Make social welfare data more transparent (ID0121)

What is the public problem that the commitment will address? The distribution of social assistance and subsidies in the form of good and cash has various mechanisms. So far, social assistance distribution uses more than one card so that it is inefficient and makes it difficult for recipients. Also, data on beneficiaries were not fully integrated, reducing the accuracy of targeting and program effectiveness. Previously, in the 2018-2020 OGI NAP, the strengthening of Beneficiary of Social Assistance (Penerima Bantuan Iuran - PBI) data accountability program was carried out using a system prepared by the Ministry of Social Affairs, namely the Social Welfare Information System - Next Generation (SIKS-NG). All welfare programs must refer to integrated data known as Integrated Social Welfare Data (Data Terpadu Kesejahteraan Sosial - DKTS). The public can access this data by using their Citizen Registration Number (Nomor Induk Kependudukan - NIK) and Family Identification (Kartu Keluarga - KK) to check whether they are included in the program or not. The data collection process is carried out from the village level to the central system. However, this system's success needs to be integrated with updated data from other programs. Besides PBI, it should be developed and integrated for all social welfare programs such as PKH, BPNT, KIP, KIS and even programs- other welfare programs. What is the commitment? To increase the accuracy of targeting and effectiveness of social assistance as measured by the 5R (Right on Target, Right on Amount, Right on Time, Right on Quality, and Right in Administration). How will the commitment This commitment encourages the coverage of non-cash and formal financial services, especially for the poor and 43 contribute to solving the public problem? vulnerable. Besides, this program will promote the digitalization of social assistance and the success of the National Non-Cash Movement (GNNT) and support Industrial Revolution 4.0. Why is this commitment relevant to OGP values? This commitment will support Open Government values, namely transparency and participation. The integrated data becomes accountable through an open data collection and a transparent mechanism by involving public participation with technology. Why is this commitment relevant to Indonesian Medium-Term National Development Plan (RPJMN) and SDGs? This commitment is related to the target of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) No. 16: "Strengthening an Inclusive and Peaceful Society for Sustainable Development, Providing Access to Justice for All, and Building Effective, Accountable and Inclusive Institutions at All Levels", especially in Target 16.6: Developing effective, accountable and transparent institutions at all levels and Target 16.10 Ensure public access to information and protect fundamental freedoms, per national regulations and international agreements. This commitment also in line with the List of Strategic Priority Projects in the 2020-2024 RPJMN number 18 which is “the integration of Social Assistance into Comprehensive Social Protection Schemes" Additional information. The Indonesian Government already has modalities that are good enough for integration in welfare data. Through Presidential Decree 38/2019 about One Data, there is a momentum to integrate, update, and reduce data mix-up. Milestone Activity with a verifiable deliverable Start Date End Date 1. Availability of integrated social welfare data that is integrated with the development of SIKS - NG January 2021 December 2022 2. Availability of data regarding welfare program recipients January 2021 December 2022 44 through an accessible platform and responsive to community feedback.

Action Plan Review

Commitment 11: Integrating Welfare Data

For a complete description of the commitment, see Commitment 11 in Indonesia’s 2020–2022 action plan.

Context and objectives:

Indonesia’s social welfare system is characterized by extensive fragmentation. As a result of the number of line ministries, Indonesia could not coordinate a comprehensive information system on social welfare provision. [14] Instead, it has proliferated many parallel information systems. Fragmentation of this data poses a major obstacle to service delivery and complicates implementation of a cohesive strategy and coordinated processes across institutions. [15]

The problems this generates have been thrown into stark relief by the recent expansion of social protection programs in response to COVID-19. These programs received a budget of Rp 203 trillion ($14.1 billion) in 2020, [16] but data discrepancies in distribution of social welfare funding have generated substantial public criticism. [17] According to Pahala Nainggolan, the Corruption Eradication Commission’s (KPK) deputy for prevention, the commission has seen large inefficiencies in aid distribution, with stories of low-income beneficiaries not getting their share of relief due to inaccurate data. [18] In December 2020, the Social Affairs Minister was detained by KPK, accused of receiving Rp 17 billion ($1.2 million) in bribes related to COVID-19 aid distribution. [19]

Overall, the absence of a comprehensive information system on social welfare provision produces data discrepancies that limit effective policymaking and leave opportunities for misused welfare funding. To address inconsistencies, Perkumpulan Media Lintas Komunitas (Medialink) proposed this commitment to ensure that social welfare data is available on the Social Welfare Information System—Next Generation (SIKS-NG). This online platform was developed under the previous action plan to provide public access to data on Contribution Aid Recipients (PBI). This commitment advances the OGP value of transparency by expanding public access to social welfare data.

