Excellent Service for the Citizens through Surabaya Single Window (SSW)
Department of Communication and Informatics

A. Problem Analysis

 1. What was the problem before the implementation of the initiative?
Surabaya is the second biggest city in Indonesia (country located in Southeast Asia) which has the total area of 350 square kilometers with the population of 3,016,653 (based on the data on 2016). As the regional and national economic vein, Surabaya promises a very conducive investment climate. It can be seen from the number of economy growth of Surabaya which rose from 5.97% into 6.19% on 2015 and 2016, respectively. The conducive investment climate should be followed by supportive permit service, a transparent, efficient, and effective service towards all citizens. This premise pushes the Surabaya City Government to keep improving its permit service system, which got the quite bad image for being difficult and not transparent, not to mention the absence of exact time on the finishing time for a permit and the cost that need to be paid by the applicants as the business doers. For example, in order to get the permit to build a hotel, the applicant had to come by himself to seven work units in the City Government, all of them were in separate places which quite far from each other’s and they had different standard for their services. The applicant could spend around 160 days (± 4 months) to get the permit for the hotel.

B. Strategic Approach

 2. What was the solution?
The reformation of the permit service is a solution for the problems mentioned above. The Surabaya City Government had the initiative to build a permit service system which is fast, easy, efficient, and transparent, by using the technology and information. This innovation is called Surabaya Single Window (SSW).

 3. How did the initiative solve the problem and improve people’s lives?
SSW was first initiated on 2010 in order to give the ease for the applicants to apply for their permits in business, as well as giving them the fast time in processing the permits and transparency of cost and time. The ease given to the applicants is that they can apply for their permits via online, whenever and wherever they are. They can access the website of SSW through ssw.surabaya.go.id, both from their computer and their mobile devices. Through the website, they are given access to monitor their status of the permits applied so that they can know the position of their application. Faster time to process the applications is offered by the Surabaya City Government by cut off the bureaucracy and integrates the data, so that some applications can be run altogether in parallel way without the need to wait for one process to be finished. When the application is finished or the data applied still lacking/wrong, the system will notify the applicants through short text message (SMS). The system will also notify the cost, if the permit applied has retribution that needs to be paid by the applicant. With SSW there will be a good, efficient, and effective because the citizens as well as business doers are given the freedom in doing the transaction anytime and anywhere they are.

C. Execution and Implementation

 4. In which ways is the initiative creative and innovative?
SSW has uniqueness in three things. First is the permit service which is grouped into a package, especially in the tourism sector (license to build hotels, apartments, restaurants, and others). Package permit service is a service which combines some permits into one integrated package, for instance if somebody wants to build a hotel, he needs to apply for 7 kinds of permit which are the City Planning Letter (locally abbreviated as SKRK), Recommendation for Environmental Impact, Recommendation for Drainage, Recommendation for Traffic, License to Build, Living Environmental Permit, and Tourism Business Register (locally abbreviated as TDUP). Applying these 7 permits means that the applicant needs to register for 7 times to get all of those permits. But with this package system, the applicant only needs to register once to get all 7 permits. Second is the ease in accessing the application. Besides access through computers, SSW also can download the application in Play Store or App Store under the name of “SSW Mobile”. The applicants can apply for their permit through their gadgets. Third is the facility to monitor the files. The applicants can see the phase of their process by inputting their registration number and Personal Identification Number (PIN) that can be obtained when they first register. The applicants who want to monitor their process input the registration number and PIN in the monitoring menu in SSW.

 5. Who implemented the initiative and what is the size of the population affected by this initiative?
SSW is implemented by various Work Units in Surabaya City Government under Department of Capital Service and One-Stop Integrated Service as the coordinator for SSW, the Department of Communication and Informatics as the service supported such as application building, maintenance, and development for the system of SSW, as well as provider for the telecommunication network, the Procurement Service and Assets Management Section as the provider for supporting tools in the operational like computers, printers, and scanners. Also, 21 Work Units in the Surabaya City Government who become the processors of the files or documents applied by the citizens or business doers. The implementation of SSW gained positive response from the people. It is proven by the increased number of the users of SSW throughout the years. In 2014, the number of online users was 13.83%, it increased by 39.23% in 2015, and went up into 77.74% in 2016.
 6. How was the strategy implemented and what resources were mobilized?
In implementing the system of SSW, the first strategy used is by making the development of the system as one of the targets in the Regional Development Planning for Medium-Term and Long-Term of the Surabaya City Government. It is to guarantee the continuity of SSW even though the leader of Surabaya is being replaced in the future. Next strategy was drafting the Mayor’s Regulation and Standard Operational Procedure (SOP) as the technical clues in operating the system of SSW. In doing the strategies set above, a concrete step was done by intensive coordination between related Work Units who have the permit service. Coordination was to formulate the process of business flow of all permit service to be translated into a system. The translation done by the Department of Communication and Informatics, then the system was integrated between work units. The Department of Communication and Informatics held intensive trainings and courses for the human resources who handled the service. And to spread the information about SSW, the department gave the people brochures, pamphlets, banners, advertisement boards, and also training in the internet learning centers which are managed by the Surabaya City Government. All process in SSW, from the development phases until operational phase and teach the human resources and the people about this new application came from the Regional Government Budget of Surabaya. It is in line with the commitment of the Surabaya City Government which is stated in the Planning Document of Surabaya. The commitment of budgeting which have been used from 2011-2016 is around US$ 10,7 million which was used to develop, operate, and fulfill the supporting facilities. In the planning process of SSW, the Surabaya City Government involved academics who came from the universities in Surabaya as the sources. In the development, maintenance, and system development phase, the Surabaya City Government recruited the graduates from universities in Surabaya and surroundings.

