Sartrouville: the leader in regional public service

In 2002, the mayor of Sartrouville, at the instigation of its managing director of services, Damien Vanoverschelde, launched a programme to improve the management of municipal services. In the space of a few years, having taken each subject in turn and created ad hoc work groups, he organised the creation of a powerful management system which was generally well accepted. As a result of this, the members of the managerial staff now know the extent of their responsibility and the role of their colleagues. They can devise plans of action before committing themselves to a project and they know how they should update them. Performance can be measured by regular activities such as handling the post, invoices or archives, and can be adapted appropriately. However, Damien Vanoverschelde will be leaving his job soon. In view of the fact that public administration is familiar with reforms which are launched and later abandoned, can this sort of system continue to operate after its founding father has left ?