Source · Select Committees · Public Accounts Committee
Recommendation 18
18
Accepted
Absence of a common civil service-wide approach for managing underperforming staff below SCS
Conclusion
Performance management for civil service staff below SCS level is another responsibility delegated to individual departments. This has resulted in differences among departments in how they manage staff performance and support employees’ development. In particular, there is no common civil service-wide approach for identifying and dealing with staff underperformance in grades below the SCS.40 This has resulted in some departments not routinely collecting data on the number of underperforming staff in their organisations. HMRC, for example, told us it decentralised its performance management system to line managers when it introduced a new system in 2018, which means that it no longer collates central data on the number of underperforming staff.41
Government Response Summary
The government agrees and commits to designing a tool by Summer 2024 to centrally collate performance management data for non-SCS staff from 2023-24 onwards, and will work with departments to address underperformance, with a target implementation date of Autumn 2024.
Government Response
Accepted
HM Government
Accepted
5.1 The government agrees with the Committee’s recommendation. Target implementation date: Autumn 2024 5.2 Managing under and poor performance below the Senior Civil Service (SCS) is delegated to departments. The Civil Service Performance Management Framework provides a blueprint for departments to develop policies and processes for managing employee performance. 5.3 It includes eight elements: • leaders are accountable for effective performance management in their department; • assessing delivery of employee work objectives and their behaviours; • developing and coaching employees to perform effectively; • differentiating performance; • ensuring that underperformance and poor performance is monitored and addressed; • capturing diversity and inclusion data, to ensure there are no negative impacts of the systems on protected groups; • ensuring that comparable professional standards are applied across organisations; and • there is coordination and consistency between departments’ processes. 5.4 To better understand the extent of underperformance and poor performance, and how it is being managed, the Cabinet Office is designing a tool to collate performance management data for 2023-24, and thereafter, for analysis centrally. The tool will be ready in Summer 2024. The Cabinet Office will work with departments to maximise the use of pre- existing policy tools to address poor performance, or design new ones, if necessary. 5.5 For the SCS, the performance and poor performance policies are set centrally, to be managed and implemented by departments. The Cabinet Office is reviewing how many departments record the number of underperforming SCS, and resulting actions, and will consider whether further guidance on collecting this data, or additional reporting requirements, should be included in the policies for the next performance year.