An E170 Flight Crew learned that the failed paneling in the forward cargo compartment must be written up like any other discrepancy--not merely speed-taped. They were given another aircraft while necessary repairs were made and entered into the log of their originally assigned one.

Narrative

I arrived at the aircraft and First Officer advised me that the ramper had brought to his attention that the forward cargo paneling was coming undone. First Officer informed me that it had been speed taped before. First Officer then asked me if he could call it into Maintenance Control. I said that was fine. First Officer talked to Maintenance Control and explained the problem; Maintenance Control advised him not to write it up and they would send Maintenance out to the aircraft. First Officer brought me up to speed on the situation and everything sounded good. Maintenance came out to the aircraft and the Maintenance personal advised me that he was going to speed tape the lining back up and that down line maintenance would do the modifications on the cargo bin. He also stated that the rampers usually tell them that the lining needs to be taped and they comply. We thought that it was under a routine tracking due to the previous speed taping and I believe that is what Maintenance Control thought as well. This was approximately 30 minutes before push. I never heard anything else until we received an ACARS message advising the aircraft was not legal. I called Dispatch to find out what was going on. The Dispatcher had informed me that Maintenance Control had found no record of the Forward Cargo lining ever being written up and it was not being tracked. At this point we where given another aircraft.