Public service bureaucracy which is used to be neutral and help the public develop ..... Mahmudi, 2005, Manajemen Kinerja Sektor Publik, Jogjakarta: UPP AMP.
INTERNATIONAL PUBLIC MANAGEMENT ESSAY
One Stop Service System Creating the Neutrality of Civil Servants Toward Service Delivery in Indonesia
BY: MALSE YULIVESTRA 326761
ERASMUS UNIVERSITY 2009
One Stop Service System Creating the Neutrality of civil servants toward Service delivery in Indonesia I.
Background
Public service bureaucracy which is used to be
neutral and help the public
develop to give better serve to the regime by taking the side of one political party. The influence of government‟s power towards the bureaucracy creates the difficulty of the servants to give service and work professionally. This influence is also susceptible for having influence among political parties, corruption, collusion, nepotism, inefficiency, and other bureaucratic problems.
Another indicator reflecting the bad image of bureaucracy can be seen from the cost of public service, both legal and illegal. For example: the length of time, numerous posts to be passed, and the service style which ignores the customer. There is a low degree of bureaucrat‟s competency which is caused by the low recruitment quality, the low quality of the servant development and the dominance of political interest in bureaucracy. Meanwhile, bureaucracy as the public service institution, used to give the service to the public professionally and neutrally. For that, the bureaucracy must get involved in the process of making the policy and taking decision.
Basically, Government bureaucracy formed to carry out three functions, they are: serving the public, perform the development, and protect the society. As the element of government apparatus, servant of the state, and servant of the society, a civil servant in government bureaucracy must be neutral and not discriminate in implementing those three functions. This condition can be achieved when the servant only does their job as the public servant without doing another job outside of it.
Indonesian government does some steps to reach this condition in order to bring back the function of bureaucracy in Indonesia i.e. as a service for public. In 2006,
the Indonesian government, through the Minister of Domestics Affairs, issued the decision regarding the guidance of One Stop Service regulation number 24 in the year 2006. Besides improving the quality of public service, the aim of this regulation is to create a neutral public service. It can be seen from the system and process in One Stop Service, starting from the procedure and mechanism, recruitment of the official until the control of it, either from the internal institution or society. 2. The New Public Management (NPM) The concept of New Public Management firstly introduced by Christoper Hood in 1991, where he abbreviated the term to NPM. From an histocal perspective, the modern management approach in the public sector first appeared in the 1980s as the reaction toward the inequality of traditional public administration model applied in the govenrmental sector at that time. This condition caused no specialization of job in govenrment office, also an official did not work based on his/her competencies. Besides this, the coming of NPM has also addressed unproductiveness, inefficiency, always lose out, low quality, lack of innovation and creativity of public sector organization.
Since the beginning of the reformation era in 1997 in Indonesia, NPM has become an idea that has strongly influenced the change of the government system arrangement. In other words, after 32 years under Soeharto‟s regime where Indonesia lived in a biased centralistic bureaucracy. Service bureaucracy tends to serve the authority not public. Thus, this created the bad picture of public service in Indonesia, low quality, complicated and expensive. All these criticisms needed to be solved by the government, then some movements demanded reforms in the public sector management. This is called New Public Management. In the beginning of this reformation era not merely academic groups but apparatus are also starting to comprehend and adopt the ideas within the governmental system. Deregulations and restructures of government sectors became governmental agenda in correcting the systems which during the time
were not responsive to the public and environment. Base on these conditions bureaucracy reform and public services become the agenda of the Indonesian nation. The New Public Management movement has been done in many countries before Indonesian did it, as written Denhardts (Denhardts 2002,13) “over the past couple decades, the NPM has literally swept the nation and the world”. Furthermore, it was explained that NPM, refers to a cluster of contemporary ideas and practices that seek, at their core to use the private sector and business approaches in the public sector. The effectiveness of this practical reform agenda in such countries as New Zealand, Australia, Great Britain, and later the United Stated put governments around the world on notice that new standards were being sought and new rules established. Principally, NPM concepts emphasize to the changing of the government management paradigm in the public sector which gives more opportunity to one party, causing an imbalance of authority. The orientation of the changing of this paradigm from the traditional way, biased, centralistic and uncompetitive becomes a paradigm which has more orientation to give service to the public, neutrally. This new paradigm has been applied by some countries since the 1970s. As stated by Hood in (Lynn 2006, 107) that The term ”New Public Management”(NPM) was coined in 1989 by Christopher Hood to retrospectively characterize the “quite similar administrative doctrines” of Australia, Canada, New Zenaland, the United Kingdom and (with different emphasis) the United stated of the 1970s and 1980s. Furthermore, he explained that “principal themes of NPM included a shift away from an emphasis on measurable performance; a shift away from reliance on traditional bureaucracies toward loosely coupled, quasi-autonomous units and competitively tendered services; a shift away from an emphasis on development and investment toward cost-cutting; allowing public managers greater ”freedom to manage” according to private sector corporate practice; and a shift away from classic command-andcontrol regulation toward self-regulation.
