Good Practices and Innovations in Public Governance 2003-2011

2010 Category 4: JAPAN
The third innovation that has come from Innovation Saga is the creation of new work
styles in public administration that improve operating effectiveness. In this endeavour,
the Saga prefectural government conducted several joint projects with global
enterprises. Saga did joint research with Microsoft on public-management reform
techniques using a tool called the balanced scorecard, and a joint study with Accenture
on performance-based IT system procurement. Both have enriched Saga’s management
and procurement procedures. Furthermore, Saga carried out an experimental
study with Samsung, Fujitsu and NTT on a road map to introduce
cloud-computing technologies in core local-government IT work such as residential
information, taxation and National Health Insurance records.
Replicability and Sustainability
The sustainability of this programme is enhanced by the low costs involved and the
high returns obtainable. A few challenges exist, however. First is the need to remain
technologically viable and current in order to liaise with and respond to a broad
cross-section of civilian organisations. Active communication with these organizations
must be maintained to facilitate the sharing and exchange of research proposals.
Secondly, the selection of the research partners must remain impartial in order to
ensure continued interest and participation.
The replicability of the Innovation Saga Project is extremely high because of the low
cost. Administrations incur few non-personnel expenses, and the returns are high. Thus
it is expected that Innovation Saga’s public-private knowledge-sharing techniques will
be replicated in a more general context and in a wider geographic environment.
Lessons Learned
Two important lessons about methodology resulted from the project. First, it was
important to create an environment that would facilitate mutually beneficial publicprivate
collaboration. Traditionally, government officials tended to resist the often
free-wheeling ideas of the private sector because of the need for public accountability.
Limited funding also inhibited the public sector, but private-sector investment
helped offset the government’s budgetary constraints.
The second lesson that emerged from this programme was the value of information
consolidation. Merging the knowledge and expertise of both public- and privatesector
participants opened up varied ways to process information.
In conclusion, the success of the Innovation Saga Project rested on joint partnership,
the pooling of resources and an accommodating environment.
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