Shocking “2 points” in AI scoring!　Former councilor reveals the terrible reality of the Osaka City Council, a “tax thief” who receives 14 million in remuneration.

AI reveals the reality of “unappreciable” Osaka City Council members.

The number of days they spend in office is low, their activities are difficult to see, and they often do not fulfill their role of administrative supervision and doze off in the council meetings. …… Such councilors, who are ridiculed as “tax thieves,” may disappear from local councils.

A former Osaka City Councilor has developed a proprietary system, “Qoo Score,” which uses a highly accurate AI-based auditing and scoring engine to analyze the minutes of local council meetings and objectively evaluate the “questioning skills” of local councilors. Qoo Score” is a proprietary system that uses a high-precision scoring engine to analyze the proceedings of local council meetings to objectively evaluate the questioning ability of local council members.

The AI scored less than 50 points for about 30% of the councilors, which is a level of “cannot be evaluated” in terms of questioning and practical ability. While one councilor received the top score of 89 points, the lowest score was only 2 points. The AI highlighted the desperate disparity in ability that lurks in the Osaka City Council. Incidentally, no matter how much the difference in ability, the compensation paid to council members (13-14 million yen for the Osaka City Council) is the same.

Why a former city councilor created the AI evaluation

The developer, Mikito Sugiyama, 39, a representative of Qoo LLC (Osaka City), is a former city assemblyman (Osaka Restoration Association) from Higashiyodogawa Ward, Osaka City, who served for two terms and eight years. What was the reason for creating a cool-headed evaluation system based on an AI system without any discovery?

Fortunately, in my first year as a councilor, Mr. Toru Hashimoto (56) taught me that questioning is to win concrete statements from the administration. I followed his advice, and for the past eight years I have always approached the council meetings with the mindset of ‘asking meaningful questions.

I think it is the same in every local assembly, but there are many assembly members who simply read the questions prepared by their seniors in the same caucus, or who make emotional arguments without presenting objective data. But the evaluation of local council members is often based on superficial figures such as ‘how many times they have stood for questioning in the assembly. I felt that council members should be evaluated based on the quality and results of their questioning, rather than on such meaningless indicators, and this was the impetus for the creation of the evaluation system.

After graduating from university, Mr. Sugiyama worked for an IT company and was self-employed in web design and production before running for election to the Osaka City Council as the successor to a retiring local councilor, and winning. He established the joint venture Qoo, which is involved in GovTech (Government Technology Office), and began developing an evaluation system.

As an alderman for eight years, I was convinced of something in local politics. While there are companies that are working hard to solve social issues through the power of technology, there are virtually no people on the administrative or political side who can provide consultation from tech companies (companies that develop businesses using IT, AI, etc.). Even if motivated companies approach the government, they will only waste their time because they do not understand the language.

As an IT professional, I hope to play a role as a bridge between tech companies that are willing to solve social issues and legislators who can make policy proposals. With the advent of AI, I feel that the time has finally come.

AI “Visualizes” Excellent Council Members

One of the purposes of developing the evaluation system is to visualize the abilities of council members through the results of AI evaluations.

First of all, I think it is necessary to raise the level of questioning by local council members. There are some councilors who ask a lot of questions in the assembly, but they ask a lot of useless questions. That kind of councilor is wasting time and money.

I would like to see a world in which council members who point out the rudeness of administrative services through questioning and propose measures for improvement are properly evaluated. That is why I created a system to visualize the work of those who are fulfilling their responsibilities as council members.

What kind of effect can we expect from visualization?

I think the results of the AI evaluation will serve as a useful indicator for companies and citizens who want to work with local governments but have been unable to approach them, and who want to consult with council members.

For example, suppose you go to a council member who is opposed to a budget proposal submitted by the chief executive, and you ask him or her to do something for you. The harder that legislator tries, the more defensive the administration becomes, and the more it goes in a direction that will not be realized. For the company, this would result in an economic loss.

In the system we have developed this time, the AI precisely summarizes the content of the council member’s questions and the content of the answers of the executive director (the chief executive officer or executive staff of the government office that executes the administration), and recommends contacting the council member as a person to whom to ask for something. The system then makes a determination as to whether or not to recommend contacting the councilmember as a person to whom you would make a request.

The system is compatible with all local councils in Japan whose proceedings are available on the Web. However, sales are limited to the media, academic institutions, and corporations. Is demand expected?

We are currently developing an upgraded version of Qoo Score. For example, if you enter the term “online medical care,” it will list the legislators who are asking questions related to online medical care, and you can see which legislator’s question is being answered and how the board member is responding to that question.

If there is a legislator who has elicited an answer from the board member saying, ‘We plan to move forward with the implementation plan,’ it is possible to analyze all of that person’s questions for the entire year. Since we can know the true ability of the council member, it will be easier for companies to determine which council member they should go to for consultation.

I hope that companies seeking to solve social issues through public-private partnerships will use this as a powerful research tool to break through barriers. That is my expectation.

If it is known that companies are analyzing the content of questions from council members, it may change the attitude of these council members toward the council.

The minutes of local council meetings are available on the official websites of local governments and in booklets, but few citizens actually read them, and council members don’t pay much attention to them. If they knew that companies are judging council members’ competence based on the questions they are asked at council meetings, they might get a little impatient. Or maybe some legislators would feel threatened that their ability is being seen through by their constituents.

However, I did not create this system to discredit anyone. It is only to provide a better choice for companies and voters. I hope that this will lead to a faster improvement of Japan.

Currently, the service is mainly for corporations, but if this system is extended to the national level in the future, and if it becomes widely used as an “objective measure” for voters to cast their votes, Japan’s parliamentary democracy may be dramatically updated.