Source · Select Committees · Public Accounts Committee
Recommendation 20
20
Accepted
Insufficient data on underperformance hinders evaluation of line manager effectiveness and departmental issues
Recommendation
The Cabinet Office’s approach to dealing with staff underperformance, and raising performance levels more generally, is based on improving the confidence and capability of line managers in departments. The Cabinet Office told us that as part of work to implement the Civil Service People Plan, it is setting standards that line managers will need to work towards and is providing training to support line managers.45 However, it is hard to see how performance management in the civil service can be evaluated and improved without good data on the numbers of employees moving into and out of underperformance. If underperformance numbers and outcomes are not measured, it is not clear how 37 C&AG’s Report, para 21 38 Q101 39 Qq107–109 40 Q83 41 Q79 42 C&AG’s Report, paras 4.13, 4.15 43 Q83 44 C&AG’s Report, Figure 15 45 Q81 14 Civil service workforce: Recruitment, pay and performance management departments will be able to tell if their line managers are managing underperforming staff effectively, or more broadly, whether some departments have particular issues with levels of staff underperformance. The Cabinet Office recognised that there was scope to improve reporting in this area, and said it would work with departments to understand how best to do that.46 46 Qq84, 90–93 Civil service workforce: Recruitment, pay and performance management 15
Government Response Summary
The government agrees and will design a tool to collate performance management data for 2023-24 and thereafter for central analysis, aiming for readiness in Summer 2024 with a target implementation date of Autumn 2024. It will also review SCS underperformance recording and consider further guidance.
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.