Public Service Data (ID0094)

January 2019 - December 2020
Commitment Description
Lead implementing
agency/actor
1. Ministry of Finance
2. Ministry of Home Affairs
This commitment is an expansion of the previous
Action Plan 2016-2017 about the enhancement of
information disclosure in the government budget. The
government budget available in the Ministry of Finance
website (http://www.data-apbn.kemenkeu.go.id/). The
website provides budget map, data spending of the
government in national level. Furthermore, it also
presents a thematic budget allocation that includes the
item budget for government activities. However, the
public has difficulty to access the data because some
data are not accessible in the portal. It happened
because each ministry has the policy of budget
information disclosure differently. Therefore, sustaining
ministries commitments to publish the budget data is
needed. Through this commitment, the Ministry of
Finance requires support from the other ministry to
publish the budget, especially in education, health and
poverty eradication sector.
The innovation in data transparency is being expected
to be replicated by local governments. Accordingly, this
commitment also encourages the establishment of the
Local Government Budget platform. Thus, all of the
local government budget data will integrate into one
portal managed by the Ministry of Home Affairs.
Moreover, the budget transparency in national and
regional level can be easily accessed by people
through the portal of the Ministry of Finance and
Ministry of Home Affairs using the equivalent quality
and standard for publication purpose. Consequently,
the monitoring function performed by people can be
well-implemented.
What is the public problem that
the commitment will address?
This commitment encourages related ministries and
institutions to publish budget data using the standard
of State Budget (APBN) Portal managed by Ministry of
Finance. In order to get all ministries to declare their
budget data, it is strongly recommended to sign
Memorandum of Understanding between Ministry of
Finance, Ministry of Education and Culture, Ministry of
Health and Ministry of Social Service.
Furthermore, this commitment encourages the Ministry
of Home Affairs to develop a website. It accommodates centralized Regional Budget (APBD) database. This
APBD Portal is different from the APBN Portal since
both are managed by two different authorities.
Standardized budget transparency both in APBN and
APBD portal which cover detail activities could solve
the problem on the data quality that will be published.
As for regional governments, this commitment requires
the Ministry of Home Affairs to encourage local
governments in publishing the budget through a
centralized and integrated electronic system
(E-budgeting). Furthermore, E-budgeting will promote
the implementation of the integrated budget system in
34 provinces.
How will the commitment
contribute to solve the public
problem?
The commitment is being aligned with some of Open
Government Partnership (OGP) values, transparency,
and accountability. Transparency is associate to public
information and accesses the information. It is
manifest in improving the quality of ministries and
institutions budget transparency in the national and
local level. Whereas accountability is correlating with
responsibility for government action through the
publication of government budget openly.
Why is this commitment relevant
to OGP values?
Additional information
Milestone Activity with a verifiable
deliverable
Start Date: End Date:
1. The availability of memorandum
of understanding on budget
publication for education, health,
and poverty eradication among
Ministry of Finance; Ministry of
Education and Culture; and
Ministry of Social Service
January 2019 December 2019
2.Publication of budget information
for education, health, and poverty
eradication up to the activity cost in
national budget data portal
January 2020 December 2020
State Budget
17 Indonesia Open Government Partnership National Action Plan 2018-2020
The commitment is also aligned with achievement
effort of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)
Number 16: “promote peaceful and inclusive
societies for sustainable development, provide
access to justice for all and build effective,
accountable, and inclusive institutions at all levels.”
Especially in the 16.6 target: “develop effective,
accountable, and transparent institutions at all
levels. Regional Budget
3. The forming of local budget data
portal (E-Budgeting) built by
Ministry of Home Affairs
January 2019 December 2019
4. The availability of budget data
from 34 provinces in E-Budgeting
portal
January 2020 December 2020
Contact information
Other Actors
Involved
State actors
involved
1. Ministry of Education and Culture
2. Ministry of Health
3. Ministry of Social Service
CSOs, private
sector, multilaterals,
working groups
Indonesia National Forum on Budget Transparency
(FITRA)

3. Increasing the Access and Quality of Data Disclosures for Education, Health, Poverty Eradication Budget in Related Ministries/Institutions and All Regional Governments

Language of the commitment as it appears in the action plan:

This commitment encourages related ministries and institutions to publish budget data using the standard of State Budget (APBN) Portal managed by Ministry of Finance. In order to get all ministries to declare their budget data, it is strongly recommended to sign Memorandum of Understanding between Ministry of Finance, Ministry of Education and Culture, Ministry of Health and Ministry of Social Affairs.

