This comparative study of management reforms in the United Kingdom and in Belgium between 1982 and 1985, focuses on the incentives to these reforms, on the objectives pursued by the governments of both countries in undertaking them and on the results which have been already obtained. The need to reduce severely public expenditure by improving efficiency and effectiveness in government is recognized in both countries, but the governments diverse on the contents of the reforms and on the methods used to realize them. The British opted for a radical reform conducted with much political backing, white the Belgians preferred to apply a strategy of gradual improvements of the budgetary process.