Business Process Reengineering; or how to enable

bottom-up participation in a top down reform

programme

Paper presented to the annual meeting of the European Group of Public Administration

Studygroup on Public Personnel Policies: "Staff participation and involvement in European

public services"

Oeiras, 3-6 September 2003

Myriam PARYS
Nick THIJS
Instituut voor de Overheid
Department of Political Science
K.U. Leuven
E. Van Evenstraat 2 A
3000 Leuven
Phone: 016/32.32.70
Fax: 016/32.32.67
E-mail: myriam.parys@soc.kuleuven.ac.be
nick.thijs@soc.kuleuven.ac.be

1
 I. Introduction
In 2001 the European Group of Public Administration launched the theme “Staff
participation and involvement in European public services”. On last year’s congress, in
Potsdam, Myriam Parys presented a paper titled “Staff participation and involvement in the
public sector reform of the Belgian federal government: the case of the Artemis-enquiry”1.
The Artemis-enquiry, launched by the Minister of Civil Service and Modernisation of the
Public Services, was intented to measure civil servants' attitudes towards the reform in the
Belgian federal administration (called the Copernic reform) and stirring employee
commitment. Research showed that the amount of influence employees could exert through
the Artemis enquiry can be considered to be rather small.

In general it can be said that the degree to which employees are allowed to participate
depends on the phase of the reform. Employees can participate less frequent in the
conception- and the development-phase of a reform than in the implementation-phase
(Kanter, 1983; Cressey & Williams, 1990 in: de Leede & Looise, 1994). Participation of
employees is low in phases where a lot of the decisions still have to be taken, while further on
in the process possibilities to participate increase, although by then most of the important
decisions have already been taken. Cressey & Williams (1990) defined this as the
"participation paradox". The same can be said of the Copernic reform. As shown, the
conception of the Copernic reform has been the work of an elite. We demonstrated that the
first two phases of a reform; the conception and the development phase, showed no real forms
of employee participation.

The team of consultants in charge of supervising the reform pointed out that the last phase of
the reform, the implementation phase, would offer possibilities to participate in the reform.
Especially the Business Process Reengineering projects that were launched from September
2001 onwards in the different Federal Government Departments (FGD’s) would make up a
good example of employee participation in later phases of the reform process (Eekman,
21/8/2002).

In this year’s paper this thesis will be held against the light. The article presents the Business
Process Reengineerings in the Belgian federal administration as a case-study. The study
analyses in what way the BPR’s could be considered as ways of allowing employees to
participate in the federal administration’s reforms.2

1
Parys M. (2002). Staff participation and involvement in European public services
2
Information has been collected through multiple interviews and a study of the relevant literature. The
interviewees had a high degree of involvement with the reengineering project. Each interview, using a list of
open-ended questions, lasted for one to two hours. The data collection also involved establishing a case study
database consisting of reengineering project documentation, internal memos, press releases, in-house bulletins
and internal surveys.

2
II Business Process Re-engineering

II.1. The concept

Business Process Re-engineering (BPR) emerged in America during the 1980s and early
1990s, first in the private and later in the public sector.

The rise of BPR is often explained by the reality that organizations have to confront old
ways of organizing -the division of labour don’t work anymore (Hammer & Champy, 1993:
17). BPR challenges many of the assumptions which underpin the way organizations have
been run for the last two centuries. First, it rejects the idea of reductionism –the
fragmentation and breaking down of organizations into the simplest tasks. Second, it
encourages organizations to capitalise on substantial developments made in technology.
Third, BPR enables organizations to take advantage of the more highly developed education
and capabilities of the staff they employ (Beckford, 1998).

Task-oriented jobs in today’s world of customers, competition and change are obsolete.
Instead, companies must organize work around processes (Hammer & Champy, 1993: 27-
28). BPR insists on the need to restructure processes prior to structuring institutions and
hierarchies, and to structure these processes in different ways than before. This is predicted
on the assumption that the potential of IT enables innovative designs of how work is being
carried out. At least in theory, BPR thus provides the missing link between the layer of
strategy and that of the information system design. Moreover, it recommends a holistic
perspective which encourages the bringing of objectives, human resources, organization, IT
and culture into a coherent perspective (Lenk, 1997: 152).

II.2. The methodology

Re-engineering is defined (Hammer & Champy, 1993: 46) as “the fundamental rethinking
and radical redesign of business processes to achieve dramatic improvements in critical,
contemporary measures of performance, such as cost, quality, service and speed.” This
definition contains four key words. The first key word is fundamental. In doing re-
engineering, people must ask the most fundamental questions about their organizations and
how they operate: “Why do we do what we do? And why do we do it the way we do?”.
Secondly, radical design means getting to the root of things, not making superficial changes
or fiddling with what is already in place, but throwing away the old. The third key word is
dramatic. Re-engineering isn’t about making marginal or incremental improvements, but
about achieving performance improvements. Finally processes. Most organizations are not
process-oriented, they are focused on tasks, on jobs, on people, on structures, but not on
processes. A process can be defined as a collection of activities that takes one or more kinds
of input and creates an output that is of value to the customer (Hammer & Champy, 1993: 32-
35).

3
This effort for realizing dramatic improvements by fundamentally rethinking how the
organization’s work should be done distinguishes re-engineering from process improvement
efforts that focus on functional or incremental improvement (Hammer & Champy, 1993).
Therefore Handy (1990) states that the theory of Discontinuous thinking is central to the BPR
process, in stead of the continuous (incremental) thinking -which is largely derived from
scientific thinking. This continuous thinking is the keystone to many of the quality
management techniques. Although the principles of BPR and the quality management
techniques differ, quality programs and re-engineering share a number of common themes
(Beckford, 1998). They both start with the needs of the process customer and work backwards
from there. However, the two programs also differ fundamentally. Quality programs work
within the framework of a company’s existing processes and seek to enhance them or
continuous incremental improvement. Quality improvements seek steady incremental
improvement to process performance. Re-engineering seeks breakthroughs, not by enhancing
existing processes, but by discarding them and replacing them with entirely new ones .

