Part 2 of 2: Strategies for RI civil service reform

Part 2 of 2: Strategies for RI civil service reform

Staffan Synnerstrom, Jakarta

In a professional civil service the various kinds of civil
servants cannot and should not be managed under one single
scheme, "one size fits all", especially not in a decentralized
environment. In most civil services, civil servants are managed
within civil service corps, for example one corps for accountants
and auditors, one for prosecutors, one for academic university
staff and one for health workers, etc. In Indonesia such corps
could be established, having their own professional standards for
qualification and performance developed by the respective line
ministry in cooperation with relevant professional associations.

The employer, whether it is a central agency, a university or
a regional government, should be responsible for recruitment and
management of their own civil servants within the general policy
and legal framework given by the central civil service agency and
in accordance with the professional standards for selection and
performance defined for the respective corps.

In a new civil service environment, the system for training
would have to be fundamentally changed and the current structural
training discontinued. Structural training was never to develop
managerial or technical skills in order to improve performance
and efficiency. Attendance is, however, a mandatory requirement
for becoming eligible for promotion.

Training should instead be geared towards acquiring technical
and managerial skills. To reform the training system two more
things need to be introduced. One is that training should be
demand-driven and related to the needs of the position. The other
is that the market for training of civil servants needs to be
opened up to allow for private training providers, leading to a
situation where the state training centers (diklats), would have
to compete with each other as well as with institutions outside
the civil service.

Of course, key to comprehensive civil service reform is reform
of the budget process. Indonesian public institutions have
generally larger expenditure obligations than the received
budgets cover and they finance a significant proportion of their
operations from revenues that are not registered in the budget.
Off-budget funds are raised to cover legitimate expenses, such as
expenses for electricity, transport, telephones and other
necessary equipment, but also for illicit purposes. Bribes,
solicited by civil servants often go into office "kitties" and
not necessarily into the particular individuals' pocket. This
ensures that corruption is systemic -- participated in by all in
the "pyramid" -- and thus difficult to expose and eradicate.

Aggravating this, basic salaries are considered low by the
civil servants themselves and many do not perceive that they are
paid a basic salary to do their job, but rather to "show up".
Every action to be taken requires additional payment. However,
many civil servants are provided free housing, free transport to
the office, and free healthcare for their families, which are
costs that private employees have to cover with their net
salaries.

The practice of using a range of additional allowances makes
remuneration non-transparent. The current incentive structure is
not suitable for a professional civil service operating under the
law as it makes civil servants opt for assignments that will mean
additional money rather than attending to their basic job. It
also further encourages civil servants to extort money from
members of the public as well as from other government
institutions to do what is formally their legal duty to do.

In a professional civil service, a mix of job-related criteria
and individual-related criteria determines salaries. The first
are linked to the job, such as responsibilities and complexity of
the job. The second kind of criteria are linked to the specifics
of the incumbent of a position, such as experience and
performance. Finally, there needs to be transparency in how
salaries are determined and salary increases distributed. The
current plethora of additional allowances in the Indonesian civil
service needs to be cleaned-up to increase transparency and
provide for more accountability.

Civil service reform will require time and a gradual approach
meaning that during a period of transition we may work in a
situation where some civil servants and agencies continue to be
subject to the old scheme while others come under new schemes.
Successful civil service reform needs also to include how
organizations are structured and how funds and staff resources
are allocated and it cannot be based only on legislation.

Although Indonesia, as a transitional country, needs broader
public administration reform, civil service reform should be a
first priority. The quality of the workforce and the way it
performs is key to improved governance and service delivery.
Without addressing the current institutional and systemic
deficiencies in the Indonesian civil service system, other
reforms, including recent anticorruption initiatives, will not
make any significant progress.

Staffan Synnerstrom is Governance Advisor at ADB's Indonesia
Resident Mission in Jakarta. He is the editor and co-author of
the Country Governance Assessment Report Indonesia (ADB, 2004).
The views presented in this article are his personal views.
He can be reached on ssynnerstrom@adb.org.