Sheet 99
"NO INTERNAL STANDARDS"
The mandate of the Planning Permission Division of City A is to decide whether or not a building plan meets with the appropriate standards and award a construction permit if it does.
One day, a non-governmental organization(NGO) requested that the Public Relations Division of City A disclose information as to how internal construction standards relate to environmental issues. Construction standards are stipulated in city regulations but environment awareness is fairly recent and no environmental standards have been introduced as yet. The NGO studies construction standards and how they relate to the environment throughout various cities and makes suggestions as to these standards might be appropriately improved.
City A has no institutionalized information disclosure system but has policy of disclosing as much information as possible when requested. The PR Division takes responsibility for this disclosure.
Hearing about this request from the PR Division, Mr. Horiguchi, Unit Chief of the Planning Permission Division spoke with Mr. Miyamoto , the Director of the Division. He asked, "How should we deal with this request ? We have tenuous internal construction standards related to the environment but we don't even always follow these when reviewing planning applications. With new environment issues appearing every day, these standards are far from perfect. We do not have any legal obligation to disclose information. We can refuse to answer by explaining that our internal standards are confidential."
Mr. Miyamoto responded, "No, that explanation only serves to admit to the existence of these standards. Once the NGO has confirmed that we have such standards, they will keep hounding us as to why we can't disclose them. If these standards are made public, they will check that the permits we have given clear these stipulations. If that happens, we will no longer be able to be as flexible in our decision making as we have been till now. We should simply reply that we have no internal standards. The NGO has made similar requests to other cities. Their attention will soon be directed at the cities which disclose this information, and we will no longer be in focus."
The following day, Mr. Horiguchi replied to the PR Division that there were no internal construction standards regarding environmental issues. The employee that he spoke to retorted, "Really ? Without standards such as these, how do you judge environmental factors when you review construction applications ? If the NGO asks questions such as these, let me send them to your division for an answer. All right ?"
A little bit agitated Mr. Horiguchi replied, "I said no internal standards. Without set standards, we can judge each application individually according to circumstances. There is no problem with this. Replying to NGOs on matters unrelated to planning permission applications is the duty of the PR division, is it not ? Do not bother us with such a meaningless exercise."
(Discussion Point)
・What do you think about the response of the Planning Permission Division ?