II.3. Re-engineering Business Processes in the public sector

II.3.1. NPM and the rise of generic management approaches

In the early 1980s there were wide-ranging attacks on the size and capability of the public
sector. Confronted with rising expectations and caught in a financial trap, the public sector
was challenged to ease its burden. In all industrialised countries, the entire public sector was
pressed to increase its productivity (OECD, 1997; Savoie, 1994; Schick, 1996; Pollitt
&Bouckaert, 2000). The pressures to cut back budgets without reducing performance made
public managers look for solutions to improve productivity (Pollitt & Bouckaert, 1995;
Bouckaert & Thijs, 2003). These solutions were captured within concepts like
‘manageralism’(Pollitt, 1993), ‘market-based public administration’(Lan and Rosenbloom,
1992), ‘entrepreneurial government’ (Osborne and Gaebler, 1992) or most famous ‘new
public management’ (Hood, 1991). Facing the challenges and changes, public sector
managers were looking for new ways of working. Alongside organizational design principles
based on micro-economic theories, generic management approaches and techniques such as
Management By Objectives (MbO), Total Quality Management (TQM), benchmarking and
Business Process Re-engineering (BPR) were widely adopted within the public sector (Pollitt
& Bouckaert, 1995; Trosa, 1996).

II.3.2. BPR in the public sector

What has begun proliferating in American corporations as a new management approach is

now being offered to the public sector as a possible way for dealing with declining resources
and mounting pressures to be more responsive and offer better quality services than ever
before (Halachmi, 1995: 329). BPR has had a significant impact, especially in the auto, high
tech and financial industries in the beginning of the 1990’s (Hammer,1990; Hammer and
Champy, 1993; Allen and Nafius, 1993; Stow, 1993 ; Mechling, 1994). Nevertheless it is also
widespread in the public sector during the 1990s, as well in different policy issues, e.g. the
health care sector (Coulson-Thomas, 1998), the legal and judicial field (Mechling, 1994;

4
Bellamy & Taylor, 1997), education (Van Belle, 1997; Grotevant, 1998) and social security
administration (Halachmi, 1995), as in different countries ; the USA (Halchmi, 1995), the
UK (Willocks et al, 1997), Spain (Coulson-Thomas, 1998), the Netherlands (Thaens et al,
1997) , Denmark (Friis, 1997) and this on the different levels of government (e.g. BPR in UK
local government (Horrocks, 1997; Pratchett, 1997) and USA state level (Alliance for
redesigning government, 1994)).

In most cases BPR projects are isolated initiatives. Although in the USA and the UK BPR
was introduced as a part of holistic reform programs. One of the major reform programs of the
US civil service included the application of BPR. In 1993 Vice-President Gore formulated
The National Performance Review, a ‘high profile’ reform which would lead to a government
‘that works better and costs less’ (Gore, 1993). The National Performance Review stated that
that to re-engineer is to forget how agencies were organized, decide what they need to do ,
and design the best structure to do it (Stratton, 1993: 34). In 1994, 31 out of 68 federal agency
respondents reported beginning or completing BPR. 36 out of 70 state respondents- from 18
states- reported BPR started or completed (Alliance for redesigning government, 1994).

The UK has been very much part of the Anglophone, US-dominated world of managerialism,
management consultants and management gurus. The Conservative governments of 1979-97
were particularly open to generic management thinking, and to ideas injected into government
by the private sector (Pollitt & Bouckaert, 2000).

II.3.3. BPR and the public sector: an everlasting marriage or a never

ending story

When it comes to the public sector one must wonder about the political and economic
feasibility of an effort to redesign the business process of any agency or service from scratch
(Halachmi, 1995: 334). Therefore re-engineering is often perceived as a call for creativity and
imagination in the search for new ways of accomplishing the objectives of the business
process as opposed to process modification or process-incremental improvement (Hammer,
1990: 105; Kruger, 1993: 31).

The conclusion formulated by Halachmi (1995) is that there certainly are possibilities for
the implementation of BPR within public administration. However, this does not mean that
a perfect match is at hand. We think that the added value of BPR for public organizations
mainly derives from its potential as an incentive to get (complex) change processes within
organizations started. Government organizations are often tied to different kinds of
regulatory connections (e.g. connections with other organizations and boundary conditions
provided by the legal framework). For most public organizations, radical changes in the way
government delivers its services and products could be problematic. The reason is that any
change in one part of the organization is likely to trigger change(s) or disruption(s) in other
areas. Since each area of a public agency is monitored by and serves multiple stakeholders, a
successful change cannot take place without the consent of all the affected stakeholders.
Forging such a consensus may prove beyond the ability of many public administrators
(Halachmi, 1995). To change radically the structure, culture and way of working of such
organizations is very difficult. BPR has the potential to set the level of ambition of an
intended change and therefore it can motivate and mobilize people for such an ambitious
change. BPR comes a sort of a 'change agent' and in that way it should be considered more
as a catalyst than as a blueprint for organizational change.

5
An investigation by the European Commission examined more than 100 examples of
European re-engineering projects within the business, public and voluntary sectors, concluded
that; “overall, most applications of BPR are concerned with the improvement of existing
processes and relatively short-term savings of cost and time. In the main BPR is done to
people and they are not “sufficiently” involved in the process. BPR projects tend to be top-
down and driven by organizational imperatives” (Coulson-Thomas, 1998: 214-215).

Lenk (1997: 157) stresses the number of risks implying BPR in the public sector:
- A focus on top-down design at the expense of employee participation and concerns
about implementation;
- Less meaningful interaction of organization members and a loss of organizational
culture.
- A danger of increased organizational rigidity;
- Inadvertent deflation of the knowledge asset which is central to public sector
organisations;

All these risks are relevant and interesting to study. However, in this paper we focus in depth
on the first two risks, including the aspects of staff participation in BPR projects

II.4. BPR and employee involvement

Reengineering was originally viewed as a form of work design that had to be completely top-
down. Because the process being addressed is usually broad, the thinking goes, only a small
group of high-level process designers can analyze its entire breadth. It was thought that only
those overlooking multiple functions may be able to see opportunities for innovation. High
level design had to be done by a small design team that studies the process in its entirety and
considers relevant enablers and benchmarks in its design (Davenport & Stoddard, 1994).
However, in recent years more attention has been paid to participatory mechanisms of doing
BPR. It is acknowledged that the design of more detailed process activities and flows can be
done by those who do the work.3 In the first place they have experience performing certain
procedures and secondly, they acquire ownership of the reform. Davenport, in his article,
gives the example of several post-reengineering work teams who paid little attention to the
prescribed process design because they had no hand in its creation. He warns that part of the
problem with reengineering is that it ignores much of the proven benefits of participative
work design.

