Left to right: Messrs Klimantavičius and Petrauskas from Vilnius, Mr Moushouttas from Nicosia, Mr De Roep from Brussels, Mr Summanen from Helsinki, Mrs Menart from Ljubljana and Mrs Pál-Bothaázy from Budapest, Messrs Hechtner from Vienna and Gajarský from Bratislava, Mrs Sárádi from Budapest, Mr Leeb from Vienna, Mrs Mertens from Brussels and Mrs Matyasi from Budapest, Mr Bencsik from Budapest, Mrs Kuspelo-Freivalde and Mr Radzevičs from Riga, Mrs Dunger-Löper from Berlin, Mrs Hegler from Ljubljana and Mrs Ratasvuori from Helsinki.
Managing change towards quality services for the public
On 21 and 22 October the Secretary General and the Deputy Secretary General of the Brussels Regional Public Service (BRPS), Christian Lamouline and Norbert De Cooman, welcomed their counterparts from nine other European capitals to Brussels for a conference dedicated to change management in order to improve the level of service provided to citizens.Left to right: Stéphane De Coster of Brussels Invest & Export, the Secretaries General of the Brussels Regional Public Service, Christian Lamouline and Norbert De Cooman, and the representatives of the External Relations Directorate, Geert De Roep and Anne Claes. To their right: Mrs Hegler and Mrs Menart, representatives of Ljubjlana, Mr Radszevičs and Mrs Kuspelo-Freivalde, representatives of Riga.
The conference, which was entitled “Managing change towards quality services for the public” served as a framework for various informative exchanges about the experiences of Brussels and the nine participating capitals (Berlin, Bratislava, Budapest, Helsinki, Ljubljana, Nicosia, Riga, Vienna and Vilnius) in terms of change management.
The Deputy Secretary General welcomed the attendees. This was followed by a general presentation about the Brussels-Capital Region after which the Secretary General discussed the RPSB’s various innovative projects. He then handed the floor to a change management communication expert, Professor François Lambotte of the Catholic University of Leuven, who is currently assisting the BRPS with its reforms. The representatives of the nine capitals who attended the conference were then able to present the scope of their change management projects.
Employees of Bruxelles Économie et Emploi (Brussels Economy and Employment) as well as Bruxelles Environnement (Brussels Environment) were able to discuss how they introduce new projects in more detail and how to monitor the changes as a result of these projects within their respective administrations. At the end of the first day the various representatives of the capital cities discussed change management and how to improve the services they provided.
Brussels projects
The second day of the conference was a good opportunity to present various Brussels projects, including Brede scholen (Broad Schools), a project of the Onderwijscentrum van Brussel (Brussels Education Centre), and Fix-my-street, an app developed by Brussels Mobility in a partnership with the Computer Centre for the Brussels Region. The conference ended with the double conclusion that on the one hand capitals need to change and modernise in order to rise to the various challenges which they face and to create a framework for these processes in order to provide better services to citizens on the other hand.
