Before a Diet committee session, members send their questions to the ministries. This is called shitsumon tsūkoku, question notice. Officials then write the minister’s answers. In a 2025 survey by the Cabinet Personnel Bureau, half of the questions arrived two days or more before the session. Nearly all the rest arrived by 6 p.m. the day before.
On average, officials could start writing at 6:32 p.m. and finished the answers at 1:48 a.m.