The government has launched a new organization to manage personnel appointments of senior officials at ministries and agencies in a more integrated manner, under which the prime minister's office will take the lead in the promotion and transfer of high-ranking bureaucrats. The new system is supposed to eliminate sectionalism in personnel management and enable government leaders to tap capable officials needed to implement the administration's policies irrespective of ministerial interests. However, its implementation needs to be closely monitored so that the system will not merely result in favoritism by political leaders.
Subject to the new system are the positions of a total of about 600 officials in the vice minister, bureau chief and deputy bureau chief ranks at ministries and agencies. Currently candidates for the vice minister and bureau chief positions are screened at a conference at the prime minister's office, but the candidates have been effectively selected by each ministry through internal decisions and often on the basis of seniority.
Under the new system, the chief Cabinet secretary will compile a list of candidates for the senior positions based on personnel evaluation by Cabinet ministers of the bureaucrats in their organizations — by choosing officials who are evaluated to be best-matched to implement the administration's policies. Each minister will then draft personnel appointment plans based on the list, and the plans will be finally endorsed in meetings attended by the prime minister and the chief Cabinet secretary. The new Cabinet Bureau of Personnel Affairs, manned with about 160 officials formerly with the National Personnel Authority and the Internal Affairs and Communications Ministry, also took over some of the tasks of these organizations, including preparation of recruitment tests for new government bureaucrats and training programs.