Digital Minister Kono's press conference (October 10, 2023)

Summary of Digital Minister Kono's press conference

October 10th, 2023 (Friday) from 9:50 to 10:09 (online)

Summary of remarks

I am pleased to report on the "Digital Administrative and Financial Reform Advisory Board" meeting held this past Tuesday, October 17th.

Each attendee brought a wealth of experience and, based on that, offered a variety of opinions on issues that should be addressed through digital administrative and fiscal reform. I used this opportunity to inquire about the use of startups, which was also discussed at the Digital Administrative and Financial Reform Conference, and about ways to unify and improve the efficiency of national and local operations using digital technology, and received various opinions.

We will make the best use of the opinions we received from the Advisory Board for the promotion of digital administrative and fiscal reforms, and we are also asking the Advisory Board members to cooperate with us by participating in further dialogue to identify issues.

The summary of the proceedings and materials will be posted on the Cabinet Secretariat's website in due course.

I would like to inform you about the third session of the Digital Administrative and Financial Reform Issue Discovery Dialogue. The theme of the third dialogue will be "Nursing care" and it will be held on the 23rd next week.

Once again, we will be focusing on the user's point of view and identify issues that need to be resolved through dialogues with relevant parties. In the nursing care field, there is currently a serious shortage of nursing care workers as the elderly population increases, and this shortage is expected to become even more serious in the future. In order to reduce the workload of on-site caregivers and improve the quality of services provided to residents, digital technology and services must be utilized. The introduction of digital technology is inevitable in order to solve the problem of a shortage of nursing care workers, but in reality, this is not progressing well at nursing care facilities. We would like to clarify why the introduction of digital technology is not progressing, and to delve deeper into the issues.

As in the previous session, we will broadcast the session online. You can also view the archives. The URL is posted on the Cabinet Secretariat's website, and we hope that you will take the time to view it at your convenience.

At the meeting of the Council of Ministers and the Cabinet meeting, it was decided to revise the salaries of national public servants in accordance with the recommendations of the National Personnel Authority.

Today, the second meeting of the Salary-Related Cabinet Meeting will be held in rotation, and at the subsequent Cabinet meeting, we will decide on the policy for the revision of salaries of public servants and a bill to amend the Salary Law, and submit the bill to the Diet.

Regarding the revision of salaries for general public employees, first of all, monthly salaries will be increased in all salary schedules, with emphasis on starting salaries and salaries for younger employees, from the viewpoint of securing human resources and ensuring appropriate treatment of all employees. Bonuses will also be raised by 0.1 month. For employees who work from home, a new telecommuting allowance will be established to reduce the burden of utility and water expenses.
In addition, the flex-time system currently approved for employees taking care of children will be extended to general employees as well. In addition, the flextime system will be made more flexible so that employees can set up a "zero work day," a day during a four-week period when they do not have to work up to one day per week, while maintaining the total amount of work hours.

The salary revision for special positions will be made generally in line with the purpose of the salary revision for general positions.

Question and answer session

(Question) Regarding ride-sharing, which came up as a topic in the recent issue-finding dialogue, Governor Yoshimura of Osaka announced that he would like to start ride-sharing during the Expo. I've heard that Miura City, Kanagawa Prefecture, is planning to do this, although I don't know if it will be a demonstration experiment or commercialization.Do you have any plans to collaborate with such local governments?

(Answer) Paid transportation using private cars has already started in areas with no transportation, so I would like to see more use of it in areas where it is needed. We will discuss this at the issue identification dialogue, and we will begin a discussion within the month at the Working Group of the Regulatory Reform Promotion Council, but please note carefully that nothing has been decided.

(Question) Regarding the advisory board mentioned at the beginning, I understand that the minutes of the meeting will be released at a later date, but for example, you talked about starting from a broad perspective, could you be more specific about the kinds of opinions the members shared regarding e.g. the use of startups, etc.?

(Answer) One topic was "What can we do to make more use of startups?" Also, although it is commonly called a startup, there is no clear definition. When thinking about something to give a boost to startups, I think it is extremely important to decide what scope of startups to define. That's something that we discussed.

(Question) What opinions were expressed on national and local digital infrastructure?

