Most government ministries and agencies are urging caution and "careful study" of a proposal to hand nonpolicy government duties over to quasi-governmental organizations in order to streamline the government, according to reports released June 18.

The reluctance of the government bodies was conveyed in their separate written reports to Prime Minister Ryutaro Hashimoto's Administrative Reform Council. The council is soliciting opinions on the establishment of corporationlike bodies to handle such minor duties as issuing driver's licenses and passports, and ratification of land ownership documents -- all duties now handled by the central government.

The council considers the plan to be its most realistic option for improving efficiency. Most of the 12 ministries, nine agencies and a number of other governmental bodies said they would view the proposal as "one idea" by the council in its efforts to make government smaller and more efficient, but added that more careful examination is needed.

Although a few of the ministries and agencies opposed the proposal outright, others avoided doing so, apparently out of fear of being labeled as opponents of administrative reform. Among the few ministries that clearly stated opposition to the council's proposal, the Posts and Telecommunications Ministry said it would be "extremely difficult" to distinguish between policy-related jobs and jobs that can be handled outside the ministries.

It also said the responsibilities of the ministers and the chiefs of the new bodies would blur together. The Justice Ministry said the bodies being considered by the council may end up being similar to the approximately 80 existing public corporations that are being criticized for inefficiency and a lack of transparency.

In the meantime, the Foreign Ministry was the only ministry that said it "can basically support" the idea of creating "agencies" modeled on Britain's executive agencies. But none of the government ministries and agencies, even the Foreign Ministry, expressed a willingness to make a new organization to carry out tasks presently under its own jurisdiction.