Public Employment Services (PES) are increasingly affected by changes in the economy and labour markets. Rather than focusing on the imperative for change (what to do), this paper focuses on the action (how to do it). Our starting point is that to deal with the current changes in governing and implementing tasks in advanced economies, PES needs new ways of making governance work. The aim is to consider how the move from 'actor' to 'regisseur' (Conductor) as a model for labour market governance affects the role of PES. This new role of conductor is a key element of the PES EU 2020 Strategy Output Paper, adopted at the end of the Danish Presidency in June 2012. The purpose of the PES EU 2020 Strategy Output Paper is to establish a Vision for PES delivery by 2020. It describes the necessary elements to create a modernised service to deliver the EU 2020 Employment Strategy. It calls for a shift from a traditional employment service to a labour market 'conductor'. Implementing this Vision demands that PES offer a wider set of services to enable various transitions over the life-cycle and to support new customers (workers, inactive groups) with no traditional links to PES. PES therefore need to become enabler, coach and also a 'conductor' and facilitator in the labour market by building partnerships with other labour market actors. Based on the individual case study of the Belgian PES (Flanders), we conclude that the label of 'conducting' means more than just coordination through partnerships and networks. In practice, there is an evolution from a single mode of governance towards a multiple mode combining characteristics from all three modes of governance, i.e. hierarchy, markets and networks. A key element of the conducting role is the interaction with other actors, regardless of the mode of governance. Moreover, the mix of governance is changing over time. A key factor for PES in our case study, and probably also in other advanced PES systems, is keeping vital labour market information and matching processes under public control in an increasingly digitalised labour market. In this way, thinking of PES as a conductor is not the end of PES as we know but rather the beginning of a process of reinventing PES as a prime public service. The paper is structured as follows. In section 1, we briefly introduce the PES 2020 Vision, the intended changes to the role of PES and the subsequent conductor role as described in the policy document. Section 2 gives an overview of the different types of governance and meta governance, followed by a discussion of how the PES 2020 Strategy refers to it. Following this analytical section, section 3 offers an in-depth review of conducting by the Flemish PES based on four main activities: tendering, local job shops, public-private partnerships and digital services. Finally, section 4 offers a discussion of lessons learned, followed by a conclusion.
