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The arduous journey of bureaucratic reform in Indonesia
A successful bureaucratic reform is a sort of significant improvement that is able to match individual and community needs.
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Delivering public service is indeed one part of smart city development, yet there is a broader part of development that needs more attention, especially from the government. Smart city is essentially the revelation of smarter decision-making based on abundant data by leveraging technology. So, technology is the tool and not the end goal. (JP/Aman Rochman)
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he necessity of implementing bureaucratic reform in Indonesia obviously emerged in 1998, as part of the political-system reform following the fall of Soeharto’s regime. Theoretically speaking, this necessity is appropriate since a condition of a successful political system reform from authoritarian to democratic is also determined by the existence of a usable bureaucracy (Linz and Stepan, 1998).
Only a usable bureaucracy can implement the public policies of a democratic government in order to meet the needs of the individuals and community. This is of vital concern, crucial because the final goal of every government whatever its form is to create the common good. The success or the failure of the democratization in certain countries including Indonesia is also determined by bureaucratic reform.
In general, scholars in public administration or management agree that the main purpose of implementing bureaucratic reform is for the sake of fulfilling the public's needs. The lesson we can take from many democratic countries that conducted bureaucratic reform in the 1980s is that successful bureaucratic reform is a significant improvement that is able to match individual and community needs.
The Weberian bureaucratic model (WBM) that has been implemented since the 1920s by developed countries was found to be less useful. In this model, what governments do in meeting the demands and the needs of the citizens is too little, too late. The WBM tends to occupy itself with its own internal activities while becoming insensitive to the public’s needs and issues. In essence this bureaucratic model is only input-oriented.
Thus, advanced countries changed this hierarchical model to one that is flat, which is more in accordance with democratic values and at the same time can meet the public’s real needs. According to Patrick and Gaebler in their quite famous book, Reinventing Government (1992), New Zealand is the most successful country that implemented “reinventing government” or new public management (NPM). The United States, Canada, the United Kingdom and the Netherlands and were also successful in conducting NPM.
The transformation of bureaucratic reform from WBM to NPM is marked by application of delayering and decentralization principles. Through delayering, the hierarchal layers in WBM are all cut except the very top layer -- for example, head of agency or chief executive. This means the governments can save on their routine budget that before bureaucratic reform was used to pay so many structural officials. So, there is a staggering amount of money that the government can save for public spending such as building hospitals, schools, roads, dams and parks.
In Indonesia, both national and local governments implemented the principle of delayering. Echelon V, IV and III positions were banished. The central government applied this delayering approximately four years ago. Local governments all across the country implemented this delayering on Dec. 31, 2021. The outcome of this policy is, however, not sufficient in fulfilling the needs of individuals and communities. Why that is, let us see.