Furthermore, this commitment encourages the Ministry of Home Affairs to develop a website. It accommodates centralized Regional Budget (APBD) database. This APBD Portal is different from the APBN Portal since both are managed by two different authorities.

Milestones:

State Budget

1. The availability of memorandum of understanding on budget publication for education, health, and poverty eradication among Ministry of Finance; Ministry of Education and Culture; and Ministry of Social Affairs.
2. Publication of budget information for education, health, and poverty eradication up to the activity cost in national budget data portal.

Regional Budget

1. The forming of local budget data portal (E-Budgeting) built by Ministry of Home Affairs.
2. The availability of budget data from 34 provinces in E-Budgeting portal.

Start Date: January 2019                                                               End Date: December 2020

Context and Objectives

This commitment is a continuation from Indonesia’s fourth action plan. In the previous commitment, the government established data-apbn.kemenkeu.go.id, an online budget data portal. Through this portal, the Ministry of Finance publishes budget information from all ministries and public institutions, but not to the level of specificity that includes itemized costs of all activities.

Public information disclosure is mandated by Law No. 14/2008 on Information Disclosure. This law mandates that all public institutions funded by the state budget must disclose their budget information. However, it does not specify how the information must be disclosed. Consequently, different ministries have different policies in disclosing their budget information. ^[44] As a result, despite increased access to budget information through the budget data portal, citizens still face difficulties in accessing detailed, transparent information on the government’s budget.

To ensure continued commitment from the Ministry of Education and Culture, the Ministry of Health, as well as the Ministry of Social Affairs who are respectively responsible for education, health, and poverty alleviation programs, this commitment will produce a memorandum of understanding between these ministries with the Ministry of Finance at the national level. The Ministry of Home Affairs will be responsible for budget information at the subnational level. The Ministry will develop a budget data portal for the 34 provincial governments that is similar to the national one developed by the Ministry of Finance. By the end of the action plan cycle, implementation of this commitment will be verified by the publication of education, health, and poverty eradication budget information on the Ministry of Finance’s data-apbn.kemenkeu.go.id portal as well as a separate portal for local governments administered by the Ministry of Home Affairs.

According to a representative from the Indonesian Forum for Budget Transparency (FITRA), ^[45] this commitment could equip citizens with the necessary tools to reform how the government works in these three crucial sectors. However, it requires cooperation by the responsible ministries and local governments in disclosing their budget details. Specifically, FITRA hopes that the commitment will result in the government disclosing budget data that includes budget implementation checklist (DIPA) documents. ^[46] Access to DIPA, according to FITRA, would not only provide the budget allocated to a specific activity, but also information of how and where the government spends each itemized budget item. ^[47]

In this commitment, the government aims to increase the quality of budget disclosure in accordance with the level of specificity and standards set by the Ministry of Finance, specifically in the education, health, and poverty alleviation sectors. The focus on these three sectors is based on the fact that these three sectors represent a large percentage of the total government’s budget. Currently, citizens do not have access to detailed information on budget allocations. By the time citizens have the data, the budget is already passed and therefore there is no opportunity for citizens to demand changes to the budget. With increased transparency, citizens can scrutinize the state budget concurrently with the government.

For example, the government allocated 492.5 trillion rupiah or 20% for education of the total 2019 state budget. ^[48] Of this 492.5 trillion rupiah, only 7.3% (35.9 trillion) is actually managed by the Ministry of Education and Culture. ^[49] The Ministry of Religious Affairs receives the majority of funding at 10.5% (51.9 trillion), followed by the Ministry of Research and Higher Education at 8% (40.2 trillion). ^[50] The rest of the education budget  goes to a variety of other ministries in different sectors as well as local governments.

Similar inconsistency in budget allocation is also found in the health and poverty alleviation sectors. The government allocated 5% (123.1 trillion rupiah) for health in 2019. ^[51] This amount included the budget for the government’s premium assistance beneficiaries (PBI) program, which is also managed by the Ministry of Social Affairs. Meanwhile, according to Minister of Finance Sri Mulyani, budget allocation for the poverty alleviation program also increased to 381 trillion rupiah. ^[52] This amount included the budget allocated for the PBI social protection program, which is also budgeted for the Ministry of Health. Additionally, the poverty alleviation budget also included allocations for small-and-medium enterprise development (managed by the Ministry of Cooperative and Small-and-Medium Enterprises), land reforms (managed by the Ministry of Land and Spatial Planning), and forestry (managed by the Ministry of Environment and Forestry). ^[53]

One of the big challenges to this commitment comes in the form of inconsistent disclosure policy within the government. FITRA pointed at how each ministry has different interpretations between what types of information are public and therefore must be disclosed versus what types of information are privileged and can only be disclosed by filing an information request. ^[54] This policy inconsistency is particularly problematic in the government’s budget data disclosure.

