Metadata: Staff of the Flemish public administration

Agency for Government Personnel, HR Technology and Data

Number of staff: the number of staff employed at an entity of the services of the Flemish public administration. The figures refer to the number of staff on 31 December.

Staff availability: the ratio of the number of days that a staff member is supposed to work on the basis of his work regime to the number of days of a full-time staff member. In other words, the availability of staff reflects the staff available in an entity over a given period of time. Staff availability is expressed in gross full-time equivalents (FTE) and is always measured over a calendar year and never on one single day (as is the case with staff numbers).

Of all staff, the total number of days to be worked is determined and then any unavailability (such as career breaks) is deducted. Absences are included. Absences include public holidays, paid leave schemes (for example, holiday leave), or absences due to illness, industrial accident or pregnancy. These are also taken into account when the absences are paid by the health insurance fund (in the case of contractual staff). This allows for a more accurate counting of staff members who, for example, work part-time or in continuous functions or who take a few days of unpaid leave. Staff members who work 80% part-time are counted as 0.8 staff member. On the other hand, a staff member who is employed full-time but is actually absent for a full year, for example due to illness, is counted as 1 gross FTE.

Services of the Flemish public administration: all entities of the Flemish Government for which the Flemish Personnel Regulations apply. These are:

• the departments
• the internally autonomous agencies without legal personality (with the exception of the members of the Inspection of the Agency for Quality Assurance in Education and Training)
• the internally autonomous agencies with legal personality
• the externally autonomous agencies under public law (with exception of the Flemish public transport company De Lijn)
• the secretarial staff of the Strategic Advisory Councils, with the exception of the Flanders Social and Economic Council (SERV), the SAC Welfare, Public Health and Family, the SALV (Strategic Advisory Council for Agriculture and Fisheries) and the MORA (Mobility Advisory Council)
• the administrative services of the Council for Community Education.

The Flemish Public Broadcaster (VRT) and the Flemish Water Supply Company do not fall within the scope of the services of the Flemish Government.

The figures are based on the data recorded in Vlimpers. Vlimpers is the online HRM system within the Flemish public administration, which is used for managing staff data, job data and absences. A number of entities of the Flemish public administration do not (yet) work with Vlimpers. The data of these entities are transmitted to the Agency for Government Personnel on a monthly basis through automatic data flows.

Regarding demographic characteristics: a number of staff members have employment relationships with several entities at the same time. Their demographic characteristics are double-counted at the level of the Flemish government departments. In 2023, this concerns 112 staff members.

Agency for Government Personnel: Flemish business information (in Dutch)

Staff of Flemish public administration