Although employee participation is perceived as one of the key success factors for a BPR,
most of the public sector cases described in literature are stressing the top-down nature and
the deficiency of employee participation (Taylor et al., 1997) Archer and Bowker’s (1995)
survey with consulting companies specialising in re-engineering indicates that some factors
for the failure of BPR are likely to be a lack of communication of a clear vision of the project,
lack of staff participation and ownership, lack of involvement from staff at different levels,
failure to instil a re-engineering culture, and lack of project organisation and planning.
3
In 1991 Drucker stated: “Now, while still far from being widely practiced, it is at least generally accepted in
theory that the workers’knowledge of their job is the starting point for improving productivity, quality and
performance.” (Drucker, 1991)

6
III. The case studied: the use of BPR in the Belgian federal
administration

III.1 The “Copernican revolution”: reform of the Belgian federal

administration

Context
Belgian federal government is involved in a modernisation process. The elections of june
1999 thoroughly disturbed political relations in Belgium. The Christian-Democrat and
Socialist Government lost office to a Purple-Green Coalition. The Christian-Democrats found
themselves, after 40 years of governing, in opposition. A radical modernisation of the public
sector was given the highest priority by the new government. For many years the public sector
had fallen into discredit under the influence of many crises such as the dioxin case and the
Dutroux Affair, which had put the legitimacy of government to the test (Hondeghem & Parys,
2002). Soon after the elections, the newly appointed Minister of Civil Service and
Modernisation of the Public Services, Luc Van den Bossche, introduced a revolutionary plan
to reform the federal administration. The plan was called the "Copernic Plan" after the Polish
astronomer who showed that the earth revolved around the sun and not vice versa.

Content
A diagnosis performed by consultants of the federal administration learned that the
organization by 1999 was paralyzed by its numerous procedures, had top civil servants who
lacked the qualities and the autonomy to manage, was populated by demotivated staff and
bore a culture of distrust towards change. Above that the organization faced a legitimacy
problem towards society.4

Two major goals were set: the federal administration had to become a better employer for its
civil servants and secondly, the federal administration had to provide a better service to its
“clients”; the citizens. These two goals would be achieved by major changes in four domains;
as illustrated in the following scheme.5

4
Smeets B. (23/5/2003), Business Process Reengineering: de organisatie heruitgevonden?, p.2
5
ibid., p.5

7
 Scheme 1: The four pillars of the Copernic reform

New New
Organisation HR Vision
structure Better
Employer
&
Better
New Service
Management New
culture Way of working

III. 2 BPR as a catalyst for change

The fourth pillar implies a new way of working. More specific this means working following
efficient procedures, supported by modern information and communication technology and
infrastructure, by with staff that is aware of the goals of the organization and has the
competencies to reach them. To achieve this new way of working it was decided that BPR’s
would be used as an instrument of radically redesigning processes. Processes would be
redesigned in such a way as to deliver added value for the government’s customers. They
would be related to the new mission and strategic goals of the Federal Government
Departments (FGD). The essential questions that the federal administration had to ask itself
were:

- Why do we do what we do?

- What is the added value of what we do and who do we do it for?
- Is there a benefit for society to do what we do faster and better?
- Do our customers expect that we work faster and /or better?

Scheme 2: the different phases of the BPR-procedure

Phase 1 Steering Phase 2 Steering Phase 3 Steering Phase 4 Steering Phase 5

Committee Committee Committee Committee

9 Preparation 9 Definition of 9 Elaboration 9 Gap analysis 9 Implementation

& planning objectives, “To Be”
strategy and 9 Planning of the
9 Identification principles implementation
off oportuni- 9 Evaluation of
ties “As Is” 9 Investment plan

9 Identification of
Quick Wins

8
During Phase 1 the mission and vision, the strategic and operational goals are specified. The
scope of the BPR gets defined. Reengineering opportunities get identified based on the
available resources and a risk analysis. “Change opportunities” are prioritized. Each change
opportunity is described in detail in a programme.

Phase 2 contains the elaboration of a clear vision in line with the strategic and operational
objectifs for each change opportunity. The risk analysis is further explored and obstacles for
change are identified. Quick win projects are identified.

In phase 3 the future processes get defined and elaborated (“to be”). There is an evaluation
and analysis of the “as is” situation. The selected quick win projects are implemented.

The gap analysis between “as is” and “to be” is performed during phase 4. A global plan for
the implementation (containing
among others a transition plan, a communication plan, the budget, ICT needs, HR plan,..) is
drawn up.

During the fifth phase we see the implementation of the new procedures.

Between each phase feedback with the steering committee (consisting of top civil servants,
members of cabinet, consultants, a delegation of the FGD Personnel and Organisation) is
planned.

The link with Business Process Reengineering

The Minister of Civil Service and Administrative Reform and his cabinet decided to link these
BPR’s to the introduction of the new level A. FGD’s had to perform a thorough screening of
their tasks, procedures and structure before they were allowed to introduce the new career
path for their highest levels.6

Underlying assumption was that the consequence of BPR would be a redesign of the mission,
structure and organization of work within services and departments. This would have as a
consequence that functions will alter as well to be in line with the new organizational goals,
procedures and way of working.7 As we saw the content and the weight of functions will get a
central position in the new career and reward system. Since it would be useless to weigh
functions which would in any case undergo changes due to the BPR, it was chosen to perform
a BPR first before the introduction of level A.8 9

6
The highest level, level 1, would be redesigned as level A. This redesign meant the introduction of a new
system in which the function would take up a central place instead of the rank. Since it is more just to reward
people on the responsibilities they hold and the complexity of their tasks, the system puts the concept of function
central and the notion of rank is cancelled.
To determine the relative weight of a function within the organisation, each (generic) function is weighted.
Based on its weight a function is classified in one of six levels (A1 being the lowest ranked level and A6 the
highest). The new reward system will be connected to these six levels. Functions belonging to the same level
will be rewarded in the same manner.
7
Thong (2000) points out that consequences of reengineering often include redefined job responsibilities, merger
of responsibilities, creation of new positions and even removal of old positions.
8
FGD’s had to introduce the new level A between 1/1/2004 and 31/12/2005.
9
The following conditions had to be fulfilled::

9
Overview of the various BPR-programmes
So far 8 of the 13 FGD’s have started reengineering.
The first ones to start were the FGD’s of Finance (2001), Mobility (Aviation, 2001), Social
Security (2002) and Health (2002). The former Ministry of Civil Service, now called FGD
Personnel and Organisation (P&O), financed (as the manager of the Copernic budget) the
external consultants who guided the BPR’s in these FGD’s. Especially the reengineerings in
the FGD Finance (the largest FGD) saw an abundant use of external consultancy. Apart from
this role of financer, P&O controlled the quality of the work delivered by FGD’s and
consultants and functioned as knowledge and expertise centre.

