The abolition of the political institutions of the Belgian provinces, as provided in the government declaration of 7 June 1977, puts a question into the usefulness of the provincial institutions. This contribution intends to throw more light on the policy at the provincial level - now and in the near past - by means of a brief functional and financial analysis. Beforehand, it has to be mentioned that juridical and institutional limitations do exercise a restraining influence on the functioning of the provinces. A task-analysis shows that they are mainly concerned with «traditional» tasks (e.g. education, traffic), but they recently take into consideration «modern» tasks in the domain of social welfare (e.g. culture, community-organization). However, the means of the Belgian provinces are very limited; as a result, the current expenditures of the provinces do not exceed 3 % of all public current expenditures. It shows the relative small importance of the provinces in the total government structure.