Volume 15: Government and Public Administration
2. Central government organisation
Civil service appraisal systems

2.19 The performance of each civil servant was assessed annually within their Department, using a formal process which did not vary significantly from one Department to the next.

2.20 The assessment was conducted by a Reporting Officer one or two grades senior to the individual, and a Countersigning Officer who was senior to the Reporting Officer. It was based on a job description agreed at the start of the reporting year, setting out what was expected of the individual during the next 12 months. From the early 1990s, lists of tasks were increasingly replaced by specified targets and objectives. Job descriptions were supposed to be amended to reflect changes to tasks, targets and objectives. The evaluation at the end of the year considered how well tasks had been performed, whether targets and objectives had been met, and aspects of performance often known as 'personal qualities', for example:

1. Judgement.
2. Penetration.
3. Problem-solving/creative thinking.
4. Numeracy.
5. Staff management.
6. Drive and determination.
7. Output and reliability under pressure.
8. Acceptance of responsibility.
9. Oral communication.
10. Written communication.
11. Relations with others.

2.21 Common to all assessment systems was the principle that various kinds of skill had to be evaluated: eg, intellectual skills such as judgement and understanding; the ability to manage staff and resources and also the official's own time and output; and communications skills.

2.22 The final step was to assess overall performance, using a marking scale that ran from Box 1 (exceptional) to Box 5 (unacceptably poor), and to indicate suitability for promotion to the next grade.

2.23 Individuals were assessed against 'the normal requirements of the grade' rather than directly against one another or in terms simply of whether they had done what they had been asked to do. This was intended to avoid penalising those in more demanding jobs who might not have been able to achieve all their targets. In theory, everyone in a particular grade could receive an identical box mark. Where performance standards were specifically related to whether objectives had been achieved, the latter had to be appropriate to the grade, again tending to impose a reasonably similar standard at each level in the hierarchy.

2.24 Since the same list of qualities was used for staff in a wide range of grades, the key to fair and comparable assessment was a common understanding of what could be expected at each grade. However, there was little central or departmental guidance on this. There were centrally devised descriptions of the work appropriate to each grade which were used by Departments' Staff Inspectors to assess whether posts were correctly graded and loaded, ¹ but these did not provide the level of detail needed for annual appraisal. Departments sought to achieve some degree of comparability between staff at the same level doing different kinds of work, but it was a frequent criticism that it was easier to obtain good reports in one part of a Department than in another.

2.25 By 1996, many Departments were basing assessments of junior staff (from Administrative Assistant - the most junior grade - up to Grade 6) on 'competences' - ie, skills that could be objectively assessed. Written guidance was by then being made available to all concerned on what was expected, in respect of each competence, of individuals in each grade. There was equivalent guidance for senior staff (those in Grades 1-5).