The shift towards performance management is a key trend in pilot OECD countries. It implies that market type mechanisms are used, that managers appear inside administrations, that decentralisation results in more autonomy for organisations and policies. Flemish local governments are also subject to some of these trends. In this article a special focus is on the organisational proliferation and the related difficulties to consolidate policics and management. The development of financial instruments should facilitate this, but is not ready to cope with most of the conditions to integrate management and policies. This results in a structural problem and an element of failure for a sustainable modernisation.