This first group of FGD’s has by now gone through the first four phases of BPR. Only the
implementation remains to be done. These FGD’s have abruptly stopped the reengineering
process with the federal elections of 18 may 2003 in sight. They decided it was better to await
the results of the elections before implementing the planned reforms. Since spring 2003 the
BPR’s are put on hold and the top civil servants of the FGD’s are awaiting the orders of the
new ministers. Although a lot of time and money has been invested in reengineering the
organisation and elaborating new procedures and structures it is not clear whether these will
effectively be implemented.

A second group of FGD’s to start reengineering in early 2003 contained Internal Affairs,
Foreign Affairs, Justice and Mobility. It very soon became clear that P&O did not have
money left to finance external consultancy for these FGD’s. It was decided then that the team
of P&O who had been occupied in the BPR’s of the first group of FGD’s would take up the
consultancy function. Consulting would be a strictly internal matter within the federal
administration. It must be said that the FGD’s in question, who seemed to value the guidance
of external consultants higher than that of P&O, were quite disappointed that the promised
external expertise failed to appear. By the 18th of May (federal elections) these FGD’s had run
through the first phase of reengineering; the identification of opportunities. It is not clear
whether the reengineering process will be continued.

1) The key processes, the management processes and the support processes had to be defined, mote
specifically:
a) the existing processes are defined and analysed
b) their relevance is evaluated in the light of the mission, strategic and operational objectives of the FGD
as well as towards the expectations of the user, the urge of efficiency and of the e-governmentplans of
the line administration
c) processes are redesigned where necessary
2) The organizational structure is defined, tasks inherent to the processes are regrouped and functions are
identified
3) The functions are defined
4) The functions of the A level are weighted
5) The implementation plan for the execution of the process modifications is elaborated, staff is designated
in their new functions and the support of staff during this process is guaranteed
See: Koninklijk Besluit tot wijziging van het koninklijk besluit van 2 oktober 1937 houdende het statuut van
de ambtenaren van de Rijksbesturen, art. 41

10
 III.3 Employee participation through BPR

The chart

Steering Comittee

Sponsor

Program Management Office

C
O
N
S Program Manager Program Manager Program Manager
U
L
T
A Internal BPR Internal BPR Internal BPR
N consultant consultant consultant
T
S

Working groups Working groups Working groups

Although the chart differs between the various FGD’s, differences are small and charts mostly
resemble this model.

The steering committee generally is made up of the president, the director-generals, the
directors of the staff services, a representative of P&O and representatives of the ministerial
cabinet. The steering committee defines the strategy and validates at the end of every phase
the work that has been done. Thong et al. (2000) point out that a mechanism such as a
steering committee is essential in gaining approval of redesigned procedures in public
organizations.

Sponsor of the Programme was in all cases the President of the FGD. It is he or she who is
the face of the whole process and who can be seen as the “engine” of the reform. The
unconditional support of the President for the reengineering is identified as a critical factor of
success.

The Programme Management Office consists in general of directors of staff of the ICT,
P&O and communication services and consultants. It is responsible for the daily management
and the general coordination of the BPR and meets weekly.

11
Programme Managers are responsible for the certain specified programmes. They follow the
programme from planning till implementation.

Internal BPR consultants are civil servants, designated by the President of their FGD, to
support and coordinate the reengineering.

For each programme a number of working groups have been composed.

Working according to the Copernic philosophy

As said before the conception and the development of the Copernic reform was the work of an
elite. The Minister of Civil Service never ceased to repeat that the set up of a change process
is the work of the elite. "Shall participation of all civil servants be taken into account in
elaborating the modernisation plan? No, let's not get populistic. One can not start up a
change process by enquiring 60.000 people. Let's not deceive ourselves. The reform process
is an elite-driven process (…). We do need maximum commitment of the personnel in
implementing the reform. But the fundamental vision does not stem from a discussion with
60.000 people."10(Parlementaire vraag, 2000, author's translation).

Staff would get its chances to participate in the reform during the reengineering of their
organizations. Working groups would be actively involved in the whole reengineering
process. Especially the phases three and four would be suited very well to guarantee maximal
participation possibilities for large groups of civil servants.

We wanted to investigate whether BPR the way it is used in the federal administration could
be seen as a true instrument of bottom-up participation. A questionnaire was established,
focusing on the possibilities of participation, which we presented to 14 key actors/ players.

The following themes are discussed hereafter:

• composition of and access to the working groups

• the margin of participation in decisions
• the other relevant actors (trade union, cabinet, top civil servants, P&O, customers)
• communication towards the shop-floor

III.4 Actors involved

1) Working groups
We start by analyzing the role and composition of the working groups as we suppose that here
are the most chances to participate in the reform for the largest groups of people.

Tasks

10
Zal de regering uitgaan van de participatie van alle ambtenaren bij de uitwerking van de hervorming? Neen,
laat ons daar niet populistisch in zijn. Men zal nooit tot een veranderingsmanagement komen door 60.000 man te
bevragen. Laten we elkaar niets wijsmaken. Die hervorming is iets elitairs (..). Er zal bij de implementatie
inderdaad nood zijn aan organisatie van maximale betrokkenheid. Maar de fundamentele visie vloeit niet voort
uit een discussie met 60.000 man." (Parlementaire vraag, 2000, author's translation)

12
As seen before tasks of the working groups may comprise interviewing stakeholders defining
as is processes, identifying change opportunities, designing process activities and flows,…
Their tasks may be quite diverse, depending on the phase of the BPR, the way work is divided
among the various actors, the degree in which consultants play a role with regard to the
content of the reform and the degree to which the capacity to collaborate in the reform has
been delegated to them. First we will take a look at the way in which working teams get
composed.

