Since 2018, CIS has been engaged in cooperation with the Ombudsman in Indonesia to introduce the so-called Fair Treatment Approach in complaint handling. This concept, which is based on the application of mediation techniques, has been fully adopted and given the Indonesian name of “Propartif”, the proactive and participative approach. An enthusiastic team from Ombudsman offices from all over Indonesia - senior, intermediate, men and women alike - have been trained in the approach, after which they have committed themselves to becoming trainers themselves. The training involves a lot of interactive exercises, skills training and role plays, which all participants are quite passionate about. Giving demonstrations to training participants in how to apply “Propartif” sometimes seemed to be their second nature.
After a 2-year project funded by IDLO and a Nuffic-funded Tailor Made Training Project, our cooperation has, for the time being we hope, entered into the last stage. The last activity we held in May 2022 was a 3-day training on Advanced Propartif Skills, introducing a few new skills, talking about and practicing with power diffences, cold and warm conflict behavior, as well as knowledge about how to facilitate conversations with citizens and government officers online. The icing on the cake has been a 2-day training for first line complaint handlers in Indonesia, facilitated by a team of Indonesian Ombudsman trainers themselves. This really is a milestone, as external stakeholders are sincerely interested in learning more about Propartif and willing to introduce it in their offices. Among the trainees were the Ministry of National Land Agency, the Presidential Staff Office, the Ministry of Communication and Information and the Ministry of Home Affairs. "The purpose of public services is to promote general welfare and educate the nation's life. In this case, it means that when providing education to the community, we are also active in solving problems that occur in public services," explained one of the commissioners of the Indonesian Ombudsman, Jemsly Hutabarat.
In addition, Jemsly also said that the fair treatment approach had a positive impact, for example the completion of the report at the consultation level, saving time in report completion, budget savings, increasing satisfaction levels, improving access, and increasing compliance.
"Hopefully this training can increase the spirit of improving public services for all of us so that public services in Indonesia will be better and provide welfare for the community."