Deployment of Telework in European Public Administrations

8
Deployment of Telework in European Public Administrations: An Overview
19
see Part Three.

---

spatial allocation, written directives and physical presence, the public administration often lagged
behind other societal actors as a telecom practitioner. For instance, the implementation of the
telephone in several European ministries was delayed as the higher ranks feared the undermining
of traditional hierarchies.
Moreover, information as circulating within and spreading out from public administrations has a
particular character. For a certain time a high proportion of the contents of internal communication
is labelled as confidential. Communication with the public is ‘official’ and defined by legislation.
This is a banal but nevertheless highly important difference from everyday speech and a high
proportion of communication in the private commercial sector.
Taking these aspects into consideration one might conclude roughly that 
the public administration
in the classical sense has been open for communications as tools of control and has been sceptical
towards communications that might have challenged its role as a hierarchical meta-institution
securing societal integration
.
Information and communication technologies, as with other machines, are means of
rationalisation. ‘The ever increasing capacity of ICTs makes small scale a technological option.
(...) The huge bureaucratic and hierarchical organisation is no longer necessary from a
technological point of view.’
20
Results from the private sector show that distance working,
telecommuting or telework carried out via computerised networks can increase individual
productivity between 20% and 40%. Assumed reasons are higher motivation in self-chosen work
environments, decrease of interruptions at work and hidden overtime. Another efficiency-oriented
argument favouring telework is the potential for a reduction of operational cost items (cost of
office space and infrastructure, travelling and commuting). Furthermore, the flexibility of place
and time as enabled and suggested by telework can imply further organisational changes
(outsourcing, downsizing, expansion of services, flattening hierarchies, team and goal oriented
workstyle nowadays known as ‘Management by Objectives-MBO’, the paperless office, etc.).
One of the main characteristics of public administrations is a tendency towards growth. For a long
time in many European countries, public administration has been exempt from market
mechanisms forcing organisations to technical and organisational innovation. This has gone hand-
in-hand with a special employment status of civil servants. Also, in many western democracies,
for historical reasons the classic civil servant has been working in a highly protected job,
sometimes with advantages regarding wage and pension schemes designed, on the one hand to
strengthen civil servants' position against potential intervention from government, and on the
other to guarantee equal treatment of citizens by the bureaucracies and to diminish the likelihood
of corruption.
The situation has changed in some Member States slightly, in others dramatically. On the one
hand tools for the rationalisation and reorganisation of office work were provided, starting with