Access
Interestingly two completely different patterns can be observed. A minority of the FGD’s
keep the access to membership of a working group open. Here we see that a call for
participation is communicated via the intranet or via an internal memo. People are asked
whether they are interested in joining a working group and are given information regarding
the tasks a member of a working group has to fulfil and regarding the profile that such a
member ought to have. An e-mail address is made public to which interest can be expressed.
In two cases the choice for an open access has been an explicit choice of the President of the
FGD who strongly believed in participatory management. In one FGD experiences with a
previous BPR had shown that when access to working groups is not open and when
communication is low, the involvement of workers in the reform process will be small. In this
previous BPR, management found that a considerable group of workers was not acquainted
with the fact that a BPR was taking place in their FGD although the reengineering had been
going on for some months. Advantages of keeping access open would be higher involvement
of staff, a sense of ownership, making the BPR a much-discussed topic among staff and
giving people the feeling that everyone’s opinion matters.
Response to the call for participation was in all FGD’s not high. Extra people had to be sought
and designated to fill up the working groups. According to the interviewees this would be
caused by the fact that workers are mostly interested in getting answers on the “I-questions”
(how much will I earn, what will my job be like,…) and are interested to a lesser degree by
abstract exercises such as redesigning processes.

The majority of the FGD’s did not have an open access to membership of the working groups.
Here director-generals (dg’s) were asked by the President to select people in their directorate-
general who would qualify for membership. People were in general obliged to participate in
the working groups. The director-general was thus given the authority to delegate his/her
people to the working groups. Advantage of this method would be that the director-general
knows his/her workers best and consequently knows who would be best suited to fulfil certain
tasks. Furthermore the director-general would be certain that the continuity in his/her
directorate-general would not be in jeopardy by delegating only people who would be
temporarily “dispensable”. Interviewees however pointed out that this method has its
disadvantages as well. People appointed by the dg’s would in general all have the same
profile; they would be good acquaintances of the dg, would be working in the central services
in Brussels (very few people from the field offices were selected), would have some seniority,
were mostly men and of the higher ranks. Members who had another profile were exceptional.
Another risk would be that dg’s do not always send their best people. When protest of the
field offices grew because they did not feel involved, the internal consultants of the Ministry
of Finance advised to open up the access to the working groups. This immediately met with a
lot of resistance of the line managers, who thought that only they should have the right to
delegate people and that management can not just take workers away from their services.11

11
They did succeed in convincing the top management of the Ministry of their point of view.

13
Composition
The working groups were primarily composed of civil servants of the highest level; the level
1. Level 2+ and level 2 were in some cases represented, levels 3 and 4 very rarely. Within
level 1 ranks varied from adjunct till director. Most FGD’s tried to discourage people of
higher ranks to join the working groups; they felt that these would not always have the open
mind it requires to reengineer an organization. Both in the case of the open access as in the
case of designation the same familiar names often came to the fore. Interviewees declared that
it was the same people, who are already engaged in various projects and who seem to be
already overbooked who show up in the working groups. There would not be many new faces
unfamiliar to the management in charge of the reform. An often made comment was “that it is
always the same people” turning up in all the projects.
Criteria for membership seem quite consistent among the different FGD’s. According to the
interviewees people were looked for/selected who possess of the following competencies:
analytical skills, communication skills, creativity, familiarity with the FGD and its way of
working, willingness to change, have good contacts with all ranks of civil servants in the
organization, have credibility. Also people who had followed a training in BPR or public
management were much sought after.12

The margin of participation

To install working groups is one thing, to let them have their say in changing structures and
processes seems to be a whole other thing. We wondered to what degree working groups had
the possibility to participate, whether the work done by the working groups was purely
operational (as opposed to strategical) and to what extent the proposals of the working groups
were accepted or overruled by programme managers, consultants or steering committee.

It seems that the degree to which working groups have the possibility to participate depends
on the kind of BPR and the phase in which the BPR is situated. BPR’s who are mostly
strategical exercises13 (determining the position of the organization towards its stakeholders,
choosing strategies to tackle future threats, brainstorming sessions) do not seem to offer much
possibilities for participation. The number of working groups is limited, and access is
generally not open. BPR’s who are more focused on the operational level (designing
procedures, defining basic procedures,..) would see more participation opportunities.
Furthermore the phase of the BPR seems to be an important factor in the chances to
participate. The first (defining mission and vision, identifying high level processes and change
opportunities) and the second phase (elaborating a vision, risk analysis) seem to be carried out
by a limited number of people. The third phase (the longest and heaviest phase; mapping the
“as is”, implementing quick wins) generally knows much more involvement from the working
groups. Interviewees testify that possibilities of participation of civil servants grow during the
BPR, culminating in the implementation phase which has to be completely carried out by the
work floor.

The content of the work done by the working groups was in general operational. It needn’t
surprise us that political and strategic tasks were performed by other bodies.

12
More specifically it generally concerned the training BPR-consultant organized by the FGD by P&O and the
Public Management Programme organized by the Instituut voor de Overheid.
13
E.g. the BPR of the State Pension Service who had to prepare the organization for the future aging-boom.

14
Working groups presented their recommendations to the Programme Management Office who
discussed the recommendations and could accept or overrule them. When they were accepted
they were sent to the steering committee who could validate them.

In general the recommendations of working groups were accepted. Interviewees said they had
the feeling that this was a sign of the recognition of management of the expertise of their
workers. They however pointed out that in some dossiers, mostly politically delicate ones, the
working groups showed no political sensitivity whatsoever and the Programme Management
Office or the Programme Managers had to interfere to bring recommendations in line with the
political choices made by the Minister and his cabinet.14Working groups followed their own
logic, different from the political logic.

2) The other relevant actors (trade unions, cabinet, top civil servants, consultants, P&O,
customers)

Trade unions
The role of the trade unions has so far been remarkably small. The interviewees confirm that
the trade unions have regularly been informed of the progress made, but that they have not
played a role of any significance. They explain the passive role of the trade unions by the fact
that unions would primarily be interested in work conditions, much less in work content. As
long as it is not clear whether wages will change or the holidays they would not be too
interested in administrative reform. It was expected that the trade unions would take up a
more active role when the numbers of FTE’s would be calculated and when it would be clear
how many people would work where.