Particularly for the past twenty years, there has been extensive dissatisfaction with the performance of public bureaucratic organizations and the civil service systems that fuel them. Public service given to the society during recent decades is still little and low in quality, unneutral, unprofessional, needs much time and this is also experienced by many countries. That is true whether one speaks of the elite administrative cadre that defines the identity of the French civil service, the unrepresentative and bloated Italian service, the failure of the civil service systems in Africa and elsewhere to provide personal necessary for nation building and economic development, or the genuine and long term dissatisfaction with government performance that preceded reforms in the United States, The United Kingdom, Australia, and New Zealand (Bekke, 1996:250). The reformation of the public service through the application of the NPM principle is aimed to pose the public as the objective of the process of giving service to the public and give priority for the quality of service, neutrally, quickly and cheaply. This changing of the NPM paradigm has been done by many countries in the world as explained by Boyle (Boyle,1995, 30-31) when he said that Public sector reform has been on the agenda of many OECD countries over the last decade. By core themes there are: service delivery and client satisfaction, budgeting for results, people as a key resource, information technology to support administrative modernization, managing the regulatory process and monitoring progress and evaluating results. Following in this trend, Indonesia is one of the developing countries to adopt this thought in managing its government at the end of 20th century, when the reformation era began in 1997. 3.
The emerging of one stop service (OSS) policy in Indonesia
In a time when many politicians and citizens demand smaller, leaner, faster, more flexible, and more responsive public organizations, civil service systems have been targets of reform on many levels mainly in the globalization era where
the access for information is unlimited, the level of societies need getting variation and more than before. Government as the servant of the public must able to give the service and able to follow the pattern and the development of the society‟. As stated by Osborne (Osborne and Gaebler, 1992,15)”Today‟s environment demands institutions that are extremely flexible and adaptable. It demands institutions that deliver high-quality goods and services, squeezing ever more bang out of every buck.” This statement signalized to the government as the institution whose main duty it was to organize the life of it‟s nation and country must change its paradigm and organize mechanisms in a governmental system to be a better one, since for this long time this country has not given a good services to the public. It can be proved by the slow and ungainly bureaucracy and public services system Indonesian had before. Now, in the globalization era, the government demands to be more responsive by responding to the needs of the public and giving chance to the public to know the mechanism applied by the government in organizing the country.
