From NHK
February 13 2023
Date City, Fukushima – A day service facility in Date City that provides after-school care for children with disabilities was found not to meet legal standards for staffing, and the prefecture took administrative action to suspend the facility’s operator designation for three months on the grounds that it had fraudulently received around 15 million yen in benefits.
The administrative action was taken against After-School Day Service Tsubomi, which is run by Care Support Kaoru, a company that operates a nursing care business in Date City.
According to the prefecture, the facility is required by law to have full-time, dedicated staff to prepare development plans for children, but in reality, from the time of its opening three years ago until October 2008, the facility had been staffed by employees working at other facilities within the group.
The prefectural government found that this was the case during its regular audits, and therefore recognised that a total of over 15 million yen in benefits received over a period of one year and three months amounted to fraudulent payments, and imposed an administrative sanction to suspend the designation of this facility as an operator for three months from 1 April this year.
In response to the prefectural investigation, the after-school day service Tsubomi said that it did not know that it needed full-time staff.
The local government will be asked to return the 15 million yen in benefits that were found to have been illegally received, with an additional 40% added to the amount paid.
Barrier Free Japan 
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