A cosy symbiotic relationship between the Household Agency and its imperial correspondents ensures a respectful and compliant media Republicanism is virtually unheard of as a political creed. And, in return for a modest, almost austere, government stipend (Emperor Akihito and his immediate family last year received between them a mere 290m yen – pounds 1.8m – and possess personally very little private property or assets), Japan’s imperials oblige by behaving as models of thrift and rectitude.Once a year, the Emperor attends the national athletic meeting; twice a year, the family opens the palace gates to wave at the crowd from behind a panel of bullet-proof glass (introduced after an embarrassing incident when a disgruntled subject slung a large pebble at his Emperor). (Denmark’s Constitution, on the other hand, was amended by referendum as late as 1953 to allow the succession of the much-loved Margrethe.) This is a pity, for the idea of a Buckingham Palace-Imperial Household Agency summit is an intriguing one: even if Mr Makino came away with nothing useful, the British would find much to ponder in the Japanese method of royal family management.Royal crises have to be seen in perspective; placed alongside those of the House of Windsor, the problems of the Chrysanthemum Throne are piffling in comparison. In a series of meetings with his opposite numbers in the royal households of Holland, Belgium and Denmark, Mr Makino will discuss a number of issues of mutual interest, including financing, public relations, and royal medical care. But he will also, particularly with aides to Belgium’s Queen Beatrix and Denmark’s Queen Margrethe, want to talk about royal women – how they behave, how they are viewed by their people, and how long-established laws can be altered to accommodate them.
The Imperial Household Agency has gathered documents from Buckingham Palace but Mr Makino will not be visiting London this time around – the principle of a reigning queen, agency officials explain, has been too long enshrined here for it to be a helpful comparison in the Japanese case. Last week, officials of the Imperial Household Agency (IHA) confirmed to the Independent what has been speculatively suggested for some time – that, 226 years after the accession of the last Japanese Empress, Go- Sakuramachi, the government is cautiously studying the possibility of changing the law so that another woman could succeed 62-year-old Emperor Akihito to the throne.

His objectives are several, but high among them is one of the utmost delicacy and sensitivity: to gather information on how to prevent the extinction of the most ancient hereditary monarchy in the world. Legislation, however, was not a substitute for ministers behaving with integrity, openness and honesty.. Sometime next Sunday, a discreetly but immaculately dressed Japanese man will disembark at an airport somewhere in Western Europe on a very special mission. His name, unknown to all but a few of his countrymen, is Tadayuki Makino, and his business card bears the title of Senior Counsellor, Imperial Household Agency. Mr Takino is both a top civil servant and a high-ranking courtier to one of the most closed and secretive royal institutions in the world. He had “no idea” whether there would be proceedings, although if civil servants acted in good faith and in line with Government policy there would be no action.The conference heard a cautious endorsement of a Freedom of Information Act from Mr Mandelson who said the Government’s code of practice on access to information needed to be “bolstered” and “in time, underpinned by legislation” to create the habit of disclosure. “There is no attempt by ministers to dump responsibility on the civil servants named in Scott,” Mr Freeman said.

NICHOLAS TIMMINS

Public Policy Editor
Two Ministry of Defence civil servants are under investigation in the wake of the Scott report, it emerged yesterday.The inquiry – a preliminary to possible disciplinary action – was disclosed as Roger Freeman, the Cabinet minister responsible for the Civil Service, said it was “conceivable” that Whitehall employees would be disciplined in the light of Sir Richard Scott’s findings.But he told a conference in London organised by the Campaign for Freedom of Information that in line with current convention it was not planned to disclose whether individuals had been disciplined.Peter Mandelson, Labour’s Civil Service spokesman, said ministers would be greeted with public derision if civil servants were disciplined when ministers had declared themselves “scot free” of any responsibility.The MoD’s action, understood to be against two middle-ranking civil servants on the professional and technical side, was disclosed by sources in the Institution of Professional Managers and Specialists, the civil servants’ specialist union.The First Division Association, the top civil servants’ union, said that it as yet knew of no formal investigation of any of its members, with departments still digesting Scott’s findings.Mr Freeman and Mr Mandelson clashed at the conference when the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster insisted disciplinary action was not for ministers but for departments’ own Permanent Secretaries and the the Civil Service Commissioners to pursue. But the public had a right to know that management believed that was not good value for money.Without the ability for agencies to speak out, ministers would to categorise all difficult issues as “operational”, thus placing blame on the agency. The result would be to “give ministers authority without responsibility; and agencies responsibility without authority”.Polly Toynbee interview, page 15. Mr Lewis, who was removed by Michael Howard, the Home Secretary, last October, said that without that, ministerial accountability is “seriously undermined” and agencies “will increasingly be led by emasculated political poodles”.
Speaking at a Campaign for Freedom of Information conference in London, Mr Lewis said that ministers are left free to impose “half baked” policies or set the agencies “wholly unrealistic” performance targets.Inquiry recommendations following the escapes from Whitemoor and Parkhurst prisons would cost “millions of pounds”, he said. The heads of Government agencies must be able to speak out on the impact of ministers’ decisions, Derek Lewis, the sacked chief executive of the Prisons Agency said yesterday, writes Nicholas Timmins. A spokesman for Scotland Yard said the equipment at the farm was capable of producing 600 kilos of pure amphetamine sulphate per week.
Four men and a woman, aged in their 40s and 50s, were arrested after police surrounded the farm early yesterday morning.. Two separate laboratories were found at an isolated farm in Newton Flotman, near Norfolk – one to manufacture the drug’s chemical ingredients and a second to make the drug itself.

Five people were being questioned by police last night after a raid on an illegal drugs factory with the capacity to produce pounds 15m worth of amphetamine sulphate, or speed, every week. A study aimed at improving the Benefits Agency’s much-criticised liaison with local authorities is also to be undertaken, while 1,100 Employment Service staff are to transfer to the agency from 1 April before the new, tougher, Job Seekers Allowance, which replaces unemployment benefit this year.Chris Smith, Labour’s social-security spokesman, said Mr Lilley should end the “finders-keepers” rule which encourages the Benefits Agency and councils to compete with each other rather than co-operate in chasing the same fraudsters.. The crackdowns will be preceded by two weeks of local publicity, he said yesterday in a Commons debate. The aim is “to give people who have just drifted into abusing the benefit system the chance to put their claim right and to catch those who choose not to do so”.A spokesman for his department said the plan did not involve an amnesty on back- payment of benefit if individuals were found to have been claiming fraudulently.But an admission of fraudulent claims in the two-week period would be “taken into account” in deciding whether to prosecute.The anti-fraud drives will include freephone hotlines for reporting suspected fraud; local data-matching exercises; increased visits to claimants; introduction of barcode scanners in post offices to detect stolen order books and unspecified “special drives” on employers and self-employed who, Mr Lilley said, are “likely to be involved in benefit fraud”.He also began to answer criticism from housing-benefit fraud-investigation officers that the present system is aimed at detecting rather than preventing fraud, to the point where councils are encouraged to allow some fraud in order to detect it and claim incentive payments.Revised financial incentives will be introduced, Mr Lilley said, and a pilot scheme aimed at catching organised fraud of housing benefit is to be launched in London. Tarmac said it was surprised by the raids but said it would co-operate with any investigation..