This is a serious situation caused by a ministry organization's bad practices, such as clinging to precedent and systematic nonfeasance. The government must fundamentally review its system, including how the organization itself should be.
In connection with the ministry's labor survey fiasco, Health, Labor and Welfare Minister Takumi Nemoto punished 22 incumbent and former ministry officials in charge, including vice minister Toshihiko Suzuki. Nemoto, for his part, will voluntarily return part of his pay.
The distortion of public statistics for many years has resulted in the underpayment of benefits related to the employment insurance and workers' accident compensation insurance systems to about 20.15 million people, destroying public confidence in statistics and governmental administration. There is every reason to impose strict punishments on those in charge.
A ministry special inspection committee composed of outside experts has compiled a report based on interviews with officials involved.
All business establishments with 500 or more employees are subject to the statistics survey. Yet the labor ministry switched the procedure to a sampling method in 2004 for surveying establishments in Tokyo. Later, the ministry obtained the approval of the internal affairs and communications minister on the premise that the survey is a complete one. The report stated that this conduct violated the Statistics Law.
At a time when society is diversifying and the economy is becoming more sophisticated, the importance of key statistics has been increasing as a basis for policy making and management decisions. Taking this into consideration, the labor ministry has to assume a heavy responsibility for the mishandling of the data.
The report attributed the introduction of the sampling method to the then subsection chief in charge's consideration of complaints by business establishments about a complete survey and the burden imposed on the Tokyo metropolitan government.
Vital data incomplete
Successive officials in charge were aware the survey was inappropriate, but failed to work out corrective measures. It is quite natural that the report severely criticizes the work having being continued unthinkingly, based on "the principle of simply following precedents."
Beginning from the January 2018 survey, the ministry has made adjustments to the data to bring the results closer to what they should have been. Yet the ministry did not disclose this matter. The section chief in charge is said to have underestimated the possible influence of those adjustments on the survey results.
The director general for statistics and information policy of the ministry ordered the section chief to correct this. Yet the director general did not confirm whether it was actually corrected.
It is unforgivable that experts in statistics did not follow the survey procedure and continued the sloppy handling of data.
Aside from whether the organization in charge really tried to cover it up systematically, another serious problem is that this matter did not surface until an outside body informed the ministry, while the ministry's functions for checking its own activities did not work. It must be said that the ministry severely lacks the capacity for governance.
The labor ministry adjusted past statistics data based on remaining materials. Yet it was not able to recover the data from 2004 to 2011 because part of the relevant materials had been discarded or lost. One of the key statistics dating from before World War II is incomplete due to sloppy management of public documents -- this is a serious problem.
It is imperative to map out measures to prevent similar incidents at the earliest possible time, such as training officials in charge to bring legal compliance home to them thoroughly and enhancing the surveillance system including outside experts.
(From The Yomiuri Shimbun, Jan. 24, 2019)
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