Deployment of Telework in European Public Administrations

Part Three
Comparisons and Conclusions
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outstanding example of a high degree of telework implementation in bureaucracies compared with
other European countries or judged in relation to other sectors of national economy certainly have
to consider the pre-condition of a consensus, reform, and transparency oriented style of
governance. A configuration of individual freedom combined with societal control and self-
control in other policy areas. Sweden is one of Europe's ICT centres, but the adoption of
technologically supported decentralisation and individual flexibility also takes place in a specific
work culture with responsibility as part of overall societal responsibility as prior common values.
On the other side and apart from ICT standards, a reluctance against the introduction of telework
in Austrian, Belgian, French, Italian, Portuguese or Spanish bureaucracies must be assessed in
relation to their traditions of powerful public administrations with elements of persistent top-down
governance attitudes in contrast to service orientation. Such a consideration of profound
stereotypes could only be a beginning of large scale in-depth investigation, for case stories from
different regions and nations do present plenty of similarities regarding values and strategies.
Globalisation is also a phenomenon of a globalisation of cultures and attitudes. Across our cases
we can see factors such as generation, gender and status influencing friction between new and old
bureaucrats, or a common appreciation of individual freedom as a guiding value.
After having criticised the fact that a plethora of definitions of telework is seriously limiting the
quality of available data, we do not intend to contribute further to a lack of clarity. We must add
self-critically that we as researchers work in a particular institutional frame that tends to provide
rather cautious estimations regarding the quantity of telework deployment. From the same
institutional background a relatively low estimation for overall telework penetration of Austria
has been delivered for the pan-European comparison as shown in Table 2.
Taking these figures of the 1997 DG XIII ‘Telework status report’ as a frame to estimate the
proportion of teleworking bureaucrats among national labour force would, in most of the Member
States, mean to leave statistical relevance behind. On the level of local, regional and national
authorities we find no or nearly no telework deployment in Belgium, Greece, France,
Luxembourg, Portugal and Spain. We find some telework pilots among public administrations in
Austria, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Italy and Ireland. We estimate that in the latter countries at
maximum two and a half teleworking bureaucrats would be found among 100 teleworkers. Only
for the Netherlands, Sweden, and the UK might higher proportions be assumed. Supposed higher
penetration whilst lacking statistical proof makes estimations even more problematic.
Extrapolating the exact figures from national bureaucracies in the Netherlands to regional and
local level, one might estimate that there are between 7% and 10% of bureaucrats among the
Dutch teleworkers. The telework optimism of our Swedish colleagues suggests us that this
proportion increases to 15.5% in Sweden.
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Regarding the extent of public tasks outsourced from
British administrations and those still being integrated in other Member States might lead to
similar high figures for the UK.