# Promoting IT in Administration and Public Services

### 1. Promoting IT in Local Areas

In order to establish an environment for the building of e-local government and to correct the digital divide, the MPHPT is making efforts toward the realization of a system of highly accessible administrative services utilizing the data broadcasting and interactive functions possessed by terrestrial digital broadcasting, which began in the three major metropolitan regions of Tokyo, Nagoya, and Osaka on December 1, 2003. In fiscal 2003 the MPHPT built an administrative service supply system utilizing terrestrial digital broadcasting in Gifu City and verified the usefulness and problems of the system through a demonstration test in which about 150 households used it to access administrative services, such as the booking of public facilities. In fiscal 2004 the MPHPT is scheduled to implement a demonstration test toward realizing the supply of administrative services enabling application and notification that require personal certification.

Also, local governments are appearing that, in response to the development of wide-area local administration, connect the local public networks built by municipalities with the information highways, etc. constructed by prefectures and use them to promote e-local government through joint outsourcing and to develop applications related to education, long-distance medicine, disaster prevention, etc. Against this background, the MPHPT in December 2003 convened the “Study Group on the Promotion of IT in the Regions”, which is studying such issues as the construction of public networks nationwide, the joint building and joint operation of applications, and the development of human resources to support the spread of IT in local areas.

### 2. Revitalizing Local Economies Through Utilization of IT

By designating local governments that actively promote IT business as IT business model districts and realizing attractive business environments for the IT business there ahead of other areas, the MPHPT is endeavoring to concentrate the IT business and is promoting the revitalization of local economies through the establishment of local development models of IT business and the application of these models in other areas.

### 3. Accomplishing e-Government

In July 2003 the Liaison Meeting of the Chief Information Officers (CIO) of the Ministries and Agencies (CIO Liaison Meeting) decided on the e-Government Building Program that stipulates concrete efforts by the government relating to the building of e-government during the three years from fiscal 2003 to fiscal 2005. On the basis of this program, the government is tackling business reform to improve the convenience of the public and services and respond to the spread of IT.

As part of its efforts based on this program, the government in January 2004 revised the functions of its e-government portal site (e-Gov: http://www.e-gov.go.jp) that provides a general search function of administrative information supplied by ministries and agencies, information on administrative procedures, searches for ordinance data, and so on. The government increased convenience and improved services by, among other things, introducing information on administrative procedures by event (marriage, employment, etc.) and integrating information on the organization and business content of ministries and public comment (the solicitation of opinions and disclosure of results).

Also, as a result of advancing the online supply of procedures in line with the Action Plans Relating to the Electronification of Administrative Procedures, Etc. compiled in ministries and agencies, by the end of fiscal 2003 the government had put almost all of the procedures relating to application, notification, etc. handled by administrative organizations of the state online.

Furthermore, since the e-Government Building Program called on the government to make efforts in a strategic and cross-sectional manner toward the simplification, greater efficiency, and rationalization of administrative operation through the optimization of business and systems, the government conducted a systematic rearrangement of the business and systems of the government as a whole by the end of December 2003, and in February 2004 the CIO Liaison Meeting selected 72 areas in which positive effects could be expected from the optimization of business and system integration as subjects for the formulation of optimization plans.

In addition, since the gathering and transmission of information is essential to implement prompt and precise disaster relief activities in emergency situations, such as large-scale disasters, the MPHPT, on the basis of the e-Japan Priority Policy Program-2003, etc., is making efforts to build advanced information and communications network systems in the fire and disaster prevention fields in response to the rapid progress of information and communications technology.