While the national government
is in charge of defense, foreign policy, and other functions
that are the inherent responsibility of the state, local governments—both
prefectural and municipal—are in charge of matters related
to land regulation and development, disaster prevention and
pollution control, labor, education, social welfare and health.
Prefectural gov-ernments are entrusted with affairs that are
large in scale or affect a relatively wide area and often act
as a liaison in coordinating the activities of two or more municipal
bodies. Municipal governments, for their part, are charged with
responsibility for the administration of matters that are closely
related to the daily life of their respective communities.
As of February 2004 there were 47 prefectures and 3,170 municipalities
(including 13 ordinance-designated cities, which in principal
have more than one million inhabitants) in Japan.(*1) Due to
the aging of society and diversification of values, administrative
needs are increasing. To deal with this situation, the central
government is urging local governments to strengthen their administrative
and fiscal base by merging with other local governments. The
home affairs ministry aims to reduce the number of municipalities
to less than 2,000 before a special law designed to promote
municipal mergers expires at the end of March 2005. According
to the ministry, 1,893 municipalities have made use of the special
law to set up a total of 505 councils as of January 2004 to
discuss mergers with potential partners.(*2)
"Trinity Reform"
In June 2003 Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi decided to cut
subsidies to local authorities by ¥4 trillion and transfer
greater taxing authority from the national to local governments
over three years starting from the fiscal year 2004.(*3) The
steps are part of the so-called "trinity reform" aimed
at reducing the reliance of regional governments on subsidies
and local tax grants allocated to local authorities by the central
government, by apportioning a wider range of authority over
national taxes to local governments. The reform is called "trinity"
because it focuses on three systems—subsidies, tax allocation
and the transfer of taxing authority.
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