Organizational Design and Bureaucratic Reform

KOMPAS/WAWAN H PRABOWO

President Joko Widodo delivers his speech after being sworn in the General Session of the People’s Consultative Assembly (MPR) at the Senayan Legislative Complex, Jakarta, Sunday (20/10/2019). On that occasion, President Joko Widodo disclosed a number of priority programs such as human resource development, continuation of infrastructure projects, arrangement of regulations and bureaucratic governance, and economic transformation.

President Jokowi presented five national development priorities for his 2019-2024 administration in a state address some time ago. The five priorities are: infrastructure development, human resource development, bureaucratic reform, facilitating investment licensing and focused, on-target management of the State Budget (APBN).

The writer believes these five priorities to be highly appropriate and that they provide a balance between infrastructure development, human development and bureaucratic development. What should the government do in terms of the bureaucratic reform priorities? This article addresses priority management of the 2019-2020 bureaucratic reform program.

The main job of each elected government is to ensure that public policies and services improve social welfare and prosperity. Therefore, the agenda of administrative reform (better known as bureaucratic reform), as President Jokowi has disclosed, must be the government’s strategic priority to improve the public trust while improving the nation\'s competitiveness. Bureaucratic quality will also improve several indicators of socioeconomic development.

Indonesia is still far from adequate and needs immediate and serious commitment.

Indonesia has not seen significant change on the Worldwide Governance Indicators since 2006, with all indicators remaining below 60. Its scores in Government Effectiveness and Control of Corruption have improved, albeit very slowly. Indonesia has a current score of 59.13 in government effectiveness, compared to 42.44 in to 2006. Similarly, its current score in corruption control is 46.15 compared to 20.49 in 2006.

Indonesia’s ranking on the Global Competitiveness Index has moved up, but it is insignificant, unstable and still below other ASEAN countries. Indonesia ranked 45th on last year’s competitiveness index, but dropped to 50th this year. Its ranking on the ease of doing business index jumped significantly from 115th in 2006 to 72nd in 2018, but the data indicates that bureaucratic quality in Indonesia is still far from adequate and needs immediate and serious commitment.

Four main agendas

President Jokowi\'s government must fulfill four major items on the bureaucratic reform agenda. First is regulatory reform that focuses on organizing laws and regulations at the national, provincial and regency/municipal levels. The basic problem in increasing Indonesia\'s competitiveness is the sheer number of regulations that overlap, are in disharmony and are overregulated. Each industry sector has a ministerial regulation, whether it is mandated by law or a government regulation, or is issued in the course of a minister carrying out their main duties. It all makes for bureaucratic complexity, complication and inaction, and creates interministerial competition.

On the other hand, regional administrations and regional heads have issued many vertical regulations since decentralization in 1999. According to the Home Ministry’s records, around 30,000 local regulations currently exist, 25 percent of which contradict higher regulations.

How should regulatory reform be implemented regarding these various laws and regulations? The government\'s plan to form a National Regulation Body should be supported. This body brings together the various offices that currently prepare laws and regulations, such as the Directorate General for Laws and Regulations at the Law and Human Rights Ministry, the State Secretariat Deputy for Laws and Regulations and the National Law Development Agency.

The body must be given the authority to harmonize the drafting of laws and regulations, to review, revise and annul articles in ministerial regulations, and to propose changes to government regulations. The omnibus law should be passed to integrate all relevant laws and regulations for a single strategic development goal, such as creating jobs and improving competitiveness. During the review process, the body may involve universities, businesspeople, the media and community groups.

KOMPAS/WAWAN H PRABOWO

Civil servants attend a ceremony for the commemoration of the 47th anniversary of the Indonesian Civil Servants Corp (Korpri) at Istora Senayan, Jakarta, Thursday (29/11/2018). President Joko Widodo was present and acted as the inspector of the ceremony.