In a broader scope, civil society and media often help to direct public attention to education, health, and poverty budget data. They help raise public awareness to discrepancies in this data and how the government allocates its budget for specific purposes and regions. While it is difficult to be certain of how citizens engage with this data in a meaningful way, civil society and media have been successful at generating public interest in government spending on education, health, and poverty eradication. For example, in 2017, the public scrutinized the Provincial Government of Jakarta after reports from media and civil society revealed the increased education budget for 2018 was allocated mostly for salary, building renovations, and office support as opposed to initiatives that would improve access to and the quality of education in the province. [55]

Discrepancies in data management within the government not only causes confusion among the public, but can lead to the government implementing ineffective policies and misallocating the state budget. FITRA noted that government institutions have stated that they have to spend a big portion of their budget to collect their own data. ^[56] However FITRA’s research shows data can instead be sourced from the BPS. This would increase efficiency and decrease the opportunity for corruption through budget misallocation and mismanagement due to invalid data used in making policies.

Next Steps

Considering the complexity of budget management within these three sectors, the government can use this commitment as a pilot project to improve budget disclosures. In future action plans, the government is recommended to aim to implement a clearer strategy to improve budget disclosures across all ministries and government institutions.

In implementing this commitment, the government could focus on the following steps:

• Encourage participation from other relevant ministries beyond the Ministry of Education and Culture, the Ministry of Health, and the Ministry of Social Affairs to ensure comprehensive budget disclosure in the education, health, and poverty alleviation sectors;
• Work closely with relevant CSOs to develop a clearer mechanism to ensure the budget data portals, managed by both the Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Home Affairs, adhere to the basic principles of budget transparency;
• Public participation could enhance budget monitoring. Opening a channel for public feedback on service delivery and project execution can complement budget information disclosed by the government on the budget data portals. This could be particularly helpful in sectors like education, health, public works, and infrastructure; and
• Develop a framework to harmonize budget management and disclosure policies across different ministries, government agencies, and local governments.

[44] Open Government Indonesia National Secretariat, “Indonesia OGP National Action Plan 2018–2020” (2018), 16, https://www.opengovpartnership.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/Indonesia_Action-Plan_2018-2020.pdf.

[45] Yenti Nurhidayat (Indonesian Forum for Budget Transparency), interview by IRM researcher, 18 Mar. 2019.

[46] Ibid.

[47] Ibid.

[48] Government of Indonesia, “Bangun SDM, Pemerintah Alokasikan Rp 492,555 Triliun dari APBN 2019 untuk Pendidikan”(2018), https://setkab.go.id/bangun-sdm-pemerintah-alokasikan-rp492555-triliun-dari-apbn-2019-untuk-pendidikan.

[49] Ibid.

[50] Ibid.

[51] Ministry of Finance, “Anggaran Kesehatan APBN 2019” (accessed Mar. 2019), http://visual.kemenkeu.go.id/anggaran-kesehatan-apbn-2019.

[52] Merdeka, “Anggaran Pengentasan Kemiskinan Ditambah Jadi Rp 381 Triliun di 2019” (2018), https://www.merdeka.com/uang/anggaran-penanggulangan-kemiskinan-ditambah-jadi-rp-381-triliun-di-2019.html.

[53] Ibid.

[54] Ibid.

[55] Mutfi Sholih, “Kritik untuk Sejumlah Alokasi Mata Anggaran Pendidikan di DKI” (Tirto, 29 Dec. 2017), https://tirto.id/kritik-untuk-sejumlah-alokasi-mata-anggaran-pendidikan-di-dki-cCql.

[56] Ibid.

3. Increasing the Access and Quality of Data Disclosures for Education, Health, Poverty Eradication Budget in Related Ministries/Institutions and All Regional Governments

Limited:

Budget information for education, health, and poverty eradication was published on the APBN Data Portal in the form of four downloadable Excel spreadsheets on annual budget allocations over the past decade. [40] This information was previously available through relevant ministries, but centralized publication on the APBN Data Portal has eased access. [41] The Ministry of Home Affairs also established the local government information system portal (SIPD), but did not offer public access to local government budget data. [42] Efforts to disclose this information remain underway, and several local governments have offered public access to their budgets, such as DKI Jakarta, West Java Province, and Central Java Province. [43] The memorandum of understanding on budget publication for education, health, and poverty eradication among Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Education and Culture, and the Ministry of Social Affairs did not occur. [44] According to Open Government Indonesia, it was not deemed relevant as the ministries were already disclosing budget information. [45]