by: Lukman Oesman and Annisa Sekaringrat

Apr 16, 2021

The third Indonesian Scholars Forum (ISF) Politics and Law Monthly Forum was successfully held on Sunday, 16 April 2021. Lukman Oesman, a student of MPA on Innovation, Public Policy, and Public Value at UCL, led the discussion on “Understanding the Complexity of Government’s Digital Transformation in Indonesia: Can Digital Government Solve Our Problems?”. The discussion was substantially insightful and rich, with various opinions raised by the attendees.

The session was opened by a brief highlight on the theoretical background of digital government and the misconception surrounding its implementation in Indonesia. Lukman highlighted how digital government, contrary to the common understanding, is a new form of governance rather than as merely a tool. In this regard, the rising of digital government can be seen as a continuation or evaluation of the previous governance or public administration paradigm that include the Weberian perspective and the New Public Management. Three key attributes to the digital government included the need to reintegrate the public sector structures, focus on the user perspective, and the complete adaptation of the digital business process in government.

The session was continued by a discussion with the participants on their thought on how the implementation has been done in Indonesia. Different perspectives were offered by the participants where some argued that the ideas of digital government are not compatible with Indonesia’s situation, and some highlighted how the government capability issues in its administrative and public service delivery had caused the fragmented implementation of digital government. Comparison with successful implementation in the United Kingdom through the Government Digital Services was also mentioned in the discussion to support this perspective.

 

The latter perspective was later agreed by Lukman that highlighted the fragmented and often overlapping digital government implementation across the government institution has caused inefficient spending in the digital technology procurement in the Government. Lukman pointed out the data from the Dewan TIK Nasional (National ICT Council) that suggested how more than 65% of digital government applications are generic application that could easily be integrated. Lukman also highlighted how poor data governance and poor user interface of the government digital platform has made the implementation become more complicated.

Based on this data, Lukman highlighted that the full implementation of digital government would require not just the development of digital platform but also requires changes in the overall government business process. Further to this, it was also highlighted the need for the government to revisit its current talent strategy in order to invite more digital talent to work in the government, in particular, to allow the government to quickly fill the demand for specific digital skills within the government institutions.

 

In response, the participant also critically discussed a number of points which include the need for clear indicators in the digital government transformation process and also the disparity in digital awareness and capability among Indonesian. The discussion also discussed a number of key existing initiatives that can be seen as best practice of digital government implementation.