The government of Japan

The government of Japan recently reorganized itself. It streamlined 23 federal agencies into 13.

Some of the changes made sense. The Education Ministry and the Science and Technology Ministry were combined. Similarly Heath & Welfare and Labor were married. Those all sort of go together with similar goals and probably some overlapping programs.

But some changes did not make sense to me. The Hokkaido Development Agency became part of the new Construction and Transport Ministry while the Okinawa Development Agency joined the Cabinet Office. Why aren't they together? Maybe because the head of the Okinawa Development Agency is former Prime Minister Hashimoto. I'll bet Hokkaido Development's leader is just some guy.

They heralded this in the press as sweeping realignment to correct top-down decision making and to make operations simplers and more transparent. I have a feeling that it really isn't going to make anything easier or clearer than before. No jobs were lost, no policies changed, only office building were shuffled and renamed. So if you knew where to go last week, it might not be there anymore.