The Federal Finance Department is facing scrutiny after it emerged that its civil servants spend a total of 1,022 working hours rehearsing for and playing in its in-house orchestra. 1,022 working days amounts to almost 5 full time equivalents (FTEs). The figures appear in several of Friday morning’s newspapers, including ‘Het Belang van Limburg’ and ‘De Standaard’.
Finance Department civil servants spend more than 1,000 working days/annum playing in in-house orchestra
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The Royal Harmony of Finance (KHF) is an in-house Finance Department orchestra. 38 Finance Department civil servants play in the orchestra. They are permitted to rehearse and perform during working hours. In 2023, the orchestra’s activities amounted to 3.27 full-time equivalents (FTEs). This rose to 4.89 FTEs in 2024 and reached 5.11 FTEs during the first eleven months of 2025.
According to information provided by Ms Matz, the orchestra rehearses 3 or 4 times a month on Thursday afternoons. The rehersals take place at a church hall in the Antwerp district of Berchem. Travel expenses from Brussels are reimbursed by the state.
Orchestra refrains from comment
The orchestra has declined to make any comment to the press. Mr Demon says that his concern is not with the orchestra as such but rather at what he describes as a systemic flaw in the way activities of this nature are accounted for within the civil service. He questions whether, in a period of budgetary restraint and admid calls for efficiency in public services, the use of working hours for this kind of activity can still be justified.
Mr Jambon has indicated that he intends to investigate the matter further. The Federal Finance Minister says that he will examine whether adjustments are needed in how cultural and other extracurricular activities within government departments are organised and funded.