As a country which has bad experience in the performance of bureaucracy and public services under the Soeharto regime for about 32 years, Indonesian government is continously giving more attention to solve the problem of public services. As the further action of the government commitment after issuing the decentralization policy, in 2003 through the Minister of Minister of Machinery of the State Number 63/KEP.M.PAN/7/2003 about the General Guidance of Public Services Implementation, following by the Regulation of Minister of Domestic Affairs Number 24 The Year 2006 about the General Guidance of One Stop Services (OSS) as the proof of government commitment to reform public services in Indonesia. Both of these national policy is the basic law for Indonesian government to reform public services in Indonesia. The regulation of Minister of Domestic Affairs in 2006 issued the regulation about One Stop Services is in line with the spirit of New Public Management (NPM). Generally, the NPM approach by Osborne and Gaebler requires a public
bureaucracy which has the criteria of Good Governance and Enterpreneurial Government and have the abilities to support the competition on accountability, responsive toward the changing, transparent, above the law, support the participation from the user of services, give priority to quality, effectiveness and efficiency, considering the justice for all the public and developing the orientation to the values of implementing Enterpreneurial Government itself. The coming of this policy is one of the Indonesian Government effort to reform the implementation of public services done by government apparatus in all sectors. The aims of the Minister of Domestics Affairs regulation about the guidance of implementing One Stop Service as found in the regulation is “meningkatkan kualitas layanan public, meningkatkan akses kepada masyarakat untuk memperoleh pelayanan public”.( to increase the public access to get the better public services). The target of of one stop services is “terwujud pelayanan public cepat, murah, mudah, transparan pasti dan terjangkau serta meningkatkan hakhak masyarakat terhadap pelayanan public”(to create a fast, easy, cheap, transparent, and reachable public service and increase the the right of society to get the services). This is appropriate with the spirit of managerial. By using this managerial approach the spirit of enterpreneurship can grow up in the government sector.This is important to be done since the main duty of government is giving services to the public. This concept is explained in management theory which base something on Reinventing Government paradigm. The role of managerial is important in reforming the works of government mainly in public management as explained by Boyle (Boyle, 1995, 13) that: “One recent major overview of managerial reform in the public sector suggest that, along with public choice theory, the development of „managerialist‟ school of thought is one of the major influences on the design of governance and management in public service”. Besides, the managerial approach also emphasize to attainment of effectivity and efficiency in organizing the government, both in attainmening the organization mission and fulfilling the need of societies. As found in (Boyle, 1995, 13) that The aim is to improve efficiency
and productivity and to enhance effectiveness by paying more attention to an organization‟s mission, personal and customer. This is a national policy which must be implemented by every local government in their area. In the Decision of Minister of Machinery of the State, each unit of government institution must arrange the Standard of Services based on their duty and authority and must publish or announc it to the public as the guarantee to get better services. Standard of services is the measurement of the quality of the works that must be followed by the given of services. 4.
OSS implemented the Neutrality of civil servants and
service for
public Standing on one side or on the other giving the services to the public is the classic problem still in debate until now. The dilemma is that civil servants often face a conflict between being politically responsive and professionally responsible Almond and Powell (cited in Bekke, 1996:137). The prevailing view in most countries is that civil servants should be politically neutral Gordon (cited in Bekke, 1996:137). Yet civil service systems are part of government, and government is by definition a political enterprise. The idea that civil servants should be politically neutral is antithetical to the view that they have a political role to play, but it is highly consistent with conventional wisdom about how civil servants should go about carrying out their responsibilities. The view that civil servants should be politically neutral, that is, they should not be involved in the political process, is recognized as the ideal code of behavior in virtually all modern political systems Heady (cited in Bekke, 1996:143). Nevertheless, it is very difficult to identify and separate both of them, which one is political activity and which is administrative or management activity. As stated by Bekke (Bekke, 1996: 142) “it is virtually impossible to be a successful high-level public servant in any society without being affected by politics in some way. Even though most countries provide ways to monitor and
control the political behavior of civil servants, distinguishing between appropriate and inappropriate behavior can be a difficult task”. The difficulty in deffirentiating between political activity and non-political activity can also give the effect toward the given of public services. Bureaucrats or civil servant tends to take sides as to where their interests are, in that providing neutral services cannot be applied, if not impossible.. More so, this condition brings about bad effect like the growth of Corruption, Collution and Nepotism. Nevertheless, in order to better the works of bureaucrats in giving excellent services to the public, the government must able to find the better solution both in policy level and operational level. There is clearly a gap between what is ideally expected of civil servants in terms of their political behavior and what appears to occur operationally in most places around the world. It is these gaps that represent the dilemma civil servants face in many countries. Most societies do, however, manage to resolve this dilemma operationally Newland (cited in Bekke, 1996:143). The policy of One Stop Service was introduced to solve the biased problem of civil servants and preventing the practice of corruption, collusion and nepotism. 4.1
The OSS procedure
One Stop Service procedure offers a simple service, which is quick, transparent, cost effective and neutral. It can be seen from the mechanism of giving services which placed all service providers who have authority to give the licence letter in one place (service point). As stated by Wibawa (Wibawa,2007:16) “Pelayanan satu pintu ini disamping dapat meningkatkan pelayanan secara kualitas juga dapat meningkatkan pelayanan secara kuantitas”. (Besides to increase the quality of services, One Stop Service can also increase the quantity of services). The regulation of Minister of Domestic Affairs about one stop service in 2006 trying to gain the principles of the concept of excellence service in the NPM paradigm frame. It means by creating the mechanism of one stop service can make the apparatus work efficiently, fluidly, reachablely, transparently and
neutrally toward service delivery.
