Impact

Belgium is the first European nation to have created a one-stop shop for foreign employers and self-employed persons, rendering electronic and integrated services. Thanks to LIMOSA the Belgian authorities want to create better guarantees for the free movement of services and workers and optimize statistical information about cross-border employment on Belgian territory. Extra attention will be paid to everyone's rights and conditions of employment in Belgium. The employer will enjoy some major administrative benefits as a result of LIMOSA. By streamlining bureaucratic procedures, increasing public sector efficiency, and by reducing ‘red tape’, the transformation is crucial to respond to new societal challenges in an effective, efficient and democratic legitimate way. LIMOSA is really an important step to guarantee legal employment in Belgium with respect of the Belgian and European regulations. Proper execution of the LIMOSA declaration will make the administrative obligations for employers much easier, with regard, inter alia, to drawing up labour regulations, the personnel register and regulations to check up on part-time employees. Employers no longer have to do individual (salary) accounting and salary settlements for each pay period either, provided that they can submit similar salary documents that were drawn up in accordance with the law of the country of origin. In this way double salary administration is avoided. An international and multilingual (English, German, French, Dutch) portal site was set up with an easy access to the declaration webapplication and with tailor made information on other obligations when coming to work in Belgium (labour law, taxes, permits,..). The portal site plays an important part in this project. Immediately after each declaration via the website a LIMOSA-1 certificate is supplied. This certificate must be presented to the Belgian client or principal. In time this portal site will allow to fulfill almost all administrative obligations concerning working in Belgium via a single electronic portal enabling the foreign employer, employee or self-employed worker to declare his activities or request a work permit, residence permit, professional card, …. This site will then dispatch the request automatically to all Belgian federal or regional administrations involved (implying the unique collection and multiple use of data, and the exchange of data among the administrations), where a file will be opened. This way, foreign workers being sent on a mission to Belgium, will not be confronted anymore to the complex way Belgium is structured, as the competent (regional) services for awarding e.g. work permits and residence permits will be able to process the application much faster. LIMOSA is reducing costs, lowering the costs of paperflow processing and claim procedures. The system is fostering interoperability within European Union and enhancing interstate data exchange.

Track record of sharing

There are a number of interesting components and architectures which were used in the development of this project, including a number of functionalities that are highly interesting in other environments. The Crossroads Bank for Social Security and the National Office for Social Security voluntarily offer this application to the European Commission and the other Members States as a basis for a possible pan-European social service. Additional information can be provided. On request, workshops, demonstrations and conferences can be organised. Far-reaching forms of co-operation are, after detailed consultation, among the possibilities. Most of the components belong to the Crossroads Bank for Social Security and the National Office for Social Security, so that the potential for intensive knowledge sharing is given. The advantages related to this pan-European social service are numerous. Thus foreign employers, employees, self-employed persons and trainees would have at their disposal a system of multifunctional declaration through all Member States, available 24h on 24 and 7 days a week, offered in the language of each one and making use of the national services (portal sites, system of identification and authentication, etc). LIMOSA has proved to be a project that combines administrative simplification, innovation and userfriendliness. Germany, France and Lithuania have so far shown intrest to implement a similar system and were presented the case.

Lessons learnt

The realised project contains important lessons for every government that strives to improve its services towards the users and especially towards companies, through an adaptation of internal and external processes with the help of modern technologies: Lesson 1 - Make sure that available ICT components and information are re-used to a maximum. Use already existing networks, means of electronic identification, authentication and authorisation, interoperability frameworks and their accompanying basic services, portal environments, and the electronic information that is accessible from validated databases inside and outside of government. Through this, the efforts can be directed towards developing services with an added value, which are based on process improvements, while the multifunctional use of the same components is assured for all. Lesson 2 - Attune the service offer maximally to the needs and the logic of the users and involve them actively in the development of the services. Match the governmental processes with the own processes of the users. Assure user-friendliness. Lesson 3 - Make sure that the users have confidence in the electronic services that are provided. Develop an information security policy, which is designed to guarantee the availability, confidentiality, integrity, authenticity and auditability of the information systems.