Sumber Gambar: westjavatoday.com

Vice President (Vice President) of the Republic of Indonesia, Gibran Rakabuming Raka, recently launched a complaint channel ‘LAPOR Mas Wapres’ to open space for the public to submit public service complaints. This seemingly simple step raises a fundamental question: is this a new innovation or is it a sign of the impotence of the public complaints system that has been built so far?

The Indonesian government has actually accommodated public complaints related to public services. In Presidential Regulation (Perpres) number 76 of 2013 concerning the National Public Service Complaint Management System (SP4N) ensures that the management of integrated public service complaints must be easily accessible and effective in order to provide concrete solutions to complaints submitted by the public. In its implementation, SP4N is realized in the form of aspiration service channels and online complaints of the people (LAPOR!).

Public service is a manifestation of the presence of the state to its people. Public service complaints channels should be accessible and perceived as closely as possible by the public. Therefore, in addition to the website form, report! also present in the form of applications and SMS, designed to be easily accessible to the public.

In line with technological developments, Presidential Regulation No. 95 of 2018 concerning electronic-based government systems (SPBE) establishes LAPOR! as a sharing application for public service complaints. This regulation requires all government agencies, both central and regional, to integrate their complaint channels into the report!, creating one unified complaint gateway to improve coordination between agencies. Right now, report! it has been connected with various ministries, institutions, and local governments.

Report! it is an important initiative that is the foundation of the complaints system to improve public services. This Platform has gaine recognition of the Open Government Partnership (OGP) as one of the innovations in public service complaints initiated by the Government of Indonesia. The recognition confirms the government’s commitment to implement transparency, public participation, and accountability in implementing governance. Presence report! it also supports OGP strategies that encourage the use of technology in strengthening more open and participatory governance..

However, the utilization of this canal tends to be low. Until 2024, report! have received a total of 2,1 million complaints since first launched in 2018. The average completion rate also varies in different regions. When compared to Indonesia’s estimated population of around 277 million people in 2024, only about 0.76% of the population uses the SP4N channel-LAPOR!. This number also needs to be tested again with the level of affordability of technology and communication infrastructure in Indonesia.

There is still a lot of homework in the management of complaints system

The presence of LAPOR Mas Vice President was not something urgent because of the LAPOR channel! existing ones still have systemic problems and overlapping complaint mechanisms. One of the main problems kanal report! it is the complexity of bureaucracy in managing complaints, for example in coordinating across government agencies and between existing complaint channels with LAPOR!.

Channel report! often slow to respond to complaints because there is still a lack of integration between government agencies. Report! as the main entrance for complaints, it is often difficult to coordinate with related agencies to continue incoming complaints. Not to mention considering that in many agencies there are complaint channels that previously existed and were previously known to the public but have not been fully integrated into the report system!.

The integration of the complaint system is often hampered by the lack of commitment of agency leaders who often choose to maintain existing complaint channels. This also has an impact on the lack of socialization of the report! in various regions. As a result, people are more familiar with local complaint channels than LAPOR! as a national channel. In addition, the mutation of positions in government agencies often leads to a change of admin report!, so the new admin must learn the system from scratch. This process is not only time consuming, but also reduces the effectiveness of complaint management.

In addition, the most basic thing is the uneven infrastructure of communication technology and technologically literate human resources in Indonesia. Based on data Badan Pusat Statistik (BPS), as of 2023, the percentage of the Indonesian population aged 5 years and over who have accessed the internet is only 69.21%. The Internet is also still more accessible in urban areas than in rural areas. While the percentage of households that have a mobile phone as of 2023 reached 67.29%. There is still a gap in the mastery of Technology Access in Indonesia.

The Need For Reform Of The Criminal Justice System

Instead of initiating a new complaint channel, the Vice President should move in the strategic realm to reform the existing complaint system. This step will be more concrete and sustainable for the improvement of public services in Indonesia.

The vice president can issue a policy that requires all government agencies to provide an initial response to any complaint for a maximum of 24 hours and integrate all internal complaint systems into the report Channel! so that people are not confused about choosing a complaint channel. So far, the internal complaint channel has been encouraged to be integrated into the report!, but often constrained by the commitment of leaders of Related Agencies. There needs to be a sanction mechanism for agencies that are slow to follow up complaints and reluctant to be integrated into the report!.

The vice president can also control the complaint process by utilizing technology through a real-time dashboard that displays data on the number of complaints received, handled, and unresolved. In addition, the dashboard can also display statistics on the settlement time of complaints per agency so that it is more transparent and the public can find out which government agencies have good performance in responding to complaints. It is also necessary to display which categories of problems arise most often in order to see the existing patterns. These things are not yet in the report application! right now.

In reforming the complaints system, the Vice President needs to initiate the formation and coordination of a complaint Acceleration Team consisting at least of ministries/institutions to oversee the process of handling public complaints. This team can be tasked with combing public complaints that are crucial and have a wide impact, coordinating related institutions to resolve complaints more quickly, reporting on the progress of Public Complaint management regularly and openly to the vice president and the community. This team can also serve as a mediator when there is a conflict of authority between agencies.

The vice president can orchestrate a campaign to educate the public on the importance of making public service complaints through LAPOR!. This campaign needs to include socialization on how to use LAPOR! and tell the success story of a complaint that was successfully followed up in order to gain public trust.

From symbol to solution

The Vice President said it risked becoming a mere theatrical action without long-term impact. As the holder of the second highest position, the vice president should move in the systemic realm that responds to the problems of the existing complaint system. Symbols are not enough, but there needs to be a strong commitment to reform the management of complaints to be more concrete so that they can be managed systematically and transparently, not just a new channel that raises the vice president’s symbol to give the impression of being popular and looking to work.

Vice President steps to optimize performance report! by clearing synergies between government agencies, strengthening the commitment of agency leaders, and equalizing telecommunications infrastructure and human resources in Indonesia is more necessary and can be a real solution that is sustainable and more impactful.***

Author: Jihan Dzahabiyyah (Communication Assistant PATTIRO)