Chart of One Stop Service (OSS) procedure at Solok regency on West Sumatera Province in Indonesia. (Wibawa.F, 2007:16) Citizen
Customer service
Customers
Service Counter OSS Manager (archives)
OSS Manager (Data) Director
Service
Service
Service
Service
provider
provider
provider
provider
The mechanism and procedure above shows that OSS systems are more simple, quick and effective. The people just need to come to one office only by carrying with them all requirements which they have been informed of, then put in the file to the counter and wait until it is finished according to the time required for each matter. All information must have been informed to the public through brochure, pamphlet, or announcement in the OSS offices. This transparency of information about the service procedure will prevent the violations of the regulation by the servant or society in doing and having the service. Through the mechanism of OSS each civil servant who is assigned to do the job must give services according to the procedure which is available and
must be able to give the service to the public fairly. By means all participants or society must be serviced based on the procedure determined. Related to the neutrality of the civil servant in giving the services, there is a basic thing which needs to be followed, the transparency of the service‟s procedure in general. The transparency of information about the procedure of service must be informed largely to the society, the document required, the length of time, and the cost of the administration. This information is very important to control the works of the works of public service. By knowing the information, the public will know whether the servant walks in line or not. The public can complain whenever the civil servant does not give the service based on the procedure determined. This view is appropriate with the paradigm of reinventing government, in which beside the human resources problem, the system is also needed to be a reform to create a good service bureaucracy. As stated by Sutopo (Sutopo and Adi Suryanto,2003:64)
that
“Pendekatan
Reinventing
Government
menganggap bahwa permasalahan berdasar dari kualitas pelayanan pemerintah tidak saja terletak pada keberadaan sumber daya manusia, tetapi juga berada pada sistem yang bekerja atau yang menggerakkan mekanisme
kerja
pemerintah”.
(Reinventing
government
approach
considers that the problem comes from the quality of service, not only the problem in human resources but also in the system which works or motivates the government works mencahism). This statement state s clearly that system takes an important role in creating the qualified and neutral service for public. 4.2
The OSS recruitment system
By having one stop service, it is hoped to solve the problem of biased civil servants and prevent the practice of corruption, collusion and nepotism in the civil service. Though the system is decentralized, the services have been centralized at one particular section or a department within the ministry or the local government to reduce the bureaucracy and also professionally organizing
the “one stop service” in order to reduce or even wipe out the opportunity to violate the rules by civil servants in giving services to the public. The renewed system or structure in giving the services to the public must be supported by the good human resources management, this means, how to manage the process of recruitment, and how the control and evaluation applied in that institution cab guarantee the neutralizing of the servant to give the services to the public.
Hummel, (cited in Bekke, 1996:143) said that most modern political systems have taken this view as a license to attempt to isolate or insulate their civil servants from politics of any kind. The normal approach is to appoint civil servants on “their merits” based on competitive, ostensibly nonpolitical exams. Based on this opinion, one thing that is a very important thing to take note of, is in order to prevent the action of being one sided: begin from the recruitment system. Recruitment according to Witt and Patton (Cited in Tom Liou: 2001:191): recruitment entails the challenges of diversifying the work force and attracting highly qualified candidates for positions. A positive public image and word of mouth can help to create a favorable impression of public service and improve the applicant pool. The challenges of selection lies in making sure that selection criteria is job related and consistently applied, then identifying those applicants who are qualified for the position. A recruitment system for civil servants who will be placed in services units must be done transparently and accountably like what has been done in Indonesia. Recruitment is done in Indonesia upon the specific criteria as stated above by Wiit
and
Pottin.