(Answer) As I have said before, it is up to the local government to decide what policies to implement, but it also depends on how the work is done, the format of the documents, etc. It would be more effective from the point of view of efficiency to unify the processes and processes throughout the country, so with decentralization, we should be able to differentiate between things that are left to local choices and things that are unified. I want to do it properly.

(Question) This is about next week's issue discovery dialogue. Since this is the second time, with the topic of "nursing care," the Minister stated at the beginning that the introduction of digital technology is inevitable in order to solve the problem of a shortage of nursing care staff, and I would like to see what kind of issues there are. On that basis, could you please tell us again how digital technology will contribute to resolving the shortage of nursing care workers and what benefits it will have?

(Answer) The other day, I visited a nursing care facility that is actively introducing digital technology. Currently, many nursing care facilities have a ratio of staff to residents of only 2:1, but by using digital technology, they have been able to improve efficiency to about 2.8:1. I was very encouraged by this experience. Although the technology already exists, it has not been widely adopted. I would like to have a discussion about what kind of challenges there are and what is needed to overcome them.

(Question) I would like to ask you a question in relation to self-driving cars. Yesterday, Honda announced that they would be starting a commercial service for self-driving taxis. Regarding this, Minister, if you have any feedback regarding autonomous driving, please let me know. One more point: At the same time, it was announced that the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry would create something like a new framework for collaboration between ministries and agencies, and that they would start considering it. Please let me know if there is anything that will be done.

(Answer) Self-driving taxis have already been introduced in various countries, so I am very encouraged that the service will be launched in Japan. I was a little concerned about the fact that the start of the service was quite late, and if this is due to regulations, I think the government needs to take appropriate action. The Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism, and the National Police Agency must take the lead in revising regulations where necessary, so I will ask the team that will be formed to take a hard look at these regulations. We would like to take a close look at this to ensure that the introduction of autonomous driving is not compromised by anything other than the necessary regulations. As the minister in charge of digital administrative and fiscal reform, rather than as the Digital Agency, I would like to take a look at that.

(Question) I would like to ask about nursing care. I believe that the staffing standards that the Minister mentioned are imposed on nursing care facilities. I believe that there will be discussions about revising nursing care fees at the end of the year, but will this be considered? I also think that simply relaxing the standards would make it difficult to reduce the number of workers, as there would be concerns about the possibility of an accident occurring on-site. Are you thinking of taking care of the area?

(Answer) Regarding nursing care fee standards, I would like you to confirm with the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare. What we are trying to do in the issue discovery dialogue this time is that the ratio is currently up to 3:1, but realistically it is only 2:1. In order to raise that number, there are facilities that are using digital technology to improve efficiency to around 2.8:1, so I believe that utilizing digital technology will be extremely powerful. We will discuss such matters in the digital administrative and financial reform, and the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare will have to discuss nursing care fees.

(Question) Regarding the employment certificate that you mentioned in the previous press conference on the 17th, how many local governments are currently able to submit it digitally in a standard format at Mynaportal's employment certificate creation corner?

(Answer) I don't have any numbers, so I'll let you know later.

(Question) Regarding employment certificates, the Minister announced in December last year that a system would be established in which companies would directly submit certificates to local governments, but unfortunately this would increase the burden on both companies and local governments. The project was canceled because the disadvantages were expected to outweigh the advantages. I think we need to think of many different ways to go digital. This is a system that allows for so-called agile policy formulation and for quickly incorporating opinions from the field. I think this is necessary in many fields, but if you have any ideas on how to make it a reality, please let me know.

(Answer) We would like to hear opinions from the field through various methods. I don't think there is just one way to do it.

(Question) I would like to ask about ride sharing. I think that ride sharing and autonomous driving have been raised as issues in the digital administrative and financial reform. I think that if autonomous driving can be implemented, the problem of ride sharing will be solved to some extent, but the scheduling of ride sharing and autonomous driving is to proceed with ride sharing first and work on autonomous driving later. Please share your idea of the schedule around that.

(Answer) Regarding the lack of public transportation in certain areas, I think one solution would be the deregulation of taxis, another solution would be ride sharing, and the third solution would be self-driving cars. Naturally, there will be differences in the timelines, but we would like to continue to implement all aspects of digital administrative and financial reform. However, I think that there will naturally be differences in the resulting timelines.

This is a translation of https://www.digital.go.jp/speech/minister-231020-01