Trade unions have, from the beginning on been very sceptical towards the Copernic reform15.
It needn’t therefore surprise us that many of the interviewees, who were deeply engaged in
BPR and the reform in general, showed a negative attitude towards the trade unions,
describing them as not quite a partner in administrative reform.

Cabinet
As known Belgium has a system of politically appointed cabinets who support the minister
and who preparation the policy of the Ministry. Members of cabinet had their seats in the
Steering Committee. There they functioned as representatives of the Minister.
According to the interviewees they were not very active and did not seem to be too interested
in the outcomes of the BPR. Some of them were rarely present during the Steering
Committees meetings. This might be explained by the fact that Belgium has a spoils system in
which a whole administrative class disappears together with the minister. This spoils system
does not promote long-term thinking by the Minister’s political staff.

14
One interviewee gives here the example of the FGD Finance. This FGD is the largest one of the federal
administration and accounts for half of the civil service population. Discussions have been going on for years
whether this organization would be overstaffed. Belgian federal administration has the highest number of fiscal
civil servants per 1.000 inhabitants of all its neighbouring countries.
The conclusion of one of the working groups was that a significant number of new people had to be engaged if
the organization wanted to perform well. This opposed with the unofficial political credo that, whatever the
conclusion of the BPR would be, no extra people could be engaged. The Project Team immediately reacted and
had the work redone by the working group.
15
See for the fatal stab by the Christian trade union: “Copernicus-hervorming van de federale administratie.
Een evaluatie…”, CCOD, 2003.

15
Top of the administration
It is clear that the unconditional support of the top of the administration is a key factor in
determining the success of a BPR. It seems hard to motivate staff in embracing a reform that
is not supported by the top of the organization. It increases morale of the public organization
staff knowing that top management is interested in improving the system, resulting in unity in
purpose by all staff.
One of the first actions of the Copernic reform was to “eliminate” the top layer of the
administration and opening up their functions for professionals from within and outside the
civil service. These Presidents, their director-generals and their directors had to pass a heavy
selection procedure comprising among others an assessment centre and a jury interview.

It was decided that the Presidents would get the role of “sponsor” of the BPR, thus supporting
the reengineering taking place in their organization in an apparent way. Interviewees said they
had the impression that Presidents were convinced of the need to reengineer the organization
and encouraged the operation.16 There was somewhat less unanimity among the respondents
when it came to the role of director-generals and directors. Some had witnessed obstruction
and other manoeuvres trying to stall or hinder the reengineering. One respondent discussed
the difficulties management in his FGD had by describing the “as is” phase. A part of this
phase is the search for inefficient procedures, obstacles and faults made in the past which can
be bettered. He told how the dg’s were not happy with this search and tried to tone down the
conclusions of the reports.
Others testified they recognised a strong drive in both President, dg’s and directors to achieve
(visible) results. They linked this to the newly introduced mandate system in which the top
civil servants would be evaluated on basis of their results and achievements every 2 year.

Ideally a BPR is introduced as follows; first a management plan is conceived, containing

mission, vision and strategic goals of the department. These strategic goals are then linked to
processes, containing a wide range of tasks. For each of the tasks personnel “needs” have to
be defined. These tasks and personnel needs are registered during the gap analysis and in the
implementation plan of the department. 17
Due to the disrupted chronology of the Copernic reform (among others caused by appeals at
the State Council and other delays) this logic in time was not respected in all cases. In some
FGD’s BPR was going on when the President entered office. In these cases the President’s
management plan is more of a resume of the conclusions of the BPR than an assembly of
strategic choices. Respondents of these FDG’s applauded this inverse way of working saying
this was a form of true bottom-up working.

Consultants
Stewart et al. (1993) and Mullin (1994) point out that reengineering, which is known to be
labour-intensive, has been added to most consultant’s repertory. As shown before the
Copernic reform saw an abundant use of consultants. The BPR programs are no exception to
that rule. The first group of the FGD’s was assisted by consortia of consultants pooling
expertise in the fields of change management, system integration, information technology,

16
Interviewees did not know which role the minister has played in the BPR. We can assume that he/she was
briefed regularly by his/her President. It is clear that a President would not be able to implement the results of the
reengineering without the explicit support of his/her Minister.
17
Verhoest K, Vervloet D, Bouckaert G (2003), “Overheid, markt of non-profit?”, Academia Press, p. 337

16
process design and programme management. Consultants were present in all the parts of the
BPR organization chart.

Their role differed in the various BPR programmes. In most cases their work comprised
facilitating the reengineering, bringing structure to the way of working, setting deadlines,
observance of the output of the working groups, etc. In other cases however they were
occupied regarding the content of the reengineering as well. In cases where they had
experience with the topic (eg. tax reform) they played a substantive role in outlining future
processes. In these cases there seem to have been less possibilities to participate. Consultants
would both be active in supervising the reengineering as well as playing an active role in the
redesigning itself.18

Interviewees agreed that the consultants involved had a tendency to adopt a dominant attitude
(they were sometimes mockingly referred to as the “interim-management”), positioning
themselves in the middle of all decision-making.19 They however pointed out being very
satisfied in collaborating with them. When asked whether they would have been capable of
doing the reengineering without external aid, the answer in all cases was “no”. As major
advantages of working with consultants following benefits were cited: expertise and
experience, they would be more innovative, their objective aura enabling them to tackle
sensitive issues, they would be better listened to, they would put the pressure on the
reengineering not allowing it to come to a halt, they would be able to force a breakthrough of
dossiers who would be locked, etc. A lot of the advantages seem to be linked the fact that
consultants come from the outside. The fact that they do not belong to the FGD, or even to the
federal administration in general, seems to give them the independence or the authority it
takes to progress.

As mentioned before, the second group of FGD’s is not supported by external consultants,
due to budgetary problems. Their role will be taken up by specialists of P&O and internal
consultants of the FGD’s. These have been given special courses in reengineering and there
has been a transfer of knowledge and expertise from external consultants towards them.
However, we found that not only the expertise but also the fact that consultants are external
makes up a substantial part of their success. It remains to be seen whether the specialists of
P&O and the internal consultants’ authority will be accepted and whether they will succeed in
cutting Gordian knots.