According
to
Tjokrowinoto
(Cited
in
Hessel
2005.225)“profesionalisme adalah kecocokan antara kemampuan yang dimiliki oleh birokrasi dengan kebutuhan tugas”. (A professional is the compatibility between the competency owned by the bureaucracy and the needs of duty). Meanwhile according to Siagian in the same book that professionalism is the ability to finish each job with high quality, in the proper time, accurate and having an easy procedural to be understood by the public. From the explanation above it
can be concluded that professionalism is the compatibility between the competencey and skill owned by someone in anticipating all the changes including the ability to respond to public aspiration and being innovative which creates easy and simple work. Having good competency, good attitudes, good motivation, high iniciative in responding to the problems from the public when giving services. It is stated explicitly in the regulation by the Minister of Domestic Affairs no 24 in 2006 that “pegawai yang ditugaskan dalam PPTSP 1 diutamakan yang memiliki kompetensi dibidangnya” (the civil servant placed in in PPTSP must be the one who has good competency in his/her field). By choosing the civil servant based on the criterias above, hope that they can give better services to the public, not by taking one side, and taking professionallism into account. This has been experienced by Solok Regency (one of regency in Indonesia) which applied one stop service in 2007. They did the recruitment for the civil servant which is placed in one stop service professionally, neutrally, transparently and accountablly. The mission of this one stop service is to give excellent service to the public, having high intelegency, good personality, be polite and responsive. This recruitment is done by an independent and transparent institution formed by local government (executive and legislative). So that this institution can do their job without any intervention from other parties. A transparent recruitment system will create a professional civil servant body, competence and is able to give better service and neutrality. Basicly, giving services to the public is the responsibility of every government apparatus ( the leader and the worker) who works in the organization begins from the apparatus in the front office ( the servant to directly meet the public), until the servant in the back office (the servant whose job is in the back line in one office). (Mahmudi, 2005:52) if each servant in the organization does their job professionally, highly motivated and gives good contribution to the organization, it‟s believed that the excellent services can be implemented in one organization. So that the works of an organization is the reflection of the servants who run that 1
PPTSP means One Stop Service Delivery Mechanism.
organization. For that reason, the recruitment process of apparatus in government is the important point that is needed to be renewed in order to reform the works of local government officials in implementing neutral services through one stop services.
4.3
The OSS control mechanism
Another thing that can be done besides accountability and transparently to keep the neutrality of the civil servant in giving services to the public is the control mechanism. The experience of many countries showed the importance of a mechanism control by public toward the public service given by the government. In India for example, there is an award for the services given by government known as Citizen‟s Charter, In Belgium it is known as Public Service User Charter, in Malaysia it is called Client Charter and in Australia the award called as Service Charter. (Wibawa:2007:2). Principally, the award is given by society to the government in the form of the society‟s participation in mechanism control given by the government. The basic value of giving this award is related to the quality of service, standard, accountability, transparency and neutrality of service given by government. In Indonesia, the mechanism control toward public service took an important part mainly to keep the neutrality of service. In one stop service system, there are two control mechanisms that can be applied to the one stop service unit. First is internal control mechanisms done by internal organization of local government. As explained in the decision of Minister of Domestic Affairs “Pengawasan terhadap proses penyelenggaraan pelayanan terpadu satu pintu dilakukan oleh aparat pengawas intern pemerintah sesuai dengan fungsi dan kewenangannya.” (The control toward the process on the implementation of one stop service done by internal apparatus of government based on their function and authority). The control above the implementation of one stop service done gradually and continually, done by Minister of Domestic Affairs and the leader of local
government based on the level of government affair through coordination mechanism, intergration, and sincronization. Second is the control from external government and society or public. This thing also regulated in those decision as “Pengawasan Masyarakat adalah kontrol sosial yang dilakukan oleh masyarakat terhadap kinerja Unit Pelayanan Satu Pintu sesuai peraturan perundangundangan” (Societies‟ control toward the government is a social control done by sociaty toward the unit of one stop service based on the rule of legislation). The public can directly control toward the implementation of one stop service based on the mechanism made by the government. Controlling is one of the management function to guarantee the implementation of the activities based on the policy and planning that has been made and assure that the aim of the works can be reached effectively. In this case, the public are prosecuted actively in controlling the performance of government bureaucracy mainly in giving services to the public neutrally and professionally. As stated by Bekke (Bekke, 1996:167) “we have argued that there are various ways by which citizen can influence or effect decisions made by civil servants at different levels. The types of influence may be classified as follows: (i) political action, (ii) participatory behavior, and (iii) the invoking of grievance procedures”. The public can complain if there are some violations done by the servants in the process of giving services based on this mechanism control. For example, complaint mechanisms and controlling towards public services given by local government in Solok Regency through post office box no 2004 which have been done since 2004. The aim of this facility is to prepare the channel of public complaint and also as one of the forms of mechanism control by the public toward the public services and the responsibility of the government. (Wibawa, 2007:21). Solok Government formed a task force which is specially ordered to handle the complaint from the public. This task force also completed by the procedure to solve the complaint from the public quickly and efficiently. By the availability of that facility and the clear procedure of complaints that can support the public to play their role as the controller in controlling the process of government bureaucracy in giving public services.