Potential for results: Substantial

This commitment would centralize fragmented social welfare databases and could ultimately improve provision of social welfare services. Since its launch, effective utilization of SIKS-NG has suffered from administrative issues with data entry, verification, and validation, as well as a lack of buy-in from relevant ministries. [20] The Ministry of Home Affairs’ previous under-involvement in SIKS-NG exacerbated these issues, allowing for inconsistent data updates from local governments. [21]

To decrease data discrepancies, this commitment will add data from large social welfare programs such as the Family Hope Program (PKH) and the Non-Cash Food Assistance Program (BPNT) to the SIKS-NG platform, integrating this data with the PBI data. [22] PKH reached 10 million households in 2018 and BPNT reached 15.6 million households in 2019, [23] indicating that this commitment could impact a widespread population of social welfare beneficiaries. This commitment could offer government, civil society, and beneficiaries the opportunity to strengthen provision of social welfare by coordinating fragmented data, allowing analysis of provision gaps, reducing opportunities for misallocation of funds, and facilitating beneficiaries’ ability to establish their eligibility for services.

In the past, improving access to information on social welfare rights has been shown to improve provision of social welfare in Indonesia. For example, in response to misappropriations of Indonesia’s Raskin program (“Rice for the Poor,” which was BPNT’s predecessor), a 2018 study in 550 villages found that providing basic information to potential beneficiaries on their rights to rice subsidies subsequently increased their access to subsidies by 26%. Once eligible households had information on their social welfare rights, they gained the leverage to negotiate with local government representatives for their fair share of subsidies. [24]

Opportunities, challenges, and recommendations during implementation:

Implementing this commitment should prioritize usability for beneficiaries, allowing those eligible for social welfare to easily access relevant information. Challenges to implementation might include local governments’ buy-in; administrative issues with data entry, verification, and validation; and political coordination with the Ministry of Home Affairs. Effective implementation requires this commitment to be explicitly tied to the Indonesian government’s priorities around more consolidated social welfare. It may also require upward revision of budget allocations to cover extra claims. The following recommendations can strengthen implementation of this commitment:

Results Report

Commitment 11. Integrating Welfare Data

● Verifiable: Yes

● Does it have an open government lens? Yes

● Potential for results: Substantial

● Completion: Complete

● Did it open government? Major

Commitment 11. Integrating Welfare Data

Context and Objectives:

This commitment aimed to improve provision of social welfare services by centralizing fragmented social welfare data into the Integrated Social Welfare Data (DTKS) database. The last action plan developed the Social Welfare Information System-Next Generation (SIKS-NG), an information system that supports the processing of the DTKS. At the time, DTKS only included contribution aid beneficiaries (PBI) data of the health protection program (JKN). ^[86] DTKS was last updated in 2015 and by 2020 no longer provided accurate, real-time data. Only 113 of 514 districts and municipalities in Indonesia were regularly updating the database. ^[87] Without a centralized database, many parallel information systems were used to track disparate social welfare programs, which posed a major obstacle to service delivery, coordination across institutions, and public oversight. ^[88] Following wide expansion of social protection programs in response to COVID-19, large inefficiencies in aid distribution emerged, with stories of low-income beneficiaries not receiving aid due to data discrepancies. ^[89] At the grassroots level, unclear criteria for receipt of social welfare aid sparked conflict among beneficiaries within communities. ^[90] In December 2020, the Social Affairs Minister was arrested by the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK), accused of receiving Rp17 billion ($1.2 million) in bribes related to COVID-19 aid distribution. ^[91]

Did It Open Government? Major:

This commitment expanded access to information on social welfare eligibility for millions of Indonesians. Through marked improvements to DTKS and opportunities for public participation, the Social Affairs Ministry opened access to the full list of eligible recipients of its welfare programs, which can be used to channel provision of programs toward Indonesians who had previously been overlooked.

In April 2021, the commitment made information on all social welfare programs run by the Social Affairs Ministry accessible, using DTKS to unify the data. This was a collaborative effort between the Ministry’s Data and Information Center and local governments, supported by the Social Affairs Ministerial Regulation No. 3 of 2021. ^[92] In addition to PBI, DTKS expanded its data coverage to all of the Ministry’s other social welfare programs: the conditional cash transfer Family Hope Program (PKH) targeting 10 million low-income households, the Non-Cash Food Aid Program (BPNT), and the Cash Social Assistance (BST) program. Through 2022, the Ministry continued to update this data monthly. ^[93] DTKS now provides regular data on eligible beneficiaries, recipients, and sources of welfare, which has improved public access to information on social welfare eligibility. ^[94] It is now the government’s only database for social protection and aid programs delivery. ^[95] Government officials and the public can access this database by sending requests to the Ministry. By 2023, DTKS had expanded to cover approximately 145 million eligible beneficiaries. [96]