P&O
The FGD P&O and its Minister of Civil Service Van den Bossche, were the engine of the
Copernic reform. It needn’t surprise that they played a substantive role in the BPR in the
various FGD’s as well. As seen before, it was the FGD P&O who financed the external
consultants advising the first group of FGD’s. Here they were mostly active in the field of
contract management: controlling the allotment of the contract, overseeing the output made by
the consultants, following up the timing, etc.

Towards the second group of FGD’s P&O takes up the part of consultant. They provide the
FGD’s with reengineering methodology, help them draw a realistic timing, share experiences

18
Mullins (1994) sees here a trend: “They [the consultants] will no longer be called on simply to facilitate
change but must actually contribute to the design of fundamentally new business.”
19
The internal consultants, i.e. civil servants trained to function as a consultant in their own FGD, said there was
a somewhat tense relationship with the external consultants, as they were often not completely informed or were
being presented with a fait accompli when decisions already had been taken.

17
of other FGD’s and in general oversee and support the reengineering. Experts of P&O are
present in the FGD 1 or 2 days a week.

Copernic introduced the concept of a virtual matrix. A virtual matrix is an organization

structure consisting of vertical and horizontal FGD’s, in which each FGD is responsible for its
own results, and in which the horizontal FGD’s (such as P&O) accompany, support and
consult the other FGD’s. The horizontal FGD’s do not base themselves here on their
hierarchical position, but on their expertise.20

We can observe that P&O is taking up its role of centre of expertise and consultant when it
comes to the BPR’s in the different FGD’s. This however is not an easy exercise. P&O,
having no experience whatsoever with BPR, has to take up the role of specialist.
Understandably this has been a learning process in which mistakes have been made.21The
mistakes and the lack of experience have not been met with a lot of understanding by the
other FGD’s.22 Interviewees complained that P&O did not (yet) possess the expertise they
needed and did not prove to be a big help. Furthermore, they felt that through financing the
BPR and thus controlling the whole procedure, P&O tried to keep a tight grip on the vertical
FGD’s23. They declared to have the feeling that the matrix was rather hierarchical than virtual
and they said too much interference from P&O was not wanted.

The search for an equilibrium in the relationship between horizontal and vertical FGD’s will
take some time. However, one can wonder whether P&O will stand its ground when its
budgets will be significantly diminished by the new government.

III.5 Communication towards the shop-floor

A lot of efforts have been made on the communication field. A plethora of communication
initiatives regarding the Copernic reform has been launched. Supplying up-to-date and
trustworthy information regarding the reform was seen as one of the most important means of
involving and committing federal civil servants to the change process.

Numerous efforts have been made in communicating the BPR towards the
workers.24However, interviewees testified not to be entirely pleased with the actions that have
taken place. The general feeling seemed to be that more still could have been done. It appears
that a lot of glossy magazines have been distributed, but that concrete information (answers
on the so called “I-questions”) has not been given25. Workers did not seem very interested in

20
P&O, “Virtuele matrix”
The virtual matrix is opposed to the real (or hierarchical) matrix in which the horizontal FGD’s impose
directives on the vertical FGD’s to work in a specific way.
21
At first, all the phases of BPR were contracted out to consultants, including phase 1 (identification of
opportunities). This meant that contracts were allotted to consultants without knowing the scope of the BPR and
without consequently knowing what the exact cost of the BPR would be. This caused budgetary miscalculations,
with “rescoping” of the original budgets (meaning extensions) as a consequence. P&O learned from this
experiences and from then on asked FGD’s to perform the first phase internally (without external aid).
22
An interviewee of the very first FGD in which BPR took place complained: “They (P&O) have just come here
to observe and learn form our experiences. They have offered us nothing! Except money.”
23
P&O says: “One cannot expect the money to flow, when one does not subscribe to the horizontal objectives.”
24
Eg. roadshows, internet, intranet, magazines, presentations during lunchtime, brochures with FAQ,…
25
Someone said: “We ‘d better given them the reports of our meetings then those glossy magazines.”

18
brochures describing abstract processes, but wanted to find out whether their function would
remain after the reengineering. This information was known by the members of the working
groups, but they were not allowed to communicate it. Management feared that in that case
trade unions might interfere and “problems” could arise. Furthermore it would be difficult to
distribute information in the midst of a reengineering operation; when a lot of options still
remain open.

Another problem seemed to be that the communication was too oriented on civil servants of
level 1. The other levels would not always understand the information or feel equally involved
in the reengineering.

IV. Conclusions
1. BPR; an instrument allowing participation?

Before we pointed out that BPR was not seen by its founding fathers as specifically aimed at
allowing bottom-up participation, moreover the basic parts of reengineering would be
reserved to a small elite.

In the federal administration we can identify a combination of a top-down and a bottom-up

way of working. The strategic choices, the principles by which the BPR had to work, the
targets (eg. speeding up processes) are set in the highest regions of the decision-making
hierarchy26. Strategic decision making is, not surprisingly, reserved for a small elite. The more
the reengineering is focused on the operational processes by which people will actually have
to perform their job, the more opportunities of participating can be identified. We saw that
working groups have been created allowing large groups of civil servants to be involved in the
reengineering of their organization. This seems to be a positive evolution27, although the
federal administration and its management have to get accustomed to this way of working.
Line managers are not tented to give up control by letting their workers decide for themselves
whether or not they want to participate.

At first sight it seems that the working group’s recommendations have been taken into
account. Members had the feeling their work was accepted and little of it was overruled. The
general conclusion seems to be rather positive.

Although we saw that the federal administration is not yet fully accustomed to working in a
more transparent and participatory way, it cannot be ignored that the Copernic reform has
enabled some real progress in this field. Attempts have been made to let workers participate in
reform, the involvement of workers in the reform has (at the start of Copernic) been declared
by the Minister of Civil Service one of the top priorities, a lot of time and money has been

26
The Minister and his cabinet would declare the principles on which the reengineering in the FGD had to focus
(e.g. customer orientation,..). Their role remains in most cases rather small. It would be the President of the FGD
who would, as sponsor, steer the reengineering, and who would in his/her management plan set the direction.
27
The christian trade union (CCOD) in 2000 performed an enquiry among its members (N=520) to measure their
global attitude and commitment towards the Copernic reform. 65% declared not to see any tradition in involving
staff in change processes in their department. 70% demanded the Minister of Civil Service to launch initiatives
to secure the commitment of the personnel (CCOD, 2000).

