Japan's new document management guidelines to go into force in April
Jiji -- Feb 13
The Japanese government is poised to put its new guidelines on the management of administrative documents into force in April, in the wake of scandals related to two private school operators.

The new guidelines were compiled in response to criticism of sloppy handling of documents associated with the heavily discounted sale of a state-owned land plot to Moritomo Gakuen, one of the two school operators, and alleged favoritism over a plan to open a new university faculty of veterinary medicine by Kake Educational Institution, headed by a friend of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.

But some experts say that the new operational standards are problematic partly due to the lack of a system enabling external checks.

It has been found that the Finance Ministry had sorted documents related to the state land sale to Moritomo Gakuen into the category of documents whose storage period is less than one year. Meanwhile, the Cabinet Office and the education ministry are at odds over disclosed internal documents linked to the Kake issue.

The new guidelines require the storage of one year or longer in principle for administrative documents for which work to examine the decision-making processes and other details is expected to become necessary in the future.

News source: Jiji