Exceeding the commitment’s initial plan, the Ministry of Social Affairs followed the DTKS update with the introduction of Cek Bansos (cekbansos.kemensos.go.id), an online platform for public monitoring of social assistance. This is a freely accessible platform that can be used to search individuals by name to find which social welfare programs cover them. It was developed to verify the information in the expanded DTKS, which initially included overlapping and outdated data. At first, KPK recommended that the Ministry clean the database on their own, but this drew public protest as many social welfare recipients were removed without further clarification. ^[97] In response, the Ministry of Social Affairs developed Cek Bansos to provide an opportunity for citizens to check the data and eligibility of social assistance recipients. To optimize accessibility, the platform was paired with an app released in August 2021. ^[98] The Ministry added a Propose-Rebuttal feature, which has been used widely to propose and reject beneficiary data, addressing exclusion and inclusion errors. ^[99] In addition, the Ministry established a phone hotline 021-171 for handling public compliance related to social welfare programs.

Through direct participation on the platform, numerous Indonesians learned that they were eligible for social welfare programs. A wide swath of the public engaged with Cek Bansos. According to the Ministry of Social Affairs, by the end of October 2022, approximately 125 million users had accessed the platform and approximately 1.5 million eligible social welfare beneficiaries had been verified using the Propose-Rebuttal feature. ^[100] Overall, this initiative fostered public participation and public trust in the fairness of DTKS data. ^[101]

Central and local government bodies also engaged with the database. By the end of October 2021, 282 local governments had requested to utilize DTKS for social assistance delivery to their residents. ^[102] Local governments also participated in improving millions of beneficiaries data, according to the Ministry of Social Affairs. ^[103] Proposals on eligible beneficiaries are routed to local governments for verification. However, the International Budget Partnership notes that heads of villages could be influenced by political considerations, leaving out potential beneficiaries who are not their political supporters. [104] In Brebes Regency of Central Java, ^[105] MediaLink ran a pilot that helped the local government verify almost 90 percent of beneficiary data by 2022. ^[106] There is room to continue to improve local governments’ role in DTKS, through local regulations and allocation of sufficient budget and human resources training. [107]

Overall, the DTKS update and Cek Bansos platform began to address exclusion and inclusion errors that lead to misallocation of social welfare benefits. A study in 10 West Java regencies and cities, conducted by Inisiatif in mid-2021 found that mistaken exclusion from social welfare particularly impacted people who had recently become eligible due to economic downturns, for example during COVID-19, as well as marginalized populations like single-parent households, persons with disabilities, orphans, and indigenous populations. Social welfare is also sometimes mistakenly distributed to ineligible beneficiaries, such as people who had previously been eligible but had recently experienced an improved economic situation, deceased beneficiaries, and duplicate entries. [108]

Despite significant progress, the commitment faced key limitations. First, inclusion in DTKS does not guarantee that eligible beneficiaries will receive social welfare benefits, given that programs do not necessarily have sufficient resources to cover all those who are eligible. [109] Second, many local governments, particularly those outside of Java, struggled with data collection, verification, and validation due to financial and capacity constraints. ^[110] To begin addressing this issue, the
Ministries of Social Affairs, Home Affairs, and Finance signed a joint decree to accelerate DTKS updates by local governments. ^[111] Third, the absence of a single identity-number model in population administration makes data integration difficult. ^[112]

Overall, this commitment made major improvements to the public accessibility of social welfare information. It followed IRM recommendations to develop a user-centered design, ensure feedback loops, and foster public engagement. ^[113] KPK has commended DTKS improvements and utilized the database for anti-corruption efforts focused on welfare funds. ^[114]

Looking Ahead:

This commitment continued from the previous action plan, moving beyond improving access to information on PBI to integrating information on all of the Social Affairs Ministry’s welfare programs through DTKS and facilitating interactive data collection and verification through Cek Bansos. This addressed pressing issues with data inconsistency and helped tackle fraudulent use of welfare funds. Moving forward, the Ministry of Social Affairs can consider the following steps as it continues to improve the transparency of social welfare information:

• Regular coordination between ministries to continue sharing and improving data in DTKS. The Ministry of Home Affairs, along with the Ministry of Villages, Development of Disadvantaged Regions, and Transmigration, can provide concrete support to local governments in collecting, verifying, and validating DTKS. Coordination should also include government bodies responsible for gathering relevant basic population data.
• Strengthen data privacy protection within DTKS. In line with the next action plan’s commitment on Law No. 27 of 2022 on Personal Data Protection, it would be valuable to develop the legal and institutional frameworks to ensure data security of social welfare beneficiaries.
• Improve the accessibility of Cek Bansos for marginalized populations. While Cek Bansos has been utilized by the public for monitoring social welfare programs, measures could be taken to improve its usability for vulnerable and marginalized groups, including populations outside of Java, single-parent households, orphans, indigenous populations, and persons with disabilities. For instance, the current website and mobile app interface are not user-friendly for people with visual impairment.