5.
Conclusion
Government needs to change the paradigm in order to reform the works of bureaucracy service to become more transparent, neutral, and accountable in giving service to the public. New Public Management is the effective stategy in answering this problem of bureaucracy, mainly the problem of giving services to the public.
Civil servants who work to serve the public must be neutral and fair. The servants must give equal treatment to each people without giving any priority to one party. The discrimination done by the servant can create the corruption, collution and nepotiam, both in civil servants and/or in society.
An accountable, transparent and centralistic systems are needed to prevent the case of discrimination in giving services. OSS is the solution in solving these problems where this system is very transparent and acoountable in giving the process of service to the public. The public know exactly the procedure of service, like time, cost, requirements and so on. This will prevent the divergence and discrimination in the process of giving services to the public. OSS also has a transparent recruitment system.
Doing the recruitment through the special independent corporation will produce the professional servant. Then, the neutrality of civil servants can be done through the control mechanism which is done by the government and the public itself. By regulating the mechanism control in OSS system it will allow the public to able to take part directly in watching the works of government in giving service.
References 1. Bekke, Hans A.G.M, Perry, James.L, & Theo A.J. Toonen 1996, Civil Service Systems: In Comparative Perspective, Indiana University Press. 2. Boyle, Richard, 1995, Toward a New Public Service, Institute of Public Administration, Ireland. 3. Denhardt, Janet Vinzant & Robert, B, Denhardt, 2002, The New Public Service: Serving not Steering, M. E, Sharpe.Armonk, New York London, England. 4. Hood, C,1991, A Public Management for all Seasons?Public Administration, 69(1),3-19. 5. Lynn, Jr, Laurence E, 2006, Public Management: Old and New, Routledge.New York and London.
6. Mahmudi, 2005, Manajemen Kinerja Sektor Publik, Jogjakarta: UPP AMP YKPN. 7. Osborne, David dan Ted Gaebler, Mewirahusakan Birokrasi, Terjemahan Abdul Rasyid Ramelan, Jakarta: Pustaka Binaan Pressindo, 1995. 8. Osborne, David and Ted Gaebler, 1992, Reinventing Government: How the Entrepreneurial Spirit is Transforming the Public Sector, A Plume Book, New York. 9. Sutopo & Suryanto Adi. 2003. Pelayanan Prima; Bahan Ajar Diklat Prajabatan Golongan III. Jakarta : Lembaga Administrasi Negara. 10. T. Hessel, Noggi. 2005. Manajemen Publik. Jakarta: Grasindo 11. Tom Liou, Kuotsai, 2001, HandBook of Public Management Practice and Reform, Marcel Dekker, New York. 12. Wibawa, Fahmi, 2007, Panduan Praktis Perizinan Usaha Terpadu, Grasindo, Jakarta Documents 1. Minister Dicision of State Apparatus Utilization Number 63/KEP.M.PAN/7/2003 about the General Guidance of Public Services Implementation. 2. Minister Regulation of Domestic Affairs Number 24 the Year 2006 about the General Guidance of One Stop Services.
