Japan’s Children and Families Agency Seeks ¥4.8 Trillion in FY24 Budget Request

The Yomiuri Shimbun

1:00 JST, August 26, 2023

The Children and Families Agency on Thursday compiled a budgetary request for fiscal 2024 totaling ¥4.8885 trillion, including general and special accounts.

Specific projects to be implemented under the government’s strategy for children’s future welfare, which was approved by the Cabinet in June, have been listed without specifying budgetary figures.

The total budget is expected to grow as the number of measures in the strategy — such as an expansion in child allowances and a program to allow children to attend nursery schools regardless of their parents’ employment circumstances — will be finalized during the year-end budget-compilation process.

The agency also has included in the budgetary request expenditures for the establishment of the Japanese version of Britain’s Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) — a system to ensure that workers who have contact with children have no record of sexual offenses.

The budgetary request also calls for ¥83.3 billion to fund such measures as expanding support for nursing-school teachers who are qualified but have been absent from the field, with the aim of enticing them back into employment. The budgetary figure for this category has risen by ¥8.1 billion from the initial budget figure for fiscal 2023.