss 3. and 4. together as they are related.


Member: At the previous meeting, it was pointed out that the scope of the national system is a little narrower than that of the personnel system in private sector. However, there is a concern that adding insufficient functions to the system will lead to the construction of a system like a graft. Please take this opportunity to review the scope of the system construction itself and tell us if you are thinking of expanding it a little.

Person in charge: scope is narrow, or rather, that the project is working in a limited area. In the future, for the renovation, I would like to advance consideration with an image and direction that another system or private sector will be possible so that the services provided by data connections can be well incorporated.

Member: materials, while both the personnel and salary systems are in place, the target setting is only the number of ministries and agencies that have introduced the pay-as-you-go system. I thought it would be natural for the personnel system to be included in the target, so I thought it would be better to set the target number of ministries and agencies that have introduced the system. Please tell us your recognition.

Person in charge: The personnel and salary system is a set, and has been introduced in all the Cabinet Office and Ministries targeted by the Common Salary System, and is used in all of them. However, the salary calculation is more complex and the needs for the salary system are higher, but the current situation is that the personnel system is also fully used. However, only seven Ministries have data connections with the Employee Certification Service.
In addition, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of Defense, and the Reconstruction Agency each operate their own systems, and their systems are quite different, so they are not suitable for standardization, and are excluded from the scope of use of the personnel and salary system.

Person in charge: Regarding the data connections between the personnel and salary system and the employee certification service, which is currently limited to the seven ministries and agencies, I think the major Issue is how to advance the data connections between the systems of ministries and agencies other than the seven ministries and agencies and the employee certification service. I would like to work together with the person in charge of the employee certification service and the personnel and salary system.

Member: usability from each ministries and agencies. Why is it difficult to use or handle at the site? I think it is important to investigate the root cause based on the needs of the employees who will be the users and objective facts about convenience. Please tell us about the current efforts.

Person in charge: At present, I am able to handle certain tasks, but I realize that I have not reached the point where I feel itchy. We receive many user requests from the Cabinet Office and each Ministry, but we are working on improvements while eliminating duplication, coordinating requests, and prioritizing them. We would like to consider measures with objectivity or grounds based on figures, such as taking logs.

Member: scope, we believe that the review of the system and roles is also important. In addition, in relation to the next issue of "stakeholders," from the outside, we feel that the situation is serious that the system government is a stakeholder and the communication is only the exchange of FAQs. It may be a bad way of saying it, but it is a subcontracting situation. Therefore, I think it is important to have everyone from the department in charge of the system join the project team and worry about it together, so please tell us your recognition.

Person in charge: , so-called public employee systems, there is a section that is in charge of mutual aid and accounting systems in National Personnel Authority, Cabinet Bureau of Personnel Affairs, or Ministry of Finance. In addition, customs officials, police officers in special positions, and other legal officials also use the personnel and salary systems, but due to system changes at a different timing from that of administrative officials, it is not possible to obtain information as much as desired only by exchanging questionnaires. We also believe that it is very desirable to create a system in which the department in charge of the public employee system works together rather than as a stakeholder.

Member: Employee Identification Service is a core system when using various information systems. I have heard that data entry and the like are not necessarily automated, or are taken in manually. I believe that there are various problems such as a lack of data formats. Please tell me if you are working on improvements.

Person in charge: I understand that it is as pointed out. When transferring personnel, if there is a gap between the actual transfer and the information on the announcement, or it is necessary to take in the transfer information from the stage of unofficial announcement, but I understand that it is very difficult to do so in real time because it takes time and manpower. I think that taking in realistic data well, including the data held by the person in charge of human resources, will be a major key to the future of authentication services.

Member: : Based on your answer, I have to assume that the reason why data connections is stationed at seven ministries and agencies is due to various reasons on the side of the personnel system rather than the problem of the staff certification service. What is your recognition?

Person in charge: Regarding the recognition from the human resources and salary system side, the employee certification service side recognizes that the information held by the human resources and salary system is not sufficient for the information necessary for human resources. I understand that the human resources and salary system is coarse-grained, and the employee certification service side wants more detailed information. I imagine that, for example, the employee certification service side needs detailed information such as which section the employee is assigned to, but the human resources and salary system side may lead to issuance errors if it holds information of the section that is not necessary for issuance, so I think that the person in charge of human resources does not want to hold such detailed and unnecessary information as the information of the system.

Member: Employee Certification Service and the Personnel Affairs and Remuneration System need to maintain? Please tell us the recognition of the Employee Certification Service.

Person in charge: I recognize that there is a gap between the data of the personnel and salary system and the data of the people who are assigned in real time, which is why we are limited to seven ministries. In particular, the larger the number of employees, the more time and effort it takes, so I recognize that we are hesitating to do so and have the current situation.

Member: Employee Certification Service. Based on this, please tell us again the recognition of the personnel and salary system.

Person in charge: Digital Agency is established. Before Digital Agency, we were working at different ministries and agencies, so we didn't talk about it much. But now Digital Agency is united, so we need to recognize Issue and think about solutions together. Therefore, I would like to consider whether or not we can set targets. First of all, I would like to talk with the person in charge of the Employee Authentication Service a little closer.

Member: Certification System has recently been working on the so-called Zero Trust Network, or Zero Trust Architecture, even in private sector. This is easy for job type employment organization, but it is quite difficult for generalist oriented plus membership type employment. The core is ID management, but access management must be performed according to the job, and if this is failed, serious problems will occur in security. Please tell us what kind of needle you are working on.

Person in charge: In order to properly perform access control, I believe that relatively detailed information as well as real information is necessary as employee attribute information. At the same time, it is necessary to ensure the consistency of employee IDs. Therefore, I would like to consider how to ensure the consistency of IDs from real information, and how to make more detailed information as employee attribute information, and how to work well with the information I have, by expanding my field of view.

(2) Provisional Report on Policy Evaluation and Administrative Project Review (draft)
*Explanation by the Secretariat on the provisional report (draft)

Member: Report.

Member: Report, which I have read through.

(3) Selection of projects subject to the disclosure process
*Based on the idea that the disclosure process is an explanation for the public, the Secretariat recommended that the "Government Common Website" be subject to the disclosure process in the sense of "services for the public" among the projects taken up by this Expert Panel.

Member: (all members present) No objections

End