 7. Who were the stakeholders involved in the design of the initiative and in its implementation?
The stakeholders involved in this SSW are: A. Planning Phase - The Mayor as the owner of the initiative which is placed into the vision, mission, and program - The City Development Planning Board of Surabaya as the translator in elaborate the vision, mission, and program into target, objective, and strategy in implementing the initiative B. Implementing Phase - Department of Communication and Informatics as the planner and developer of the SSW - 21 work units as the processors of the permit service in SSW - The people and business doers as the users/implementers of the system which is provided by the Surabaya City Government - Private sectors which help the Surabaya City Government in providing the communication network between work units

 8. What were the most successful outputs and why was the initiative effective?
The output of SSW is the perfect service for all citizens. Perfect service is a service without any discrimination, a service which is easy, fast, efficient, and transparent. Easy, means that every applicant is given the ease to apply for their permits via online, anywhere and anytime through computer or gadget (by downloading the application of “SSW Mobile” in the application store). Fast, means that the process can be done in parallel without the need to wait for other service to complete, because the data is already integrated. Efficient, means that the applicant only needs to register once for the permits that in the package system. Transparent, every applicant can see the status of their application through the website as well as the cost that needs to be paid by the applicant through Short Message Service (SMS). The improved quality of the permit service is because of the same Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) which is stated in the Mayor’s Regulation Number 28 of 2013 about the Procedure of Electronic-Based Permit and Non-Permit Service, and it can push the number of the applicants who used SSW. In 2014, the number of applicants via online was 3,834 people, and it increased into 16,637 and 50,842 in 2015 and 2016 respectively.

 9. What were the main obstacles encountered and how were they overcome?
The main obstacles and the settlements of those obstacles in implementing the SSW as follows: A. Internal ­ The limitation of the competency from the human resources who manage the SSW, because technology is always developing so it needs dynamic human resources to follow the development and fulfill the needs of the citizens. That is why, those who manage SSW are given additional knowledge through technical counseling, workshop, seminar, and so on to raise the bar of their competency ­ The security of the system is one of the things that need to be noticed, because it will be very fatal if the system got hit from the outside. To anticipate it, the Department of Communication and Informatics evaluate the security system every year as well as implementing the ISO 27001. Besides, the co-location and installing SSL (Secure Socket Layer) as the transactional security were done to maintain the security of the system ­ The availability of the internet network which can cover all work units because sometimes the network is disturbed. The solution is by provide the good internet network both independently (fiber optic) and through private sectors as the provider for the back-up of the network. B. External The limited knowledge and information about SSW. This made Surabaya City Government to regularly inform the implementation and information of SSW towards all citizens and business doers. The information spread through brochures, pamphlets, banners, and advertisement boards. The training is also supported by free learning tin Broadband Learning Center (BLC) which are located in all its 30 locations, owned by the Surabaya City Government.

D. Impact and Sustainability

 10. What were the key benefits resulting from this initiative?
The key benefit for the Surabaya City Government is the increased good image of the Surabaya City Government as the organizer of public service. It is proven by the increased number of the applicants who applied for permits in package service, which increased around 15% from the previous year (5,797 packages in 2015 and 6,725 packages in 2016).

 11. Did the initiative improve integrity and/or accountability in public service? (If applicable)
With the system of SSW, all activities in every step and process can be monitored both by the applicants and the supervisors, so all process can be seen transparently. Besides, the transparency can be happened because the system can cut the frequency of face-to-face between applicants and service givers. The meeting can only be held in meeting point room, so it can minimize the corruption, collusion, and nepotism. This becomes one of the pushers of increased rank of Indonesia. In this case, Surabaya became one of the samples for surveyed cities, and Indonesia crowned as the country which gives ease in the business by the World Bank. In 2016, Indonesia was in the rank of 106 after placed in the rank of 120 in the previous year. And in 2017, the rank went up to the rank of 91 from the total of 190 countries.

 12. Were special measures put in place to ensure that the initiative benefits women and girls and improves the situation of the poorest and most vulnerable? (If applicable)

Contact Information

Institution Name:   Department of Communication and Informatics
Institution Type:   Local Government  
Contact Person:   Antiek Sugiharti
Title:   Head of Department of Communication and Informatic  
Telephone/ Fax:   +62315312144 ext 384 (telp), +62315450154 (fax)
Institution's / Project's Website:  
E-mail:   yudho.febriadi@gmail.com  
Address:   Jl. Jimerto No. 25-27
Postal Code:   60272
City:   Surabaya
State/Province:   East Java
Country:  

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