19
invested in communicating; these are quite new elements for a cumbersome bureaucracy such
as the federal administration. Furthermore, the system of the working groups seemed to break
some old habits; high ranking civil servants were banned from these groups allowing more
freedom to the members, interviewees testified that hierarchy gradually disappeared in the
collaboration between the different ranks. The same happened with compartmentalization
between the different services.

Since the interviewees were all very involved in the BPR’s in their FGD’s (some being
responsible for managing the BPR), we might expect their view to be biased. On the other
hand objective evolutions such as the communication and participation efforts seem to
indicate the federal administration is evolving towards a more open and participatory
organization.

2. BPR: suited for the public services?

Earlier on we pointed out that some scholars have raised doubts whether BPR would be suited
for the public services.

The interviewees pointed out that the advantages of the use of BPR in an administrative
context would be considerable. Following the President of the FGD Social Security, who
previously served as the head of cabinet of the Minister of Social Services declared:
“Processes before were defined by the Minister and his cabinet. Choices were made from a
political point of view. The cabinet steered the administration in a rather chaotic way. There
were no general rules on how important processes, such as the preparation of policy, had to
be done.
For cabinets the daily political agenda prevails above working in a program based way. This
has as a consequence that the way of working was very ad-hoc. Reengineering makes a more
systematic, methodical way of working possible. Processes will not be defined by the daily
political choices or political necessity, but by standards such as efficiency.” He linked this
evolution to the elimination of the cabinets; one of the major changes the Copernic reform
would introduce. The politically-appointed cabinets would disappear and their tasks (the
preparation of policy as the most important one) would be transferred to the administration.

Other interviewees summed up the following advantages: the radical element of reengineering
(start from scratch) would allow real changes to take place, BPR would allow an organic point
of view in which the connection between services and processes would become clear, the
helicopter view would prevent a compartmentalised way of working, it would favour a
methodical approach, would stimulate discussion and collaboration between colleagues and
BPR would result in innovative solutions.

BPR was identified as a very new way of working. It would break with past habits such as
incremental change, working in a compartmentalised way and taking tasks or procedures for
granted.

The other side of the coin would be that BPR is very time- and labour intensive. It demands a
lot of resources during a reasonable amount a time. Furthermore the question can be raised to
what extent it is realistic that an administration really starts from scratch.28

28
One of the organizations who was about to start a BPR, had distributed among staff a note summarizing the
basic principles by which the BPR would be executed. Principle n° 1 read: “There will not be a tabula rasa!”

20
One of the biggest risks for a successful reengineering seems to be the changeability of the
political environment. This makes up the biggest difference was between reengineering in the
private and the public sector, testified one of the consultants involved. Politics would cause
abrupt reversals in policy, making continuity rather impossible.

3. BPR and the continuity of change

The headlines of the Copernic reform were written in the federal coalition agreement of 1999.
Though the Minister of Civil Service was firmly backed up by the prime minister, there was
no general basis within the government for the modernisation. Especially the Walloon
Socialist Party (“Parti Socialiste”) excelled in continuous obstruction and delay, thus causing
the bizarre chronology of the implementation of Copernic. More than one year before the
elections were to take place, the president of the Parti Socialiste started declaring Copernic
had to be reversed and his party would after elections claim the Civil Service portfolio.
Observers stated: one cannot expect a reform which has no basis within one legislature to be
continued in another.29

Since the elections of 18 may 2003 a new liberal-socialist government has been composed.
The portfolio of Civil Service is held by a minister of the “Parti Socialiste”. Among coalition
partners the support for Copernic seems to have diminished as well. The consensus seems to
be that a lot of “improvements” can be made to Copernic.

It is not clear whether the BPR projects will be continued. The coalition agreement mentions
the fact that change projects will be executed in the FGD’s, but it is not clear what is hereby
meant.

We see three major threats to the continuation of the BPR projects in the FGD’s.
First of all, the link between BPR and the introduction of the level A is recently cut. Moreover
the level A will probably not even be introduced by the new Minister of Civil Service. This
has as a consequence that the necessity for BPR in the FGD’s diminishes.30

Furthermore, as seen before in the testimony of the President of the FGD Social Security, the
separation of policy making from the administration results in short time horizons dictated by
the political calender. Processes are defined ad-hoc, based on the political actuality. This
situation would be improved by Copernic; cabinets would be eliminated and the
administration would be made more responsible. A logical consequence was the introduction
of BPR; the administration itself was given the task to (re)design its processes.
However, during the coalition agreements of the new government it is decided that cabinets
will be reintroduced. It is not clear whether the results of the reengineering will be taken into
account or whether the old habit of ad-hoc working will turn up again. Maybe the lack of
interest of the cabinets of the previous legislature in the whole reengineering operation is
indicative.

Finally, it is becoming clear that the ideal future situation (the “TO BE”) on which the FGD’s
have based their BPR, will be altered by the political choices of the new government.31

29
CCOD. (2003), ibid.
30
Besides, the FGD’s will see budgetary setbacks due to the economic climate.
31
The case of the FGD Social Security makes up a good example. Social Security in Belgium is executed by
agencies. When the cabinet of the Minister of Social Security was preparing policy, it always consulted the
experts in the different agencies. This situation would alter by the elimination of the cabinets; the FGD would

21
It is clear this has consequences for the results of the reengineering, that has already been
undertaken. The value of the work done seems to diminish, when its basic assumptions do not
correspond (anymore) to the political reality and the policy of the minister in charge.

become responsible for the preparation of policy. Therefore the BPR in this organization has been used to draw a
division of tasks between the FGD and the agencies regarding the preparation of policy. However, cabinets will
be reintroduced and the domain of the social security has, by the new government, been divided among several
different ministers. This makes the division of tasks, as elaborated in the BPR, redundant.

22
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Jan Eyckmans, 30/7/2003, internal communication, FGD of Health, Safety of the food chain
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Kurt Van Raemdonck, 31/7/2003, FGD of the Interior
Ben Smeets, 31/7/2003, director Organisation Development, FGD Personnel and Organisation
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Johan Aertssen, 5/8/2003, director, State Pension Service
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