The government decided Feb. 3 to transfer and combine the personnel functions of administrative agencies to a new bureau to be established at the Cabinet Secretariat in April 2010.

National Personnel Authority President Masahito Tani KYODO PHOTO

In deciding on the envisaged transfer during a morning meeting of a Cabinet task force led by Prime Minister Taro Aso, the government brushed aside protests from the office in charge of managing civil servants.

The transfer is a key plan proposed in a four-year road map for reforming the national public service system. The government plans to submit bills in March so as to realize it.

The road map involves the government aiming to launch a new public service personnel system in 2011 with an eye toward eliminating the so-called amakudari practice.

In the practice, senior bureaucrats land post-retirement jobs at entities related to the sectors they formerly supervised.

"We would like to work hard on reforming the public service system," Aso said at the meeting, telling ministers in attendance to make "all-out efforts" to proceed with the reforms presented in the road map.

He asked the ministers to work out the issues over which the government remains at odds with the National Personnel Authority, an independent administrative commission that advises the prime minister and the Diet on matters concerning national government civil servants, notably recruitment and salaries.

NPA President Masahito Tani, who attended the meeting, expressed opposition to the decision. He has claimed a transfer to the Cabinet side, which employs bureaucrats, could violate the rights of employees and lack fairness.