Establishment of the BTO Concept
Cutting Back on Expenditure by More than 100 Million Yen Over Five Years[1]Nagai City, Yamagata Prefecture

A Grand Design Covering Ten Years

Nagai City added the concept of "Work Cooperation, Creativity and the Pulse of the Future" as a sub-theme to our Fourth General Plan enacted in December 2003. This expresses the grand design (basic concept) and vision (basic plan) that we envisage for the ten-year period ending in 2013. While the project undergoes review every year, it is carried out as a three year long effort.

Part of this concept covers the digitalization of information, and involves the themes of Creating a New Style of Local Administration and Social System through the Digitalization of Information, and The Establishment of a Self-Sustained and Autonomous Finance Administration System.

The following has been quoted from the Nagai City Fourth General Plan:

Rapid innovations and wide-spread use of IT technology has now made it possible to gather and transmit information, to communicate via e-mail, and to partake in on-line shopping no matter where one is or what time it is.

In order to ensure that as many local residents as possible obtain the advantages of these transformations brought about by the advances in the field of IT, we have actively publicized information, issued residence registration certificates, and promoted the digitalization of various procedures, such as makings reservation and submitting applications for the use of public facilities.

We have also managed to increase efficiency and accuracy in our administrative duties by digitalizing all administrative-related documentation and creating databases, etc.

In addition, we have also made progress in the creation of an information network that is being implemented as a joint project involving the central government, prefectures and cities, towns and villages, and are striving to improve information literacy in our workforce by initiating training programs.

So far Nagai City has adopted various measures to improve financial budgeting situations, such as establishing a large financial administration reform network and implementing a project to promote the reform of financial administration practices based on our concept of achieving the greatest effects with a minimal amount of cash input.

However, faced with such issues as the worsening financial situation at both the national and regional levels, the recent severity of the economy and the decreasing birthrate and ageing of society, local authorities have no choice other than to forge ahead with financial administration reforms in the future.

To explain this in more detail, what we really need to aim for from now on is to slim down administrative organizational structures, clarify administrative priorities, and to provide high-quality services that guarantee transparency and fairness.

In order to achieve this, we have not only established a system in which administrative practices and the duties we perform can be evaluated from the standpoint of local residents, we have also strived to provide easy-to-understand explanations on the objectives, contents and results of this system to our citizens.

Additionally, we have achieved progress in our policy of implementing city administration with our citizenry in the main role by initiating public sector activities with the use of PFI, etc., reinforcing our partnerships with non-profit organizations, etc., and by working in cooperation with local residents, and we intend to continue creating a new administrative structure that is in perfect alignment with the current era by establishing administrative reforms.

Mr. Shuichi Tanizawa, the Assistant Supervisor of the Planning and Coordination Section (in charge of Information Administration) says with a dry grin, "It may not seem like much, but as far as the city is concerned, this is our constitution." In a strange turn of events, the city participated in a drum performance at a music festival held locally for high school students and music lovers for the first time owing to the fact that the movie Swing Girls, in which a group of high school girls are portrayed as forming a jazz band, was filmed in the area surrounding Nagai City.

In addition to Mr. Tanizawa, two people agreed to be interviewed for this report; Mr. Hiroaki Niino, who is also the Supervisor of Information Administration in the Planning and Coordination Section, and Mr. Masaharu Uchiya, who was the Supervisor of Information Administration when the operation of the information system was originally outsourced (supervisor of fixed asset taxes in the Tax Section at the time of the interview.)

Mr. Tanizawa explained the background and situation at the time right up to the present for us.

"The city first began to use computers in 1971. Shared-use computer processing was carried out with the Okitama wide area administrative association that was established by three neighboring cities and five neighboring towns."

These three cities and five towns consisted on Yonezawa City, Nagai City, Takahata Town, Kawanishi Town, Oguni Town, Shirataka Town and Iide Town, which went to make up the former Uesugi Clan Okitama-Gun. Owing to hardware rapidly dropping in price and the evolution of OA equipment, the Citizens Registration System was installed in fiscal '88 as an isolated sub-contracted system, and we then moved across to an Online Liaison Service in 1989.

The Assistant Supervisor Mr. Tanizawa says, "Once on-line services began to expand, the wide area administrative association's system was no longer able to cater to all of the individual requirements. It also became difficult to maintain the contract, as in many cases entire work duties were sub-contracted out to IT companies."

We were faced with the problem of exactly what an information system should be capable of doing once the city moved into the new era of personal computers and widespread use of the Internet in the late nineties. The issue of financial budgeting also raised it head at around this time.

Our general accounting budget was reduced by approximately 2.4 billion yen between fiscal 1995 and 2002, but despite this annual expenditure for national health insurance was increased by approximately 300 million yen, and we had to pay an additional one billion yen in supplementary allowances for healthcare for the elderly. We also had an additional expenditure of approximately 1.7 billion yen in nursing care insurance from 1995.

Owing to this, we restructured our eleven sections down into ten sections, and simplified procedures within the City Hall. We also implemented all other reforms that we could, such as holding back on employing new staff and increasing the workforce in welfare nursing and home-visit nursing care through staff transfers, etc. We also began to reach the period when we had to renew our contracts with the wide area administrative association and other independent sub-contractors in 2003.