"The Omnibus Decentralization Act" (Heisei 11, Law No.87) was enforced on April 1, Heisei 12 (2000). In this Act, abolition of the "delegated function system" from prewar days and construction of the new relation between the country and local authorities, etc. just drew the time. At the same time, this large revision influenced also on the state of the fundamental local authorities of our country.

In our country, that is, since the prefecture system from Meiji 23 and the municipality system from Meiji 21 were established, the fundamental change of these systems had never occurred. Prefectures had the character as a local administration division of the country and the character as a local authority prewar days. They strongly had the character as a subdivision of the country because the government officials of the country were appointed to the prefecture governor and its main personnel. After the war, the prefecture governors were elected based on direct public election of residents, but some people said it was hard to say that prefectures had become perfect local authorities because the ratio of the delegated functions which the prefecture governor performs as an organization of a country was still high. However, by the decentralization reform of this time, "the delegated functions" were abolished and arranged as local government functions or statutory entrusted functions. These two kinds of functions are common in that they are "office work of local authorities," and these became a qualitatively different thing from the old delegated functions in terms of the range of establishing regulations and a parliamentary check, etc...

Moreover, the involvement of the country in a local authority came to be stipulated clearly by law or the government ordinance based on this ("the legal principle of involvement," Article 245-2 of the Local Autonomy Law).

Consequently, the country has to have a legal ground, which differs from the previous situation in which the country was in the as-a-leader position to prefectures without necessarily being based on a statute.

Thus, the relation between the country and prefectures greatly changed from the relation in which the country was like a supervisor based on a clear statement or a conventional tacit vertical dynamics into the relation in which the country and prefectures mutually cooperate in the position of "equality and cooperation" toward the common purpose of improvement of national welfare. Even though prefectures process the same work as before, the positioning between the country and prefectures completely changed; therefore, we can regard this situation as "an appearance of the new local government."

　

With arrival in the 21st century, the organization of the central ministries of our country was greatly reformed from the conventional 1 office 22 ministries organization to 1 office 12 ministries organization. In our country, it is since the Meiji era that the restructuring of the whole government ministries was performed, and it can be said that century-large reform was just performed simultaneously with the decentralization reform although many subjects are pointed out and remain to be done.

The promotion of decentralization was one of the main items of the central ministries' reform. The basic concept of this reform was that the country could play better the role and contribute to the formation of better administrative shape through limitation of the role of the country and delegation of the other administration function to local authorities.

There was not only such an idea-background but an actual situation in which the reorganization of the central ministries and the states of prefectures were connected closely. That is, by the reorganization of the central ministries, the newly prepared Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport became the organization which had jurisdiction over about 80 percent of the public works of a country, and the so-called "huge government office" criticism whether the authority about public works would get the too much power occurred. On the other hand, expanding the range in which a local authority can judge about public works independently and execute them through the promotion of the decentralization, and delegating the decision-making power from the central to the regional bureau established in each block, the central government thought that it could realize the true aim of decentralization that organizations more familiar to residents determine.

Moreover, the left-behind local administrative officials system was also abolished with abolition of the delegated functions system. By this, also in respect of national administrative organization, office work concerning the social insurance relation office work and occupation stable relation office work which were processed by the local administrative officials were fundamentally made into the direct execution office work of the country, and to cope with such office work, the new regional bureau of a country such as a prefectural labor bureau were be conventionally prepared for processing of the office work.

In the prewar days, prefectures were the administrative subjects of the country which permeated the administrative policy synthetically and uniformly to the whole country, and a governor was in charge of the execution as a government official. Although a governor was chosen by direct public election of residents and all prefectures strengthened the function as a "self-governing body" more with left the system of delegated functions after the war, each ministry established newly the synthetic regional branches with competing, which seemed obstacles against the synthetic administration for prefectures.

From such a viewpoint, by the first revision (Showa 22 law No. 169) of the Local Autonomy Law in Showa 22, it was incorporated (Article 156 4th clause of the Local Autonomy Law) that the central government must pass through the approval of Parliament in forming a local administration organization. Thus, we can say that prefectures and the regional bureau (above all synthetic local branches) were in the delicate relation historically.

That the authority of each ministry in Kasumigaseki is transferred to the regional bureau of every place leads to the simplification of a procedure with the country etc. Since the administration of prefectures can not be executed without relation to the administration of the country, this very thing might be considered as a desirable thing. However, you have to care about the relation between the country and local authorities so that you will prevent the situation in which the relation between a country and local authorities is fixed and you are subject to that relation. Thus, the influence of a series of the reforms on prefectures cannot be disregarded.

　

Municipalities are the subjects which should play a very important role in a decentralization time as a fundamental local authority familiar to residents.

For the purpose of strengthening the administrative and financial capability of municipalities, the central government is promoting the merger of municipalities vigorously based on the target of reorganizing about 3,200 municipalities to 1,000 set by the governing party. Prefectures serving wider areas will also get influenced inevitably from the progress of merger of municipalities.

The Decentralization Promoting Committee pointed out that "if merger of municipalities progresses by leaps and bounds, reexamination of the state of the present prefectures serving wider areas should be put into a view and it is necessary to take up the structure of local autonomy as an examination subject full-scale on a mid- and long-term basis" in "Opinion about Promotion of Merger of Municipalities" (November 27, Heisei 12). In "Last Report"(June 14, Heisei 13), it also indicated that "discerning carefully the tendency of merger of municipalities advanced based on the Municipal Merger Law (Showa 40 law No. 6), which has the time limit methods by March, Heisei 17, we should deepen examination further about the justice of various proposals about the new local autonomy system currently made in every direction from a viewpoint to revise the present two-tiered system, such as a state regional system theory, a federal system theory and Haiken-Chihan-Ron," and furthermore, it pointed out that "depending on progress of merger of municipalities by March, Heisei 17, various proposals about a new local autonomy system which refers to not only municipalities but also prefectures may be tinctured more with actuality."

Below are problems about the role of prefectures after the promotion of mergers of municipalities.