Health, Labor, and Welfare Minister Nagatsuma

Japan Pension Service(JPS), the new organization established to succeed the scandal -ridden Social Insurance Agency (SIA), started its operation on January 5, 2010 with a goal to restore public trust in the public pension system.
The SIA operated for 47 years before it was terminated at the end of December 2009, as a part of reforms to streamline and improve the public pension system. "The SIA betrayed public trust by mismanaging pension records for decades. Scandalous mistakes can not be permitted to occur any more", Akira Nagatsuma, Minister of Health, Labour and Welfare said at the opening ceremony at the new organization's headquarters in Tokyo.
Takashi Kiriku, Japan Pension Service's first Director General and a former Executive Director of the Japanese Business Federation (Nippon Keidanren), urged his employees " to work together to regain public trust in the pension system."
Japan Pension Service(JPS) is a public corporation whose employees do not have the status of government employees. Of its 12,000 employees about 10,000 were transferred from the former SIA, but SIA officials who had been disciplined for reasons such as mismanaging pension records, were not transferred. In total about 2,000 were newly recruited from the private sector.
Japan Pension Service(JPS) has committed 10 pledges to improve customer services and to restore public trust, including "Pick up the phone within three rings", and "Don't make visitors wait more than 30 minutes."