Make Legislative Information More Accessible (ID0107)

What issues does the commitment address?
 Information technology is yet to be fully utilized by stakeholders to promote public participation in parliamentary activities.
 Interface of web-based and mobile-based application are yet user friendly
 Insufficient access to public information through website and mobile-based application. Information is still distributed in different locations and is yet to facilitate ease of access for information search by public.

What is the commitment?
 Improving integration of web-based data and information.
 Developing an application to improve services in information and public participation in legislative activities.
 Improving service delivery mechanism in information and public participation of the developed application.
 Developing a specific online application for public participation and information on parliamentary performance.

How does the commitment address the problem?
 This commitment will contribute to improved coordination and publication of online data and information. This integrated coordination will be reflected from the similarly integrated website.
 Services in information and public participation are supported by integrated management mechanism. This will improve the effectiveness of service delivery and contribute directly on digital participation and transparency.

How does the commitment relate to OGP values?
 This commitment will increase the amount of publicly available data and information. Thus, this commitment is consistent with the transparency value.
 This commitment also builds the secretariat’s capacity to manage online public participation in the House’s activities. This is consistent with the accountability value.

See action plan for additional information on the commitment milestones.

2. Promotion of Utilization of Parliamentary Information Technology

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

• Improving integration of web-based data and information.
• Developing an application to improve services in information and public participation in legislative activities.
• Improving service delivery mechanism in information and public participation of the developed application.
• Developing a specific online application for public participation and information on parliamentary performance.

Milestones:

1. Research Assessment.
2. Website redesign.
3. Public launching of the application.

Start Date: September 2018                                                              End Date: August 2020

Context and Objectives

Parliament comprises a multitude of work units with a variety of functions. In carrying out their functions, each work unit is mandated by the Information Disclosure Law ^[165] and the House Regulation on Information Disclosure. ^[166] Parliament uses tech-enabled platforms such as websites, portals, and mobile-applications to disclose public information.

Parliament’s website, dpr.go.id, publishes news, agendas, legislative programs, documentation, Parliament members’ profiles, archives, and the recent addition of an Open Parliament section. However, throughout the website, the type and format of published information is inconsistent. According to the Indonesian Parliamentary Center (IPC) ^[167] who co-designed this commitment, this inconsistency hinders citizen access to parliamentary information.

Overall, Parliament’s website and other portals indicate an evident commitment to opening public access to information and providing opportunities to participate in the parliamentary process. However, as noted in the action plan, this commitment seeks to assess challenges that prevent citizens from accessing information and participating. Findings from this assessment will be the baseline to redesign the website and portals. While they conducted the assessment, Parliament was not yet able to confirm details for the public participation online application. ^[168]

This commitment carries minor potential to change parliamentary process. The main issue is that Parliament aims to improve use of these information websites and portals without any clear strategy to raise public awareness of these tools. Nonetheless, by streamlining disclosure mechanisms in the House, this commitment could potentially minimize disinformation of parliamentary processes.

Next Steps

Successful implementation of this commitment relies heavily on the internal process taking place within Parliament. In order to redesign its website for better user experience and easier access, Parliament needs to coordinate information managers across Parliamentary work units. This would minimize the number of duplicate publications from different work units.

Parliament should engage CSOs and think-tanks with parliamentary expertise to assess greater public participation in parliamentary processes. The Indonesian Centre of Law and Policy Studies (PSHK), for example, studied the extent and impact of public participation in parliamentary processes. ^[169]

While increasing access to information is important, there are other elements to ensuring that public participation in parliamentary processes is meaningful and impactful. Some steps that Parliament should take include:

• Collaborate with CSOs to develop online participation applications using the results from the assessment of current challenges to citizen access and participation in parliamentary processes;
• Expand efforts to promote the use of parliamentary information technology platforms to reach members of the general public; and
• Develop a clear mechanism to build the capacity of information managers across parliamentary work units to ensure compliance with Parliament’s information disclosure policy.

[165] Government of Indonesia, “Undang-Undang No. 14/2008 tentang Keterbukaan Informasi Publik” (2008), http://dpr.go.id/doksetjen/dokumen/-Regulasi-UU-No.-14-Tahun-2008-Tentang-Keterbukaan-Informasi-Publik-1552380453.pdf.

[166] House of Representatives, “Peraturan DPR No. 1/2010 tentang Keterbukaan Informasi Publik di DPR RI” (2010), http://dpr.go.id/doksetjen/dokumen/-Regulasi-Peraturan-DPR-RI-No.-1-Tahun-2010-Tentang-Keterbukaan-Informasi-Publik-di-DPR-RI-1552380559.pdf.

[167] Ahmad Hanafi (Indonesian Parliamentary Center), interview by IRM researcher, 8 Mar. 2019.

[168] Ibid.

[169] Ronald Rofiandri, “Memperluas Cakupan Partisipasi dalam Proses Legislasi” (Indonesian Centre of Law and Policy Studies, 2015) https://pshk.or.id/blog-id/memperluas-cakupan-partisipasi-dalam-proses-legislasi.

2. Promotion of Utilization of Parliamentary Information Technology

Limited:

The parliamentary website was redesigned to integrate disparate websites from parliamentary units and to improve user friendliness. [92] According to the Westminster Foundation for Democracy, these updates offered surface level improvement, but left major issues with the usability of the website. The DPRNow App was launched in February 2018, preceding the action plan’s implementation. [93] The app offers information on parliament and public commenting. It was rated 3.4/5 by users, with reports of out-of-date parliamentary information. [94] The Indonesian Parliamentary Center assessed each parliamentary unit’s performance on public information disclosure and shared the results of this assessment with parliament, but this assessment was not made publicly available. [95]