Second is structural reform in terms of bureaucratic design and the government’s business process. The organizational design of Indonesia\'s bureaucracy is currently faced with two major disruptions: (1) irrelevant to government performance, (2) rigid hierarchy, fat and centralistic. Structural reform must at least solve these two fundamental problems. The structural design of ministries, state institutions and local governments must be based on the performance indicators and targets for each unit. This way, those units that do not play a role in contributing to institutional performance can be dissolved immediately. Besides improving their performance, this will also help streamline institutional budgets.

Third is to reform the civil service culture in terms of basic values, ways of thinking and behavior. Learning from Korea, Japan, China and Singapore, change in culture is of fundamental importance in a bureaucracy. This is necessary to develop the core values of a bureaucracy, such as anti-corruption, dedication and cooperation. Of course, these values must be internalized from families to schools and to communities. In the formal bureaucratic system, these values must be instilled from the pre-service training stage and be implemented in bureaucratic roles.

Each leader must set an example for their subordinates, establish change agents and integrity agents, implement a code of ethics, a code of conduct and a whistleblower system, and establishment a clear system of reward and punishment. Cultural change does not happen fast or instantly, but the government and all civil servants must start now.

Fourth is digital transformation in terms of the use of information communication technology (ICT) and robotics (artificial intelligence/AI). Integrating the various aspects of bureaucratic reform will be tied to progress in ICT and AI. Technology integrates structure and functionality both vertically and horizontally, and cuts red tape horizontally. Technology will also force change in the interactions between government units and employees, and between government and the public.

KOMPAS/HENDRA A SETYAWAN

Sophia, a robot supported by artificial intelligence (AI) technology that was activated in 2016 and created by the Hong Kong-based company Hanson Robotics, takes part in a special interview with the media at the 2019 Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) Global Dialogue in Jakarta on Monday (16/9/2019). Sophia represents AI technology of the future, when humans and robots can work together in various fields. The robot, which can make dozens of human facial expressions, is expected to be smart enough to help humans in the fields of medicine, education and scientific research. According to the International Federation of Robotics (IFR), the use of robots in 2020 is estimated to reach 3 million units or a threefold increase over the last 10 years.

For the purposes of digital transformation, President Jokowi must establish priority (flagship) programs for electronic government. Anticipating change among generations Y and Z members who prefer to work from home and are output-driven, the government must provide facilities and infrastructure to support remote work, flexible working hours and clearer performance measures for each employee. In the next 5-10 years, civil servants will increasingly work from home, meetings will be conducted via video conferencing and public service officers will be replaced with robots (robotic agents).

Change leadership

The unified commitment of all leaders is needed to ensure successful bureaucratic reform.

The Vice President, in his capacity as the chair of the National Bureaucratic Reform Steering Committee (KPRBN), leads and decides on the strategic policies and programs for bureaucratic reform, such as deregulation, bureaucratization, cultural transformation and digital transformation. The Administrative and Bureaucratic Reform (PANRB) Minister coordinates and implements the bureaucratic reform program at ministries and institutions. Each minister must understand the essence and substance of the bureaucratic reform program, and oversee change programs at each ministry. The Home Minister coordinates with the PANRB Ministry to implement bureaucratic reform programs in provinces and regencies/municipalities. Every governor/regent and mayor must grasp and take the lead in making fundamental changes to the regional bureaucracy.

The government must start now, because if not, it will not finish before the next administration.

The progress and obstacles of the bureaucratic reform program must be periodically discussed with the Vice President to generate an immediate decision for ministers, organizational leaders, governors, regents and mayors to follow up. The Vice President\'s KPRBN Secretariat must oversee that these agreed decisions are implemented and report on their progress at the next meeting. Further, the achievement indicators for the bureaucratic reform program must be measured within a predetermined schedule, for example budgetary efficiency and effective governance, eased business licensing, control of corruption, competitiveness, and quality of public services. These indicators must be measured and evaluated continually to generate immediate solutions.

WEBSITE UNIVERSITAS INDONESIA

Eko Prasojo

These changes must be made through a comprehensive and serious approach, with a clear design and a measurable deadline. The government must start now, because if not, it will not finish before the next administration. We can only hope.

Eko Prasojo, Professor and Dean, Faculty of Administrative Science, University of Indonesia.